BDSM, Kink, Dark Romance Reading

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Healer's Corner podcast with your hosts, Melissa Wiles and Maria Cerna. Tonight's a fun topic. [00:00:08] Speaker B: We're gonna. [00:00:09] Speaker A: We're gonna get into the bdsm, kink and dark romance, reading what that means spiritually, and how to do all of the above in healthy ways. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. [00:00:24] Speaker B: All the. All the adjectives. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Yes. Did I forget one? Because there were a lot of adjectives going out, but now I know. Alexa, you read some of the. The dark romance as well. [00:00:36] Speaker B: I do indeed. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Maria, I don't think you read any of that. This is new territory for you, in a way. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Yes. And the look on your face, definitely. [00:00:53] Speaker C: The way I see it, there's a lot of craziness going out in the world. Why am I going to read it? So in the fiction, Even though it's fiction, why am I going to read it? [00:01:05] Speaker A: Fair, fair. Good point. [00:01:09] Speaker B: So I will say, just as like we. We get ourselves kind of situated and started here, obviously, like, the fun disclaimer of anything that we say on the show is. Is of our personal opinion. We. This is not for diagnostic anything or any sort of mental therapy or emotional substitute for therapy. I think everyone should go to therapy, actually. I think that's, like, the first step to healing is work yourself through what. Whatever you've got. But the. The cross section of bdsm, Kink, Dark Romance, and magic and spirituality. That's a fun Venn diagram to kind of bridge and find yourself in the middle of. So I am. I am excited to talk about this topic, and I've got a couple. A couple different things here I want to make sure, like, we cover and talk about, but, like, do you guys want to just start with, like, the. The basics of, like, what. What do these words mean? What do all these acronyms mean? Why do we have them? [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yes, I think it'd be a good. Especially for somebody brand new who kind of heard about it but was like, oh, I don't know what that means, so I'm uncomfortable. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Fair enough. So BDSM and kink are not bad words. They are words that describe, in the BDSM sense, bondage, dominance, sadomasochist and masochist behavior. And kink is a word specifically described used to describe any sort of fascination or fixation on a certain object or scenario that brings you sexual pleasure. All BDSM and all kink should always be done consensually. There's going to be nothing that we're talking about that will not be done consensually. That's that's a huge standard with any type of interaction you have with anybody sexually. But BDSM is the kind of umbrella term that gets put over a lot of the more kinky, dark, erotic, basically anything that's not vanilla that you, you wouldn't feel comfortable talking to your grandmother about. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Like this is. [00:03:29] Speaker B: These are the romance scenes or the book scenes that you read or watch. And there's something just a little bit not quite expected to. It could be considered BDSM or kink. BDSM has a massive foothold in the Cleveland area. I know they have several different locations that they actually do, like professional workshops and things like that, and parties and places that you can safely go and experience a lot of different types of dynamics and roles and scenarios in which bondage and dominance and submission and masochism, you know, the idea of pain or sensation play, all of those things can fall into the bdsm. And all of those things also don't necessarily mean just in sex. BDSM is topic with some of these roles, some of these dynamics and things that people, you know, explore. There isn't necessarily a full sexual component of it. Sometimes people are using, like I knew somebody, for example, they enjoyed one of the more extreme versions of impact play. They like to get completely tied up and get beaten. They enjoyed impact play, but it's also because they were somebody who works at a very high pressure law firm and it's how she turned her brain off. There was no, the, the sexual aspect for her was the fact that she felt brave enough and confident enough to strip naked, put herself in that situation, and then experience these things on her own terms. So it doesn't even necessarily have to include the physical act of sex to be considered part of the BDSM umbrella. Does that make sense? [00:05:18] Speaker A: No. I think like, it's important to mention finding a partner in going in through these acts. Like, there are ground rules. There are like certain criteria that has to be met on both parties for the safeness of going into that type of relationship. Even if it's just for that one single act. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Correct. And having, having to take your time to properly. The term is vet. It's basically you're properly running these people through kind of your own mental checklist of are they a good communicator? Do they respect boundaries? Are they someone who is in a good mental health space that they are using BDSM and kink in a healthy way? They're not using it as an unhealthy coping mechanism. One of my favorite things in BDSM and kink to bring up is there's an acronym that'll come up pretty commonly called rac, R, A, C, K. And RAC stands for Risk Aware, Consensual Kink. And it's in the BDSM community there for a while. The entire operation was run on what they called an ssc, which is safe, sane, and consensual. And the idea that any act that you do, regardless of how extreme on the spectrum it is, or vanilla on the spectrum it is, any of those acts are supposed to be safe, you're supposed to have talked about potential hazards, risks, issues physically, both mentally, things like that. Well, inherently in bdsm, there's a lot of things that you can't necessarily completely remove the risk. For example, impact play is a big one. So impact play has a wide variety of different implications for both the receiver and the giver. Impact play basically just means you are somebody who either enjoys the sensation of spanking or caning or rods or paddles, or you're somebody that enjoys giving that to someone else and performing that act on someone else. But inherently, if you think about it, it's impact play. You're physically impacting muscle with the goal of making it red and, and slightly not fully bruised. But there's definitely some sessions where you, you end up bruised the next day. That's a risk. You're taking a calculated risk of going, okay, I'm aware that this is something I am doing consensually. I'm aware that I'm in good enough health to handle this type of physical endeavor on my body, but it's risk aware. It's not necessarily that we can take the, the risk out of that situation so much as it's risk aware. So anytime anybody does any sort of BDSM kink or even any sort of sexual interaction with anybody, being aware of the inherent risks of what you are doing. And not only risks, in a physical sense, like biologically, of. Are you somebody who, for example, takes blood thinners and has trouble clotting? Okay, you probably shouldn't be doing impact play because you could severely damage nerves and arteries in there, and you could severely prevent your body from healing properly. That's a risk that you're taking. It's a heightened risk for some people. There are risks in the mental sphere and the emotional sphere. BDSM and kink relies on pushing people to kind of the extreme end of their comfort. And when I say comfort, I don't mean unsafe. I just mean uncomfortable. There are going to be Situations where you can simulate danger, you can simulate consensual non consent play. There are lots of scenarios in which that is the particular goal of the session or the interaction with the people involved. But BDSM is a way for us as humans to get closer to the more extreme versions of certain sensations. The more extreme versions of fear, of danger, of complete out of controlness, that complete submission sensation of I'm not in control of what's going on here, but doing it in a safe and consensual environment that everybody's aware of. It's the same, same reason why people seek out horror movies. We watch horror movies because we want to get super close to the fear of, you know, the Ax Murderer, the Haunting or whatever it is, but we're doing it safely so our central nervous system has time to like, process and deal with, oh, okay, this is a situation I'm in. How would I feel when I was in the situation? Can I relate to being that kind of scared? And you start conditioning your body that way. So BDSM and kink does same thing. You are supposed to figure out where your baseline is and then figure out, okay, what, what level of which area are you trying to push for? Are you, are you wanting to get better at, you know, taking orders or giving orders? Are you wanting to get better at certain dynamic play or even sort of like group play, solo play, all of these things? There's a level of risk awareness and there's a level of consent that has to be established. I of course think safe, sand and consensual is an awesome baseline and