I’m teaching spanking erotica in the Poconos!

*** Oct. 10-12, 2008. SPANKING WEEKEND IN THE MOUNTAINS with Ms. Margaret and Friends. Near Allentown, PA. The weekend is for lovers of playful and discipline adult spanking. Lots of privacy and no one else is on the resort but us. For those who choose, classes at St. Margaret’s Academy will be back in session. It is not ‘school’in the role play sense. It’s more a way to meet. It is interacting and communicating before Saturday night. (If you choose the school colors are Maroon, White and Pink. (www.frenchtoast.com: burgundy plaid or gray skirt, white blouse and maroon accessories) Room, Board and two evening parties are part of the price. You don’t _have_ to do anything but bring a smile and good manners. www.MsMargaretDavis.com/weekend.html.
For more information go to www.MsMargaretDavis.com/weekend.html and www.MsMargaretDavis.com/weekend2.html.

Spanked review at Blogcritics

Lisa Solod Warren, editor of the anthology Desire: Women Write About Wanting (which contains my lowjob-filled essay “Where Sluts Fear to Tread”) has written a great review of Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica at Blogcritics, comparing it to her fist erotica reading:

It’s interesting reading erotic short stories apart from, say, regular short fiction. Much short fiction has, of course, scenes of a sexual nature, but it is quite clear that the premise of these stories stems from the sex act itself. The story is secondary. And yet, in a number of the pieces, it works very well.

A few of the pieces in Spanked are actually quite literary, aside from their erotic nature. Thomas Christopher’s “Riding the Storm” is very beautifully and lyrically written and when I looked up his bio his credits were indeed impressive. M. David Hornbuckle’s “Still Life with Infidels #56, with its superb title just crying to be read, could have been any better-than-average adultery story, just with a, well, spanking twist. Simon Sheppard’s “Fiscal Discipline” could not have been any better timed: imagine a story about the financial markets, homosexuality, and spanking! Plus, it was clever and funny. And I loved Bussel’s story about fear and pain that went far beyond the subject matter of the book. Donna George Storey’s “A Rare Find” and Shanna Germain’s “Perfect Bound” both revolved around books, in odd and wonderful ways. Teresa Noelle Roberts’ “Daddy’s Girl” creeped me out, but in a good way. She set up a premise that she then undid, and she did it quite well

All thing Spanked posts you could ever want – the virtual book tour concludes

Yesterday marked the end of the Spanked virtual book tour. But! You can now check out all the posts, with video interviews, excerpts, audio, and more with the links below. Thanks to all the bloggers who participated!

August 2008
Spanked Virtual Book Tour

1 – Alison Tyler
2 – The Cherry Red Report
3 – Thomas’s spanking exploits
4 – Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies
5 – The House of Richard Windsor
6 – Funky Brown Chick
7 – Baser Instincts
8 – Life in Motion
9 – All Things Spanking
10 – Viviane’s Sex Carnival
11 – Jamye Waxman
12 – Babeland
13 – NYC Urban Gypsy
14 – Femdom Spanking Blog
15 – Spanking Abby
16 – BadBadGirl
17 – Ellie Lumpesse
18 – Sugarbutch Chronicles
19 – Breathing In and Breathing Out
20 – Essin Em
21 – Pursed Lips
22 – Mixing It Up
23 – Domestic Spanking Blog
24 – Nobilis Erotica
25 – Live Girl Review
26 – All About George
27 – Lolita’s Predictions & Predilections
28 – Sexy Prime
29 – Naughty and Spice
30 – MeiLin Miranda
31 – AlwaysArousedGirl/JanesGuide

Bonus days!

September

1 – Natty’s Spanking Blog
2 – Kristina Wright
3 – DigiRomp (must be logged in; or you can watch it here

Great review at Clean Sheets

Spanked got a great review by Julian Robinson at Cleansheets:

Editrix extraordinaire Rachel Kramer Bussell has rounded up twenty brisk and stinging tales that reveal the many sides of spanking, from playful erotic accent to punishing payback for a long ago wrong. Smoothly blended technique tips and how-to hints are a bonus for those looking to enhance their spanking life. Rick Roberts’ lead-off “Spanking You” boldly wanders from the buttocks to belabor the thighs, breasts, and pussy of his eager subject. Alison Tyler’s “Betty Crocker Gone Bad” begins with one of the sexiest garments of all: an apron worn by a woman wearing nothing else, and proceeds through creatively perverse applications of common cooking tools. (Do you know anyone whose kitchen walls display multiple wooden breadboards with hefty handles and whose utensil bins contain an excess number of large wooden spoons? Do they color uncontrollably at the word “spatula”? Ah hah! You’ve found a spanko.) There’s an old-time spanking game in Donna George Storey’s “A Rare Find,” in which coin flips determine who gets it, whether bare, with what, and how hard…

Aforesaid by-the-book chastisement occurs in the volume’s most elegantly literary offering, Shanna Germain’s “Perfect Bound.” A model of Victorian propriety, her erotic bookstore owner dresses like Harriet Marwood and offers a work-for-spanks program to trembling young men who dream of her firm hand raining down upon their virgin nether cheeks: “I can tell by the way they move their eyes toward me, then away, like I’m just another book on the shelf. I’ve seen boys look at porn with the same denial of fervor.” Germain’s droll, witty style harmonizes perfectly with her heroine, who has an unusual fetish for typewriter ribbon (please Google it if this is an unfamiliar term).

