Reviewed by Naomi Darvell
(10/18/00)

A man I met in the BDSM scene once declared: "There's no such thing as a true dominant!"

This seemed a bizarre claim. Surely those leather-clad, whip-wielding men and women we kept seeing were not all secretly submissive? My friend explained that he (himself a switch) had started asking self-proclaimed dominants to tell him what they got out of the experience. No one was saying much.

It's true. Ask a submissive, or "bottom," how it feels and you're apt to hear eloquent, even rapturous talk of the attention; the stimulation; the discovering of unexpected depths of feeling within oneself. Ask a group of dominants and they'll go very quiet. Perhaps they'll make noises about how gratifying it is to be trusted, or about the the pleasure of seeing their partners having so much fun. In the words of my inquiring friend, "Anyone would think the doms existed only in relation to the subs."

All perfectly understandable. Imagine trying to explain why you like to blindfold or spank someone, or snap handcuffs on them. People may see you as hopelessly aggressive or controlling. If you are male, especially, and your partner is female, you risk typing yourself as a throwback of sorts, insensitive to gender politics.

John Warren runs that risk, declaring "I write from my own point of view, that of a male heterosexual dominant." If for no other reason, I was eager to read the book. Would The Loving Dominant finally illuminate the corners of the dominant psyche for me? In the end -- yes, Warren helped me understand the appeal of domination better than I had before.

Mind you, Warren includes perspectives other than his own. For instance, his partner Libby Donahue writes a section about how she got into BDSM and what she likes about it. Donahue's account of submission, indeed, is expansive and searching compared to Warren's own description which, at least initially, confirms the theory that doms tend to be reticent about themselves. Nevertheless, everything Warren says feels honest to me. He admits that he enjoys a sense of mastery:

"In BDSM, I am in complete control, to fail or succeed as my talents and imagination permit. I control every factor and I do not have to depend on anyone. Any object I depend on (whips, ropes, suspension gear) I can test and retest until I am certain it works. Being in that kind of control . . . pleases me intensely."

Every page of The Loving Dominant explicitly or implicitly bears out Warren's delight in control and mastery. Much of the book consists of practical advice about BDSM play. Warren's unabashed enjoyment of the whole bag of BDSM tricks comes across on every page. When he describes scenes, he resembles a director intent on taking charge of everything that happens in the theater, creating an all-encompassing synaesthetic experience. For instance, in a section on smells:

"Odor, being one of the most subtle senses, has an intense impact directly on the most primitive portions of the brain . . . in a cycle-gang rape fantasy, I use the odors of oil, gasoline and rubber to emphasize aspects of the fantasy."

Warren's sample scenes are packed with this kind of detail. I was amazed by the variety. Some scenes I found hot; some tickled me. Some made me laugh out loud, like the real-life scene in which Warren showed a woman a jar of dried mushrooms and told her they were women's nipples he'd kept as "souvenirs."

Some made me nervous. Warren, admirably frank, says that while BDSM play must be completely consensual, it is only relatively safe. He discusses a huge range of activities -- from bondage and suspension to cutting and branding. Some of these I found scary even to read about. Others, which may not have attracted me before, seemed newly appealing -- so much so that I found myself thinking, "Hmmm, it's been a while since I really did a scene."

In the past, I've always considered waxing and fireplay too gimmicky for me, too much fuss. Warren makes them seem more accessible. If you want to get into waxing, Warren not only tells you what kind of candles to buy (the cheap ones are the best) but suggests the entire conceivable range of things you can do with them. I liked the idea of "splashing": letting wax pool in the candle and then dashing it onto a partner's body. If you want to get fancy, you can fill a candelabrum with various colored candles and set it whirling, spattering the submissive with wax. Warren also describes one female dominant's practice of turning a man's genitals into "a surreal wax sculpture." It sounds a little Martha Stewart, maybe, but also quite a lot of fun.

I'd never known exactly how fireplay was done. Warren suggests easy experiments: igniting a small amount of alcohol on the skin, then extinguishing the fire with a sweeping gesture of one hand. Sounds like it would be gorgeous in a darkened room. But volatile, too: Warren confesses that he once misjudged the amount of alcohol he was using, and his partner's entire chest burst into flames! (No one was injured.)

At moments like these, Warren reminds me of a gleeful kid with a chemistry set -- engagingly so. Warren's upbeat voice and his emphasis on the colorful, dramatic aspects of BDSM go a long way to offset the potentially intimidating nature of his material and make this the perfect book to give a newcomer to the scene. If, like me, you are more familiar with BDSM, you will probably still find enough fresh ideas to make it worth reading. Such, clearly, are Warren's goals for the book, and he has met them very well.

Still, I finished wanting to know more about one thing which Warren mentioned, but only in passing. He addresses discomfort a man might feel while acting out a simulated rape scene:

"A large portion of this discomfort, I believe, is fear -- fear of ourselves. Any man who has come to terms with his dominant tendencies has learned what monsters roam around in the basement of the mind. We have found ways to take them out and parade them for our submissives . . ."

I want to know more about those monsters! I don't for a moment believe that only dominant men have monsters in their basements. After all, I know I have some in mine. Part of the appeal of BDSM, for me, is that it seems to draw on some very atavistic, even animal urges. Maybe not more so than "vanilla" sex, but in a different way, BDSM shapes these urges through metaphor and ritual.

It may well be that this is too individual and private a topic to be addressed in such a general book. Still, I would like to see Warren open up his "basement" a little more. I'm guessing it would be an interesting basement, since the rest of the structure is so spacious and well-designed.