acronym. But I do enjoy that the BDSM and kink community focuses more on RAC because it takes into accountability. You can't inherently take the risk out of everything. [00:10:59] Speaker A: That's a good acronym because, let's face it, things can happen. So have you thought about it? Now, if we wanted to take, as you mentioned, learning to get better at giving or taking orders, like, how would we wrap this over into like a spiritual sense? So maybe somebody like wanting to lead a group of people, like in a spiritual class, like, could you kind of equate it that way when it comes to spiritualism, spiritual healing, definitely. [00:11:34] Speaker B: There's, there's the crossover there of the ultimate lessons and techniques and epiphanies that you can have while experiencing a BDSM scene or dynamic or a play session. Those are lessons and epiphanies and kind of realizations you can easily distill and take into day to day life. There are things I have learned from reading, from play sessions, from hanging, like actually doing sessions and scenes with people and things like that. There are things I have learned that I've even used in like an office setting because mentally the epiphany, for example, made. Made sense. I understood what was going on a little bit more about the human behavior. So if spiritually it was something that you felt you wanted to kind of bridge the gap between your BDSM king sexual practice and your spirituality practice, there's a couple ways you could, you could kind of get yourself. First of all, there's no rules. You can. Obviously it's your religion. But a safe way to think about that is the idea of dominant and submissive. So dominant and submissive plays a pretty common thing you hear in the BDSM community. Dominant, meaning somebody who is more in control of the situation. They're calling the shots. They're the one making the decisions. They're the one basically playing in the space. The submissive is the one that sets up the space for them. The submissive basically says, here are the things I like, here are the things I don't like. Here's some things that could be okay to, to play with a little bit, whatever. And then they kind of turn the dom loose in a playground that they've created. And it's the dom's responsibility to play within those bounds and to kind of see, okay, what can we do here? How can, can I push you a little bit here? You like it or not, but that dominance and that submission is an excellent learning opportunity, especially if you want to connect with a higher power or a deity of some kind. The idea of submitting your will to a higher powers being is. Feels inherently very Christian driven, because that is a very, very common thread amongst most Judeo Christian religions. And you see a little bit of it in the pagan and the witchcraft community. But there is that level of being willing to submit to something's higher power, something's will, the universe, the energy. It's inherently submitting to something out of your control. And there's a lot of magic practice that shows us that we can be in control of a lot of different aspects of ourselves in our life. And I would, I would argue that a lot of people will be drawn to paganism and witchcraft and religions like that, because the power and the autonomy is based on you as the practitioner. If you would like to do something, if you would like to do the spell or affect the change, you have to do the work. It's not going to be given to you. So it could be said easily that there are a lot of people in the. The pagan community that have a little bit of control issues, because we inherently are practicing a religion and a spirituality that lets us kind of lead the charge a little bit, lets us be in control and in power. And it's. It's such an interesting dynamic when you start to realize that any religious path, like witchcraft, where I would argue I've taken complete control of my spirituality and my, you know, deity relationships and my working and my craft, but I have a such a keen and detailed understanding of the forces in the world I have no control over and what that means. I have to get comfortable giving up and realizing that, oh, I can't affect change. There are certain things that a spell won't even help. That's not. This isn't going to work. It's an excellent lesson to be able to kind of start giving yourself that context of what is in your control versus out of your control. And then it allows you to do it in a very safe way. And it allows you to do that in a way that you get to experience the very terrifying sensation of being completely out of control. But again, in an environment where you have the opportunity for your brain to go, oh, wait, we're totally safe. There's nothing here. Like, we're. [00:16:12] Speaker A: It's. [00:16:12] Speaker B: It's uncomfortable, but it's not unsafe. And I think uncomfortable is my favorite word with bdsm, because there's a lot of times if I'm talking to people about it or working with them, I usually tell them, if you're uncomfortable but safe, that's your learning opportunity. If you have reached a topic or a point or something where you're like, ooh, I'm. You start to get the cringe and the fur away, okay? That's your comfort level. If you're safe, if you're still in a safe environment with safe people, there's your learning opportunity. That's where you need to figure out, okay, what was I. What was I afraid of? What initially triggered that? So there can be that crossover between spirituality and kind of the BDSM and kink community. Another beautiful aspect of that community is the act of shibari. It's Japanese rope tying. It's a beautifully complicated, delightful practice of rigging and tying knots and rope patterns into the body to confer different levels of immobility. It can be, again, used in a sexual sense of. It's a precursor or postcursor to whatever act you're doing. It can also just be a form of Cathartic release for people. I was in preparation for this kind of topic, I was searching the, the dark recesses of Reddit just to see what the rest of the world was up to. Because I always, I like Reddit for having a good sample population of what the rest of the community is up to in the world. I found a really interesting post and I went and found her Instagram page too. Somebody who as part of her shibari practice specifically would use the ropes and spell work and would work the spell physically on her body as she was tying the rope. So in, in magic practice there's a common use for a knot spell. For example, taking a long piece of string twine and you tie knots in it and you kind of make this ladder of knots going up and down this chain as a way to concentrate and kind of bind your will and desire into that one goal. And she took that exact same process and then applied it to Shabari and then was able to use that as a way to say, okay, well now I have a specific knot and rope set up that I like to use if somebody wants to do a releasing ceremony. Okay, we bind them all up in these ropes and we have this moment where you are bound, you're held in, and then we have the cathartic energetic release of untying these binds and letting yourself be free. And it was, it was a really amazing crossover between again a BDSM and Kink. I won't say typical, but like it's. Shabari is a pretty common word you'll hear. It was just such an amazing crossover between the two worlds that I really liked. [00:19:24] Speaker A: I was going to say in spell casting you'll hear it referred to as like quite word magic, not magic, the ladders and things like that. So pretty cool. I wouldn't have thought that with the shibari, but I'm like, makes perfect sense, right? [00:19:43] Speaker B: Like now I'm like, I'm like, do I need to learn shibari? Because that's like an amazing tie in of like an art craft in this beautiful, you know, physical expression in a way to physically represent the energetic manifestation you're trying to embody. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Well in like looking around like before we even were really plotting our dates and the breakdown of the conversation for the dates that we were doing this. You know, I was kind of poking around and I had stumbled upon this Facebook page where they kind of give you quick videos of like how to do certain quick release knots or you know, how to tie to certain objects. And in some of the full videos, like by the time they were done, like, it was actually really pretty to look at because of the different color of ropes and how they were put on. And I'm like, well, that right there is almost just its own type of artwork. [00:20:35] Speaker B: Correct. [00:20:35] Speaker A: If you want to remove the whole, you know, it's kink or bdsm, you know, it's. It's an artwork as well. And, you know, I was like, okay. So then the confidence given are learned by the person, you know, who is learning to do this and then master it than being able to teach somebody if they wanted. So it's like there's a confidence, you know, learning and experiencing. So if somebody was not very confident but maybe had that interest, that could help them that way, you know, the person being tied up again, learning to just let go. And like, you got a stressful job, a stressful day, learn to let go. And if you have to physically be restrained so you can't get up and go to work. There you go. Because I'm like, ooh, this could be good all the way around in. In this topic. And