“Through a Glass, Sharply” by Elizabeth Coldwell employs equally elegant terse British understatement to an account of a spanking husband and wife who confound stereotypes: she’s a petite femme disciplinarian and he’s her macho testosterone-loaded bad boy. “I know it won’t be too long before he gives me another excuse to have him like this, his bottom rosy and tender from the impact of my slaps.”

Spanked interview – on a scooter!

Jincey Lumpkin of DigiRomp interviewed me on her sexy scooter on the Lower East Side about Spanked:

Again, my apologies, WordPress seems to HATE putting up any of the videos I put the code in for. You can watch it right here on my Tumblr.

Find more videos like this on DigiRomp: lesbian social network for sharing erotic experiences

Audacia Ray interviews me for Live Girl Review

The fabulous Audacia Ray interviewed me for her podcast Live Girl Review – watch below (or if it doesn’t show up, just go to Live Girl Review on Blip.tv):

Wife spanking – fun or duty?

I just discovered a blog called I Spank My Wife, via The Cherry Red Report and am intrigued by it, but not sure completely what I think of it. I did enjoy this photo quite a bit:

I think my discomfort stems from the language on the site – the idea that a woman’s body is made to be spanked, and by “a woman,” it can easily imply “all women.” I don’t believe in or agree with that. I think some of us are predisposed to want to spank and/or be spanked, and in those cases, it makes sense. It’s sexy, arousing. But not because you are doing it because you feel that you “should.” Like this language:

“The only Tool Husbans Have To Keep Wives Undercontrol!”

They also have a Yahoogroup.

That just doesn’t sit well with me – perhaps if the wife had a blog, so we could see her perspective, that would help.

What do you think?

Spanking interview with me at ERWA

Over at the Erotica Readers & Writers Association (THE website for anyone looking to write or read erotica), Ashley Lister interviewed me about Spanked and my writing process/motivations:

Ashley Lister: Denise is an archetypical Rachel Kramer Bussel heroine in that she is self-aware and relates the story to the reader with layers of complex introspection that juxtapose cleverly against the physical aspect of the narrative. (I’m thinking archetypical here in the same mould as your unnamed heroine from Doing the Dishes, Best Women’s Erotica 04 and Mammoth Best New Erotica 4, and Marianne from Tight Squeeze in Rubber Sex). Why do you place such a strong emphasis on the psychological element of your characters?

Rachel: That’s an interesting question, one I’ve never really pondered before. Well, I think for one thing, dialogue is not my strong suit, so most of my stories are in the first person because that’s the easiest way for me to get inside the characters’ heads, and to tell the story.

But beyond that, I think at a very primal level, it’s the psychology of both my lovers and characters in stories that turns me on. The fastest way to rope me in is to share something truly intimate, and when you do it in a story, I think it creates this bond with the reader. It shows them where the character is coming from and why whatever action is happening turns them on so much. To me one of the greatest things about spanking, as a topic and activity, is there there’s such a vast range of motivations. You could watch, say, two men get spanked by two women. Both have their hands above their head, standing against a wall. Both women use the same black paddle. To an outsider, the scenes look the same, but maybe one is being “punished” by his mistress, and maybe the other has never been spanked before, and is curious. Or maybe he’s usually the top and they’ve decided to switch. You never know, and by telling the story in an engaging way, we can find out.

Interview by Em and Lo at Daily Bedpost

Over at Daily Bedpost, Em & Lo interviewed me all about spanking, everything from my favorite toys for spanking to punishment and roleplaying and more – check it out:

What would you say is the emotional appeal of spanking?

Gosh…to me, spanking strips away so many of the outer layers of protection I have around my emotional core, in a way that even sex doesn’t always do. When I’m being spanked, I’m so in the moment; all I care about is when the next smack is coming and how it feels and whether I’m doing a “good job” of being a spankee. It’s such a rush and it brings out all my needs to be wanted and praised. And when I’m spanking someone, I’m always just in awe that they’ll let me do that, let me go there; it often gets very heated (in both senses of the word), very fast. For a lot of people, getting spanked is a way to be vulnerable and let go. In my story in Spanked, the protagonist wants to cry during her spanking; I think people cry from being spanked not so much because it hurts per se, but for the same reason people cry sometimes after sex–it’s so powerful their body just needs an outlet.

Spankings with wood vs. leather

Over at Matt’s Spanking Blog, he has a post up about wood vs. leather. I honestly don’t get spanked often enough to have made a true comparison, but I like what he has to say:

Both have their purpose. We fantasize about wood, we imagine control, inarguable orders that must be followed. And then we discover that what we want is the idea of control, the image in our mind that never fails us, combined with the caress of our body in slower, persuasive, tailored strokes – the slowly building fire that coaxes our physical responses, that gives us time to react and absorb.

And sometimes we need more – early and after. Sometimes our bodies have to be pushed rudely into matching our mental state, sometimes they have to be controlled and directed. Sometimes we want the lasting undeniable physical memory of deep soreness, of sharp renewed pain. And sometimes we’re too sensitive for that.

Wood reminds us when we move, when we act, when we try to do something. Leather reminds us when we stop, when we relax, when we try to do nothing.

How can we be expected to choose?