that was a really good, you know, page. And I'm like, I'm just gonna end up following this anyway, because just the artwork that was coming out of it and the colored rose, I'm like, who knew they could come in so many colors? I'm like, let's find out. [00:21:45] Speaker B: And if you think about it, there's a lot of things that kind of certain scenarios in BDSM and kink communities that they work so well because they also rely on your basic biology. Compression therapy and like, heavyweight compression activates your parasympathetic nervous system. It calms you down. That's why they have weighted blankets. It's why a lot of times when younger kids have proprioception issues of, like, kind of not being able to really wind down at the end of the day. Physical just hand on small pressure therapy at the end of their day to, like, bring them back to their body. We swaddle children and we swaddle babies and toddlers, all nice and cozy, because it confers safety. It confers the moment of, ah, I'm. I'm okay here, because something has me. And ideally, it's something that is, you know, trust and safety and a place where you can truly kind of not turn on your central nervous system and be on the lookout for any sort of threats. It gives your body those opportunities to experience those biological phenomena of, oh, I am safe. Oh, I am. I am okay. I'm here while doing it in a Day to day environment or like a typical environment. A lot of the. And we'll, we'll talk about triggers as well when we talk about the dark romance side stuff of the book reading. Understanding your own psychological limits is so important. I think it's important in your spiritual practice. I think it's important in your sexual practices. It's. You have to be aware of what you are and are not capable of doing and what you are and are not comfortable doing. So this is no different how in like a magic and spiritual setting, I am not comfortable performing love spells on other people's. Perhaps I, I won't do it. That's a me personal decision. I've thought about it, I've journaled about it, had those moments. I've made that choice. That is still a valid form of practiced magic. That is still a valid form of content that you can make or do with someone if they're requesting it. But because I know me personally, oh, that's not something I enjoy doing. I'm not going to dabble in that type of magic work. So BDSM and Kink is the same way. If I know I'm not comfortable with degradation. If I already psychologically and like, wow, I get really bummed out if somebody says that they don't like me or they're sad at me or I'm not gonna go play in a space where that gets amplified and focused on. It can be used to. And I say it as in like the BDSM and like kink expiration can be used to, to work on certain hurdles or roadblocks within yourself. But just because you have a hesitation or a boundary in place or kind of something, you're like, I don't really, I don't have any interest in that. That doesn't mean you have to go work on that. That doesn't mean you have to go do that thing. Much like with magical practices, just because they're available to you doesn't mean you have to partake in them. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Sorry. I'm sitting here looking up the correct title because I know when we get to the the Dark Romance, one of the questions I was going to ask you, hop over there. Was like, what was your last favorite dark romance book that you read? And I'm like, oh, let me make sure I speak my title properly because I was very sad when it was over. Maria, did you have any questions for Alexa in this. In this part of our. [00:25:56] Speaker C: Well, basically, it's not a question, it's a comment. I think what is really important is what you have been talking about is actually getting to know who you are and what your boundaries are and what you will not tolerate. And for me, as a practitioner, I see so many clients, they don't know they have gone into the role of, okay, you know, whatever comes, whatever happens, they may not be happy in it, but they don't realize that they do have the power by getting to know who they are, getting to be inside their self, in their body, and understand what they will not tolerate, what their boundaries are, what they feel uncomfortable with. And I think that is very, very important. I don't. It doesn't have to be in the aspect of the topic, but it's just important in day to day life. [00:27:00] Speaker B: I think energetically. Maria, I would love a scenario in which I could. We could figure out how to get you to experience this, because I'll explain what I'm talking about here and then. And it's why a thinking energy work in you. In certain BDSM scenes, in certain roleplay play sessions, things like that. There's something very commonly referred to as subspace and DOM space. In what subspace is, is that moment when the person's conscious thoughts and ability to not. They're still able to make decisions, but it is their entire frontal focus and their entire situational awareness has narrowed into just this fear, just what's in front of me. They are no longer thinking about what they did today. They are no longer thinking about, oh my God, my knees hurt. They're not thinking about like, oh man, I gotta go pick up Bobby at baseball practice tomorrow. They're just focused in the here and now, in this room. And their goal, their orientation, their. Their desire in that moment is usually directed by the DOM of. In one aspect or another of here is your singular task. Because that's the other thing I love about BDSM that we'll talk about in a second too, of how easy some of these tasks are when you think about it, versus how hard they end up being. But energetically, subspace is that kind of trance like space that a lot of submissives will enter into where they. It's like a part of your brain shuts off. And DOM spaces is kind of similar, but in the other way. It's that moment of you feel this overwhelming sense of protection and care and power because this person in front of you has given up so much of themselves to your care. And energetically, there's a huge shift in energy. And you can tell with BDSM and kink people, you can tell when someone's got bad energy, you can tell when someone's not right. There's. I actually think it would be really interesting, Maria, to have you walk through, like, a BDSM party just to kind of see what you feel in an ambient setting of, like. I, I know. I'd be so fascinated to see from that standpoint, because I know you. You do energy work. [00:29:26] Speaker C: Yeah, that would be actually interesting. It's a. It's a great energy to walk through and see what I pick up. Yeah, that would be very interesting. [00:29:39] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's. There's. There's definitely the energy crossover of when you are meeting new people and exploring new kinks or situations or different sexual activities. The intuitive voice that guides you spiritually is also going to guide you in kink and BDSM and sexuality. If you are getting bad vibes, if you are getting bad energy, if you are getting ick, if there's something in you that's like, this doesn't feel right, listen to that voice that is your most authentic self speaking up and keeping you from entering into a situation where the potential harm and risks far outweigh the benefits. [00:30:23] Speaker A: And then I would laugh if you've lost Maria, and Maria ends off in her little room finding a new thing for herself and be like, well, there goes Maria. Later, when you come out, I mean, [00:30:37] Speaker B: she would probably have, like, a room full of people just, like, energetically, like, just melting in front of her, like, thank you, please. [00:30:50] Speaker C: I, I, I do. I, I. [00:30:52] Speaker A: When. [00:30:52] Speaker C: If I walk into a room and the energy is way too much, I will go to another room. I will, like, no. [00:30:59] Speaker B: Okay, well, I've even seen you do that in the shop, too. Like, if there's been the random occasions where, like, the energy in the shop feels better, that, or maybe, like, somebody comes in and shops and kind of leaves, you know, an energetic funk behind you, There's a tangible difference. When you walk through and actually have done the energetic clearing of, like, the shop space of all of a sudden, it's like, oh, okay, good, it's gone. Now I can breathe. [00:31:26] Speaker A: I can breathe now. I keep hoping to find Master Co's one CD that we use for the clearing of my old house. Like, if that were on Apple Music, like, I would just put that on once a day just to keep the store, like, cleans and be like, master Code, do your thing. Because who has a C? I. [00:31:48] Speaker C: Well, I have it on my phone, actually. Oh, I do. I do have it on my phone. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Now. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Okay, let's get into Dark romance Now, unless any of our friends and audience, if you have any questions or comments, it is a safe space. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:32:13] Speaker A: You know, feel free to ask. Even if you're. You're new to this and you just have, you know, some questions of what is. Feel free to ask. So while we wait for questions, we'll get on over to the dark romance. And I'm sure there's people that are like, well, what's dark romance? And boy, when your book comes with a list of trigger warnings, warnings that may include things like stalking, sexual assault, some sort of bodily harm, forced proximity, there. There are so many triggers that can be in there and in. As Alexa and I were talking before we went live, you know, do you treat it as like a menu of like, ooh, or are you like. [00:33:00] Speaker B: So the entire genre of dark romance is. I want you to think about romance as like, as a typical book genre of, you know, the kinds our mothers used to pick up from the. The pharmacy while they were waiting and is rippling abs and some beautiful maiden in distress with her modest horn asunder. Yes, all of those things. It's that. But it's then taken into an occult setting in some. In some way. There's either some sort of magical element, there's some sort of criminal element. There is some sort of psychological wrongness to it in some capacity. It's the, it's the Hannibal Lectors of the world. A light end of what I would still consider a dark romance. Gomez and Morticia Adams are a perfect example of a healthy dark romance. They're gothic is all. Get out. They have a house that is just as spooky as them. And the things they talk about doing to each other are pretty obscene. When you, when you, like, watch some of the movies of like. I think one of my, my favorite scenes is she's. They're. They're sitting there talking. She tells, you know, Gomez, last night you were, you know, unhinged, a wild animal, just absolutely terrifying. Do it again. It's like. But it's. That's, it's that kind of occult covering all the way to the other end of the spectrum of dark romance, of straight up criminal behavior and putting the romantic story, with or without a happy ending into that plot universe. A lot of dark romance readers will have their specific, like, kink or trope that they're into, like the, the Mafia. Dark romance is a big one where your main male characters are usually part of some big wealthy mafia crime family. They are delightfully a shade of more moral gray and ambiguity. So there's going to be features and characteristics about these men that are absolutely deplorable, but then also redeemable. There are certain things in here you can kind of find context where you're like, oh, maybe they were justified for killing that guy that one time. Which is a buck wild sentence to say out loud in any normal setting. But it's, it's a very common trope of, you know, these, these mafia men in power used to crime, used to violence, and then, you know, our unsuspecting main character getting dropped into their laps usually because they've been sold or given to them as settlement for some sort of debt by a parent or guardian of some kind is a pretty good common trope. And then it's the, the exploration of these two characters together. Another really good common dark romance is like the, like the monster side of the dark romance. I know there's a couple books like that that we have in the store of. Oh, what's the, the, what's the big series that you have? Several. [00:36:19] Speaker A: The Dust Walkers. [00:36:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I can remember the Walker part, the Dusk part. The Dusk Walker series is a perfect example of these occult, paranormal, monster creatures beings being romantically and sexually involved with normal humans. I particularly enjoy the monster side of dark romance because I think it, it speaks to a lot of our own shortcomings as people and how we view the idea of monster and monstrous behavior with ourselves. But with dark romances, you will also know that you've picked up a dark romance book if within the first couple of pages they'll have a trigger list. A trigger is something. And, and this is, and I do want to make a point to discuss triggers. Triggers aren't just something that you're like, oh, I'm. I hate that word and I'm uncomfortable with it. I don't want to talk about it and I don't like it. I'm triggered. Is when through a day to day, mundane, boring, unrelated experience, you experience some sort of vocabulary, sound, sight, smell sensation that is reminiscent of whatever scenario or situation that you've received a serious traumatic moment with. It is your body and your mind disjointing in that moment where physically, yes, you're in that room with that person doing whatever. Mentally you're back at this trauma moment because your central nervous system turned on so quickly and went ooh. The last time we heard that exact noise, this horrid, awful, life altering thing happened to me. That's a trigger. Triggers happen very often in day to day life. Learning how to navigate your own and navigate other people's triggers is a huge part of BDSM and kink dynamic. But those trigger warnings in the front of those romance books are there for a reason. If you are someone who has experienced, you know, issues with stalking, you've been stalked before, that's a horrifying experience. It's, it's extremely isolating and it's this invasion of privacy and it's, it's all consuming worry. If you're picking up a romance book and part of the trigger list is forced proximity stalking, Stockholm syndrome, you are now practicing crack consensual kink. You are picking up that book to read of your own knowledge, of your own consensual will, knowing full well that's an option in here. I love the fact that the dark romance genre of, of books, the authors are some of the coolest people I've ever met because they genuinely, there's some of the few strangers in the world that I would believe have your best interest at heart when they tell you, hey, here are some of the weird, messed up things that might go on in this book that you might encounter. Like Calavera said, there are some of us here that, yeah, we look at that as like a menu option and we're like, what am I gonna have for dessert? Be like, nice play. That sounds nice today. You don't judge here, but those trigger warnings are in place for a reason. There's also a difference with dark romance and erotic horror. There's a fun subset of that. The major defining characteristic of most romance novels is there's a happy ending. Your main two characters and, or multiple characters are going to end up together. It might be, you know, in an awkward circumstance. It might be in a kind of we have no choice, myriad of different ways. But at the end, your, your two main people kind of make it. That's what defines a romance. If there's not a happy ending, you have, you have stepped over into horror. And I have read erotic horror books and boy howdy, that was a trip. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Yeah, think if I've read one of those, I'm like, I think they all are supposed you know, considered happy ending. Even though by the end of it I'm going, what the. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Like, seriously? So one of one of my favorite authors that writes amazing and responsible erotic horror and horror erotica, her name is Audrey Rush. I have one of her books that I've read called Grave Love Again, kind of dark romance esque. It's sad, lonely mortuary worker, sociopath dude gets hired on to be the groundskeeper he's actually a killer. He wants to use the crematorium as, you know, a disposal method. These two meet. The horror aspect is when it came to the fact that this person, both characters were suffering from a lot of issues. There were a lot of genuinely grotesque, horrid parts of that book. There were also a lot of very sexy and raunchy and kind of exciting parts of that book. Sometimes those scenes were happening at the same time. And that level of conflicting sensation, conflicting images and thoughts and emotions together, I think is why, like, dark romance, BDSM and kink has always been such a popular topic. Because we're. You're getting to experience a fun pendulum swing across a couple different areas that you weren't necessarily anticipating that you'd have to or get to experience. [00:42:48] Speaker A: I say all of the. All of the above. Like, if you are willing to try safely, like, you will learn so much about yourself and possibly watch yourself change as you're experiencing. Learning, learning. And be like, you know what? I really thought I would have a problem doing that, but actually, I like it. Or, you know, I felt better doing it this way than that way. You know, I learned about a lot of what I will not read and can't even remotely enjoy. Necromancy. Not my thing. Digging up dead bodies and do. Not my thing. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Wait, necromancy or necrophilia? [00:43:31] Speaker A: Well, necrophilia. There you go. Good, good. [00:43:33] Speaker B: Okay. I was gonna say, like, if you want to raise the dead, that's [00:43:38] Speaker A: a [00:43:38] Speaker B: form of recycling at that point. [00:43:40] Speaker A: I could raise that. I would bring back Peter Steele in an instant. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Hate me when I ask you who that is. [00:43:49] Speaker A: We're done here. Finger a typo. Negative. Yeah. And probably Robin Williams and maybe Betty White. My three favorite people, you know? Then I'm like, do I bring back Hawaiian Grandma and Dawn and of course, Sandy? Probably. But they would, like, probably go running and be like, now we enjoy it [00:44:14] Speaker B: too much over here. [00:44:15] Speaker A: But if we're gonna stick on the kink and romance and like, hey, that was pretty. Probably Peter Steele, then we'd have to figure out how to make him nice and pretty again and not. [00:44:28] Speaker B: So necromancy is fine. Yeah. Necrophilia is not. [00:44:33] Speaker A: Necrophilia is not. [00:44:34] Speaker B: And again, it's. It's not okay. Because that dead body. Can't consent. Cannot make it more apparent than that. [00:44:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker B: And. [00:44:45] Speaker A: And I learned this because I wanted to read a retelling of the Nightmare Before Christmas. And let me tell you, Jack was a live, living boy, man who necrophilia was his thing. So, like, in the very beginning, he's digging up bodies, taking him home, having his fun. And at first I'm like, we'll keep going a little bit. Okay. But where I cut it off was the Sally character. She, too, was alive. She's not at all under the doctor's care and his assistant. And they would literally cut pieces of her off and stitch them back on while raping her. And that smile that she gets is because they cut her mouth and force her into oral. And I'm like, you know what? We're done. We are not gonna. I found a line that I cannot read and do and even remotely go, oh, but okay. It was. That was a hard no for me. [00:45:53] Speaker B: But that's healthy, though, because that's something that you took it upon yourself to figure out, where in the sand is my line drawn. You did it safely. You understood that, like, hey, I'm reading something that's gonna talk on a really, like, not okay topic of sleeping with dead bodies and, you know, defiling graves. That was. You practice rack risk aware, consensual kink. You picked up a book knowing full aware. Okay, I might read about these topics. Hey, I tried. It turns out, not for me. No, thank you. Yeah. And that's the other thing with veganism and kink I love, is that so many people are afraid to dabble and try it because they think that, like, oh, if I. If I'm not, know, doming somebody and doing this, or, you know, being the perfect submissive, you know, I'm doing it wrong. Like, it can start small. It doesn't have to be a whole lifestyle change. There are definitely people that live a 247 lifestyle, which I think is a fine way to live. There are also people that, like, this is just kind of like a casual thing that they're like, ooh, we have Friday night off. Let's get a little crazy. Both are valid expressions of be isn't in practice. But, yeah, in the. In the book that I was talking about, Grave Love by Audrey Rush, there's a necrophilic content to it. The idea that the main female character wants to unalive herself, and she's done living. And she and the serial killer make a agreement that she'll show him how to use the furnace at the mortuary. And in the end, he gets to kill her. And in the meantime, she deals with these psychological issues of, you know, everything else she's going through. So there are ways to test your limits without even involving other people. And I think Romance books, especially dark romance, is an excellent way to do that because it lets you taste test and sample an environment, an idea, you know, a kink, a feeling, an emotion, a situation, a scenario, a person. It allows you to experience it through the active empathy and kind of putting yourself in that scenario and imagining, how would I feel in the scenario and what sensations would I be going through and doing it from the safety of your own couch. And I think, I mean, I think everybody should read more books anyway. But I think dark romance is a excellent way for people to finally kind of have those conversations with themselves of, oh, well, how do I feel about that? Because there's a lot of things in the BDSM and kink world that there are very few things that are off the table. Getting comfortable expressing your likes and dislikes is important and doing it responsibly, because that's one thing I don't ever tolerate. Any sort of gatekeeping behavior, of course, but any sort of kink shaming behavior. Shame inherently is a topic that we've talked about this entire series that we've talked about, you know, sex and sexual healing. Shame comes up all the time. It is not your place to judge what someone else wants to get up to. If they're doing it consensually and by consensually with other consenting adults, who cares? Because you don't have to participate. You have to be aware that it happens in the world, and you might not necessarily be comfortable participating or even watching it. That's fine. It still has a right to exist in the world. So I just like to remind people we don't. The thing I like to tell people is we don't yuck other people's yum. Because everybody everywhere has, has, has that yum list. The thing of things, they're like, man, this just does it for me. I like this. I like my men like this. I like my women like this. I like, you know, enjoy this type of thing. This is the behavior like, oh, my God, you put them in heels, I'm done. They have that young list. Everybody also has the yuck list. You're aware if you're like, even if I was offered money, I would not dabble in this type of play or dynamic or scene. It doesn't mean you get to say gross to someone else. You have to respect their autonomy and their choices. Like, one of the more extreme ends of that I usually use an example is when I'm talking to newbies or people that are trying to get more comfortable in being submissive or like talking about what they like is scat and urine play, feces play. There is a valid subset of BDSM and King in the world that deals with fecal matter, bowel movements, urine, bladder content. Absolutely valid forms of expression and self expression. You have to make a conscious choice if that's something you would participate in from a biological standpoint. I made the choice of like, actually I'm not comfortable participating that if I had a partner that they're like, man, this is definitely what I want to do. I would say that's great for you. I can't do that with you, so you're gonna have to go find someone else to do that with. And it's, it's not necessarily about thinking about the grossest, weirdest, wildest thing that could possibly be out there, but it is about learning to speak up about the things that you're like, hey, this is a hard no for me. I think that that level of, it's kind of self trigger warnings, basically, like, here are the things I don't like, here are the things I don't touch. [00:51:39] Speaker A: It gives you a sense too, once you realize that and you understand it about. It's like that self empowerment and knowing that you can, can say no and that it's going to be respected and that, you know, it's safe to say no or to be like, maybe try, but if I call it, you know, if I give that word, we're done, you know, and then respect that. [00:52:03] Speaker B: One of my favorite, favorite paradigms to use anytime I'm doing kink bdsm, even if I'm still trying to get to know someone and get familiar with what they like and don't like and what they're into and not into. I use a stoplight system. What a stoplight system does is it uses red, yellow, and green. But any point in time during an interaction, a conversation, a session, play, whatever, I would ask you for a color and one of your answers be red, yellow, or green. If you answer green, it means I like what you're doing. I'm totally okay, I'm into this, I'm on board. Forward, keep going, don't stop. Green means go. Yellow. You have to establish what does yellow mean. I like to say that yellow sometimes can mean, hey, slow down, I need to take a breath. Yellow can mean I need to switch positions. I'm not like, I'm no longer physically comfortable. Yellow can also mean I want to say yes, but I don't know how I. Yellow is. I, I want to. I Want to, but I can't hesitate. Yellow means I'm hesitating about something. Red means I'm done. Red means stop. These are called safe words. Safe words are fantastic. I love safe words. I think safe words should be implemented in a myriad of different places. But the stoplight paradigm, one, it's easy to remember and it's easy to associate because everyone knows what a stoplight looks like. Everyone knows red, yellow, green. But it gives you the opportunity to kind of arm someone with the tools to explicitly tell you yes or no without having yes or no. Because there are some people that genuinely do struggle with those words. They feel the physical and emotional block to being able to say no to something or yes to something. But if I asked you a color and you said yellow, suddenly it's like, [00:54:01] Speaker A: oh, [00:54:04] Speaker B: I put up my little hesitation flag and someone went, okay, what are we doing about that? That level of respect across safe words and across the autonomy it gives both or however many people you play with. But it's the autonomy it gives you in that situation. You have the right at any point in time to withdraw consent. You have at any point in time the right to say, stop, I'm done. No more. And the people you are playing with, the people you are interacting with, have a responsibility to hear you and act accordingly. I cannot express to you how much I love it when somebody uses a safe word on me, because it means they're paying enough attention to realize I'm reaching a limit or I'm. I'm not comfortable with something, or, you know, I've. I've hit a barrier somewhere, and it immediately tells my brain, okay, we get to switch gears now. Now I need to figure out, how do I bring this person out of this space energetically and mentally? How do I kind of bring them back into their body and kind of present in the room with me? How do I address what's going on? Do they need comfort? Do they need physical touch? Do they need left alone? Do they want a blanket? Do they want snacks? [00:55:26] Speaker A: Snacks. Snacks are always the answer. No, [00:55:30] Speaker B: your aftercare list is always something worth talking about. The paradigm of safewords. And like that red, yellow, green. You can use that even in vanilla sexual encounters. For example, Like, I've had encounters with people where not to brag, but where they're not as sexually experienced as I am. And I have given them the red, yellow, green paradigm. Like, hey, I. I'd like to start touching you here, doing this. You. You gotta give me a color. And if at any point in time I do Something you don't like, you have to tell me either yellow or red, and that's okay. And makes it so much easier because it gives us common language between the two of us that we've agreed upon here, the vocabulary words we're using for this. And it makes you communicate better. It makes you aware of how you're communicating. I can't tell you how much it drives me up the wall when I meet somebody and I'm like, hey, let's talk, you know, boundaries. Where. Where you at with that? Oh, I don't have any boundaries. That's a good conversation. That's a good one. That's a wild red flag. Another red flag I do not let people get away with is when I'm talking about, like, the potential use of safe words or boundaries, and they're like, well. Well, I don't really know. So I'll just tell you when to stop. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Like, you're. [00:57:02] Speaker B: You're setting us up for a scenario in which I'm doing something I think you like, you aren't liking it at all. And I've now blundered past boundary into hurting you territory versus. If we could back up a couple places and put the fence here, and you could tell me, here is your fence. You can't go past it. Okay, then I won't go past it. I won't even go touch it to even get near that word, because I know it's there. But you have. You have to give your partner what I call playground fences. You have to give them parameters, and then you have to give them, you know, the toys in. In the playground of do what you will with these scenario situations, whatever, but you have to be able to communicate with each other and know that you're taking on a really big responsibility. With a BDSM dynamic in any way, shape, or form. I see a lot of people with profound control issues flock to BDSM for the same reason that, for example, I flocked to witchcraft. I needed to regain some sort of control in my life. I needed to regain some sort of autonomy over my life. And I was able to find that spiritually with witchcraft, sexually. I'm able to find that a little bit with BDSM because it. It puts the control of the entire situation back in my hands, which is hilarious, because I was thinking about when I had started this journey, like, six years ago. I distinctly remember the conversation I had in, like, the first couple of, like, months of getting started in this part of my journey. I legit dead, looked my partner in his eyes and told him, no, that's an out of control thing. You can, you can pry the control for my cold dead. Because I so dead set on not giving up control about anything. Whereas now six years later, I'm very comfortable with the idea of having to give up control for things because there's a lot of things that are not in my control. And it's, it still gets my heart racing a little bit to think about being put in scenarios where someone else is in control. But it's the, the safety net of, okay, but I could build playground fences that my partner would respect, I can arm my, my partner with. Here are the tools, the toys, the things you can and can't do. And then it's that kind of trust fall of trusting them to do that safely with you. [00:59:40] Speaker A: So I'm thinking back years ago I had either heard or read that in the Dom and sub space relationship, the sub in a way is technically more in control because they're the ones that set those boundaries and say, here's what we do. Here's, you know, yes, the dom in that act is acting as that dominant force. But if that sub did not give the groundwork and the rules, then nothing's going to happen anyway. And the minute they call that word, everything stops. So it's kind of like that dynamic shift and that, that giving up and that releasing that. I think a lot of people don't even understand, like that's really the dynamic that's happening there and how like self empowering what you're learning about yourself on both sides. But the fact that the sub, a lot of the times, and correct me if I'm wrong because you're, you're in the community more than me just reading and researching in class. A lot of subs are people whose jobs are high power. They're CEOs, they're lawyers, they are, they're controlling things all day long and people are answering to them, they're giving directives and this is their way a lot of the times to be able to be like, I don't have to worry about it. Yes. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Because in, in those high stress jobs, you, you have people that are constantly mentally stimulated, they're constantly thinking, they're aware, they're strategizing, they're planning, they're dealing with pushback combatants, they're mentally and emotionally doing acrobatic rings just the whole day. And you see a lot of that switch where we see a lot of high power people again, you know, lawyers, doctors, people that, you know, run Fortune CEO 500 companies or whatever, they enjoy the catharsis of going, I don't have to think right now. All I have to do is what this person in front of me says and that's it. That's. There's a simplicity and it's beautiful. I will tell you the very interesting sensation because it's one of the first scenarios where I had that sensation of giving up power a little bit. Of all places though, it was in a yoga class because I had never taken like an organized class for workouts before. And where I'm in this workout class, you know, here we're doing. And our yoga instructor is just constantly making us do, you know, chaturangas. It's just this up, down, downward dog flow again and again and again. And my muscles are burning and I am sweating. And I found myself in that moment just like. And she's walking around the room and I'm trying to pay attention to where she's walking so I can listen and hear if she's going to tell us to do a different type of move with our body. And my muscles are burning and all I can do is breathe. And she's telling us, breathe in, breathe out. And I'm doing it on her cue. And at the end of that day, when I kind of got home, I realized like, oh, that's, that's what that submission feels like. It's that idea that somebody else calls the shots. Somebody else tells you, do this, touch this, wear this, whatever, and all you have to do is comply. All you have to do is follow that order. And there's a very freeing sensation that you can get when you find yourself in situations like that. And it's, it's cathartic for people that are in that more type A hyper stress day to day life. One of my favorite ways to take care of potential partners, if I know that they've been strung out or had like bad day or something like that, I make the decisions for them. I decide, well, let's do this for dinner instead. I don't just go, oh, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Yes, it's nice to be deferred to breakthrough as well. Yeah. And again, yoga was an interesting breakthrough because it was. I'm physically engaged, I'm sweating, I'm short of breath, I'm at my limits. And this tiny little lady in tights is telling me to breathe and breathe out. But my favorite way to take care of some of my partners who I know if they've had strung out days or stressful days where they. They've been mentally on. It's a lot of burden to ask someone, maria, where did you want to go to dinner? Okay, well, now. Now the entire decision is on Maria's plate. Is her. Is her. I've given her the burden of deciding, where are the three of us all going to eat today? That's a lot of responsibility. Maybe Maria doesn't want to make that choice. Maybe she doesn't know enough about either of our palates to be able to safely say, let's do Italian over Mexican. Or. Or maybe she's just tired because she's been asked questions all day and she's like, I'm done making decisions and being responsible for people. So in a situation like that, if Maria had come and said, oh, my God, I've had this strung out day. She's been texting me how bad her day was. If Maria came home to me, I would go, hey, so I went ahead and put the lasagna in the oven. Italian okay with you? I've made the choice for you. I made the decision for you. I'm just now checking in to make sure you agree with it so you can get on with whatever it is you need to do to finish decompressing. That's what doms do. Doms take those little choices out of your way. You don't have to think about it. It's not necessarily thinking that someone is incapable of making those choices. It's recognizing that it takes a lot of mental effort to be responsible and to make decisions and hold the consequences for those decisions. And you can remove that responsibility and that burden from someone for a little while, [01:05:46] Speaker A: especially after a whole day of doing it. And then here comes yet another request, right? And I think that's why the dark romance heavily dom in a lot of these books, be it a monster, be it, you know, some sort of very mafia king, Right? You know, I think that's why a lot of these, you know, stay at home parents with kids and after school practice and plays and, you know, the. The fantasy of having somebody else who can make other decisions for you besides coming in and, like, demanding something else, even if it's as simple as what's for dinner, you know, because, you know, if you look at it from just a strict psychological standpoint, man, these books are nothing but red flags. And if these people were real, you know, this would be true crime docu century, like, oh, my goodness. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. No, the only thing that's keeping these books from a Criminal Minds episode episode is that all of your main male characters are good looking and rich. That's the only thing. [01:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:00] Speaker B: You remove both of those factors and suddenly like, no. If you cornered me in a, you know, busy bars bathroom and tried to like make out with me while somebody was. No, Rose, get away from me. But like, you know, you do it in like a mafia romance or like this amazing true crime type thing where you like, oh, we're, we're both these hardened criminals. Then it's like, oh, this is sexy. Like Paige Turner. All right, what's going to happen next? I'm going to do it in the bathroom. [01:07:26] Speaker A: Right? [01:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:29] Speaker A: You know, I mean, my favorite author right now, Britain Reaver. She's the Butcher and Black Bird, Leather and Lark. [01:07:36] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [01:07:38] Speaker A: She write because her first book. And what got me was two serial killers stumble upon one another and I'm like, one's female. And it's, it's a slow burn, but it's fun. And I like the humor and what I like in her writing about this, the characters know that they're wrong and they poke fun at themselves and each other about it. So it's where some other books, it's like, here's the character. We're not going to acknowledge that there's anything morally wrong or concerning. You just suspend, you know, your belief and, you know, here's what it is. And I sometimes those are the books. And we were. I don't know if I want to name it, but before we went live. But I'm like, I still can't finish this book. And it's wildly popular. [01:08:20] Speaker B: Every time I read it I get [01:08:22] Speaker A: this because I'm like, this whole thing is wrong. Why are you going? [01:08:27] Speaker B: I can't. It's still haunting in Adelaide and there's a lot of problems with it. You. And again, we don't. That book is not a good example of safe, consensual. Oh anyway. Even suspended belief and judgment about, you know, a fictional universe because I, I love a good dark romance. I think they're extremely enjoyable. My favorite are monster ones. I love monsters as an idea, as a concept. Monsters are my favorite genre of horror movie. My favorite fantasy genre, like people being monsters and people being turned into monsters and finding some way to redemption is a fantastic trope. So a lot of my reading is monster related. And even in that little subset, I still find examples where like, wow, this was great. These two people communicated. They were trying to better when they messed up or hurt each other. They actually had clarity and discussion. This is fantastic. And then I Have other ones. I'm like, no, this is. This is actually bad. I'm not gonna finish that. Actually, across the whole romance genre, I can tell you there are some examples good and some that are bad. [01:09:52] Speaker A: Yes, I. I will say, have you tried the Duskwalker series at all by Opal Rain? [01:09:57] Speaker B: I think. I think I might have read, like, the first two chapters of the first one, but I don't think I've actually ever gotten around to reading them. [01:10:07] Speaker A: I know they're really good, really good character development, good storytelling. Because I will say there are some dark romance where the storytelling is awful and it's all about just how much sex can you have on every page? And is it even written well, that sex scene? And you're like, no. Now, that being said, some of these books are available on audio, and sometimes those voices carry the story, and sometimes it will kill. And a new role that I have made for myself and Calavera has agreed. It's like, don't look up your favorite male author or female. Nine times out of 10, they are not gonna look like the voice. And you're like, nope. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, don't burst the fantasy bubble. [01:10:57] Speaker A: Don't. Don't ruin this voice in this character that you have. Like, oh, there was. What book was it? Really good voice. Not the Dust Walker guy. And I'm like, oh, but it was a monster. And when I looked him up, and I'm like, your mafia boss. Like, I can't now take this voice and say it's a good monster because you look like a geeky mafia guy. Like, you're not even top mafia. You're like henchmen. [01:11:25] Speaker B: Like that. [01:11:27] Speaker A: You're trying to earn your ranks and get made. Like, wow, I shouldn't have looked that up. So that's a rule that I place for my audio. One of these days, Maria, we're gonna have to get you to try one of the books, even if it's just an audio, so you don't have to sit and listen. You can listen, you know, while doing something else. So what. What's your favorite book in that genre? Lexa. [01:12:00] Speaker B: Again, I'm gonna. I'm gonna have to stick in the monster romance genre because that's. That's the genre I primarily read most of. Although I did read. It's a newer one. It's gotten really popular. It's called Lights Out. [01:12:22] Speaker A: That is a good one. [01:12:25] Speaker B: That's by Nevesa Allen. That was a pretty good read, all things considered. As far as, like, human. There's an author I Particularly enjoy. Their name is Cleo Evans. They've recently gotten out of the monster genre universe and into the human universe. But they are one of the few authors who even in their short little vignette stories, can tell an awesome story from start to finish. Like, they have an amazing ability to wrap up a narrative very satisfyingly. So you don't. I've never closed one of their books and been like, oh, that was, you know, like, oh, what happens next? I don't. [01:13:10] Speaker A: It's. [01:13:10] Speaker B: It's wrapped up very nice and neat and they've always done amazing research into BDSM kink type dynamics and then they upsly that research to the actual writing. So they're showing very healthy examples of all these different types of dynamics out in the world. Particularly, like I said, anything that, that Cleo Evans writes, I would happily read in a heartbeat. And then my other, my other go to is Tiffany Roberts. [01:13:46] Speaker A: I've heard her name, but I haven't read anything by her. [01:13:49] Speaker B: So Tiffany Roberts is actually. It's a pen name that a husband and wife pair actually use. The wife is Tiffany and the husband's Robert, which is wild. When I learned that, I was like, oh, this interesting. They have an Infinite City series. It's very sci fi, very futuristic. The gray guys. This one's kind of a assassin for high, but he only kills the bad guys. This one, you know, runs computer hacking and, you know, corporate espionage, but only for really bad people. Like the morally gray area of like, you're still breaking the law, but at least good people aren't suffering for it. Excellent storytelling and the sex scenes are fantastic. Both of those authors also write realistically believable sex scenes because boy howdy, I have read some of the ones where they will use every word in the English language. Latinas, his member, his sword, his appendage, his flescence. And like. Stop. [01:14:59] Speaker A: Stop. [01:15:01] Speaker B: Sometimes synonyms aren't your friend. [01:15:04] Speaker A: No. Yeah, I really enjoy. So if you want to say monsters, obviously the Dusk Walker series. And she's really good at building the world, building the personalities and the whole point of these monsters, they're learning to be human, they're humanizing, but they all have their own separate personalities. And their personalities are represented in the eye color, the that their eyes glow. So that. That's kind of fun. Otherwise I would have to say Bryn Weaver. And I think my favorite out of hers there was the Taurus season, which is a spin off from the first book because the serial killer female in the first book helps rescue the girl. That's in Taurus season. And like, she remembers and pays homage for that. Which is funny though in the first book, the Serial Killer, she is way more well known and. And it's kind of because she's got an eyeball thing and that's one of the trigger warning, like, eyeballs that, you know, she takes the eyes out of the people that these men that she's killing and she makes these big spider web looking things and, you know, and everybody's still trying to figure out she's like, how dumb can you guys be? Like, seriously. But in tourist season, you know, it's this woman that's been rescued from yet another killer that the two main are going in after because they make a. It's like a yearly thing of how many people who can they kill first? Because then they win the bed. She's rescued and she's going off and doing her own thing. And then here comes this other guy who has his own vendetta. And. But the humor that's in there for what's going on, like, because, like, he'll stalk her and he finds this other guy, like, being a douchebag and so he'll kill him and then she'll show up and like, she's carrying the head. She's like, what are you doing here? And it's trying to like hide a body part in. The old man that she's taken care of used to be a killer himself, and so now. But he's got Alzheimer's and he keeps looking for his bag because his bag's got his killing equipment in it and she has to keep him separated from his bag. So, you know, it's. It's fun. It's really well written. She takes great care and writing and the care of this older character, you know, and there's like a forward about the importance of elderly taking care of dementia, what that means for family and. But she does a really good job. And you know, the humor that kind of goes in with these characters as. As well. So it's kind of like purple purposely poking fun of something that might make you uncomfortable. But it's still there, but it's not in this heavy like. And now here's dead body parts everywhere. It's like, oh, she turns around with the head in hand. [01:17:56] Speaker B: She's like, oh, you saw that. [01:17:58] Speaker A: No, you didn't. But so she's. She's probably my favorite. I will say Lights out was good. I listened to Lights Out. [01:18:09] Speaker B: I did too. Yeah, the, the narrators of Lights out were very. That was a good Audio experience, I will say his voice actually adding that to my list. [01:18:20] Speaker A: Maybe I need to go back to maybe. [01:18:24] Speaker B: Just. That's why. That's why I love the romance genre of, you know, especially when it gets into the dark side. You know, the occult, the dark. [01:18:35] Speaker C: The. [01:18:35] Speaker B: The bdsm, the kink, the horror, whatever. Lets us experience all of these wildly radical and unsettling and disturbing and uncomfortable and scary thoughts and situations that could very realistically happen. You know, for every goofy serial killer romance novel we're talking about, there's a true crime episode where someone's recounting the absolute horror that another person has visited upon an innocent victim. And yet we put it in this fictional setting and suddenly we're allowed to get much closer to it. We're allowed to not necessarily make it palatable. So it can. We can desensitize to it, but we can start to digest pieces of it. We can start putting ourselves in those situations and say, okay, here's. I'm actually going to suspend my belief. I'm just, you know, Yes, I know logically, murder is bad. I should not murder. Do we all have days where we wake up and you're like, man, you're lucky. I forgot. Done today, of course. But dark romance, let us get a little bit closer to that topic and doing it in a safe way, doing it in a very approachable way, I think that's so important for people because again, it pushes your boundaries, it gets you, again, uncomfortable, but still safe. [01:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it can be a really fun, fun way to learn about yourself and what you will and will not get into. [01:20:08] Speaker B: Seussiers, I just realized what. Okay, serious mom bringing that one down. Did you ever read the Anne Rice Sleeping Beauty trilogy? It was when Anne Rice was writing as an. I want to say Rochel Rochlor. I can't speak French. She wrote it under a pen name. It is a fantastic fantasy book. It is basically like a break the door down primer of high fantasy. High bdsm. Because she's retelling the story of Sleeping Beauty, [01:20:55] Speaker A: of Sleeping Beauty, Book two. [01:20:58] Speaker B: Maybe Maria should read that one. [01:21:00] Speaker A: Beauty's Punishment book. Three beauties. [01:21:04] Speaker B: Really great series. [01:21:07] Speaker A: I have not read them. Have you read the Story of. [01:21:10] Speaker B: Oh, [01:21:15] Speaker A: The Story of O is another. I have that one. [01:21:21] Speaker B: But if you haven't read. If you haven't read the Sleeping Beauty trilogy by Anne Rice, it's. It's a great starting off point for anybody. Just because it is. It's high fantasy. It is retelling of Sleeping Beauty. There are knights and Castles and kings and princes, my lords and my ladies and all that. But it is 110% a 24.7bdsm dynamic in the universe. Like the idea that royals in that universe have to serve as submissives at someone else's kingdom. So they learn the humility of what it's like to be subservient and to be in that position of always giving. So that way, when they go back to being kings and queens and rulers. Rulers. They're doing it better because they understand what it means to actually surrender and sacrifice and be put in certain situations. Fantastic. Like, if you'd like to jump into the series and figure out. It gives you a little taste of a lot of different types of topics. So I. I always recommend it for people. Like, read the first book. Not necessarily because you're like, I'm gonna try all these, but because there's going to be that one scene, and you'll know it when you find it, because you're going to read it, and all of a sudden your face is going to get real, real warm, and you're going to start kind of. You're going to, like, look around, make sure nobody's watching you as you're reading that. That's the scene. It's. Because it's. It's going to expose you to different things you hadn't ever thought of or considered or knew about. And that gives you that jumping off point to then go, ooh, what other books have this in them that I should be reading? [01:23:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I'm in a few groups, probably like four on Facebook for, like, the smart reading. And it's always fun when somebody, you know is like, well, learn a new thing. I like today because of this book. And then in the comments, you see everybody, like, looking for it. Now, where do we get it? Somebody's like, it's over here on. It's over here on this. It's in the Libby app. It's over. I'm like, I love the fact that in these groups, like, yeah, so it's. It's rather fun. And then you have the ones that post anonymously because they're looking for a certain type of book that they can't find that type of story. But they're like, I have family in here, so I'm posting anonymously. [01:23:40] Speaker B: Correct. Because I want this really, really niche topic. [01:23:43] Speaker A: Yeah, but. All right, well, I feel like we could talk about this for hours, at least. Alexa, I feel like you're like, I am on uncomfortable. Well, because. [01:23:54] Speaker B: And it's so funny, too, because we're actually my partner reorganizing our bookshelf because we keep going to bookstores and buying books for just the reasons so strange. Can't seem to stop ourselves. We talked about organizing our bookshelf by, like, vibes, because she's got a bunch of, like, tutor era and, like, tutor history type books. And, like, I could have, like, two full shelves of just filthy. Like, that would be kind of it. Like, I would actually like to see my collection together in one centralized location. So, yes, you and I could spend the rest of the night talking about this. Easily, I was gonna say. But also talking about BDSM and kink and sex, because I think it's a topic that more people should be open to talking about and discussing. [01:24:38] Speaker A: And I feel like it's. It's getting more okay to talk about it out loud. It's not immediate, like, oh, what's wrong with you? More people are like, okay. And maybe too, because of books like this are. Are more accepted. It's easier to talk about, you know, and not be like, well, you know, I read about it. We tried it, and I liked it. [01:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah, there are whole bookshelf sections. We walked into a Barnes and Noble. There are entire sections dedicated to the book talk the romance talk the mask talk your next romance read. Like, they're putting it very out front because a lot of us are reading. These are books that people have constantly been reading. This isn't some new phenomena. The new part of the phenomena is that we're like, yeah, now I'm gonna post about it on Instagram. [01:25:23] Speaker A: Yeah, like, you can. [01:25:25] Speaker B: That's the new part. [01:25:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:28] Speaker A: So. And. And that's so. And then you meet other people that enjoy that too. And now you have new friends. And sometimes you bring somebody into the fold, like, have you tried? And then they like it. And you're like, welcome. We have cookies. Come. [01:25:42] Speaker B: Yes, yes, please, please come join. Come sit down. [01:25:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I earned my hat because I brought another into the fold. So. But yeah, it's. It's a good topic and I've enjoyed talking about it, but I feel like if. If we don't wrap it up, we'll just be here and it'll be midnight, you know, so. But thanks for joining, guys. We will see you next week. [01:26:11] Speaker B: Take care, everyone. [01:26:13] Speaker A: Bye. [01:26:14] Speaker C: Good night. [01:26:21] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Healer's Corner podcast. Join us again soon.