| Author | Message | ||
     Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.54.81 |
For those who might not be aware, Dances with Werewolves is the autobiography of RCMB’s own Niki Flynn. It is a candid, lucid and engrossing read in which Niki recounts the inner desires and impulses that eventually led to her explorations of the Corporal Punishment (or “CP”) underground. I confess to having been ignorant of the Spanko/CP scene prior to this book (I can hear you all now: “Suuuuure you were, Richard….”), but based on the comments about fear and art that Niki’s made on this message board, I decided to pick up a copy. I’m very glad I did. The book opens with an Introduction by our humble landlord, in which he examines the insidious ways in which censorship plagues works of art that chaff against the social mores of their day. The films of Niki Flynn have met with such controversy, particularly in Britain. It seems the most common protest cry is that there is no way women would voluntarily subject themselves to on-camera canings and spankings, that CP films must surely be the result of abducted victims who were forced to endure such tortures under threat of death. Niki puts these urban myths to rest by admitting that she and other women willingly place themsleves under the cane or the paddle, suffering punishments that made this reader wince more than once. The films are safe, sane and consensual. And Niki explains --- very eloquently, I might add --- that these ordeals are not undertaken because of some neurosis or self-destructive compulsion within her; they are done because the role-play of victim makes her feel most alive. The author traces the root of her love of being made to feel powerless back to early childhood, when she first developed her taste for the dark side. Fear was a major component to many of Niki’s childhood games, ones in which she was always willing to be the victim. (I personally resonated with this, since I was always the first to volunteer to “die” during my childhood games. I couldn’t understand why others would want to run around when you could be a corpse lying on the cool ground, with friends mourning you and avenging your murder.) Her secret fantasies about being overpowered and victimized led to her becoming “a typical Ophelia wannabe, dressed in all black and romanticizing death” when she reached high school. Niki eventually comes to realize that her love of horror films is rooted in her feelings of empathy (or envy?) toward the female victims. Once a boyfriend of her older sister initiates Niki into the world of spanking, she is able to blend power and fear, pleasure and pain. She discovers her vocation. The book then recounts her ongoing explorations of CP, including in-depth accounts of the movies she starred in for Lupus Films; a company that creates some of the most lavish and extreme CP films on the planet. There are certainly enough behind-the-scenes revelations to please fans of Niki’s films (who were no doubt this book’s target audience), but to me the real merit of Dances with Werewolves was learning about the commendably brave manner in which Niki explores her darkest desires. She recounts this journey with an intelligence and a self-awareness that few people possess. Niki doesn’t seem to be trying to conquer her fears, but rather to use them to push the boundaries of her own existence. Life is certainly much more placid to those who deny their dark side. It’s simpler to shoehorn ourselves into the boundaries of conventional “reality”. But Niki Flynn not only steps outside the box, she burns it to the ground and scatters the ashes, all in pursuit of her own self-realization. Pain is not the point, she tells us; power is. Regardless of your...ahem...*predilections*, Niki’s book is highly worth reading. It is literate, sexy, funny, disturbing, and compelling. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.171.65 |
Hi Richard. Nice review – you're very perceptive about masochism and how easily it can be misinterpreted or patronised. Of course, not everyone has the same kind of dark side – but anyone who finds a way to explore it without harming themselves or others deserves our admiration. Sexual 'deviation' needs to be seen in the context of many private things that are not sexual... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.93 |
It's astonishing how certain surroundings can trigger the 'adventurous expectancy' that comes with the sexual impulse. With Niki it's spanking, while I have a penchant for attics (the dustier and spookier the better)and all manner of dilapidated structures, but also (curiously) lonely fields on a summer's day. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Good thoughts, Richard! Alas, as a postscript to my introduction I should mention that one of Niki's films was recently refused a BBFC certificate, though in this case the producer wanted an 18. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.251.145 |
Hubert, do you wanna come round and help me sort out my attic? It's in a derelict house. In the middle of a field. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
Thanks, Joel, Hubert, and Ramsey. Joel wrote: "Of course, not everyone has the same kind of dark side – but anyone who finds a way to explore it without harming themselves or others deserves our admiration. Sexual 'deviation' needs to be seen in the context of many private things that are not sexual..." Absolutely. I should've clarified that my references to this specific "dark side" were borrowed from Niki's own designations in her autobiography. Indeed, everyone will have their own turn ons/offs, and as you say, Joel, these needn't even be sexual. The internal experience is key in matters such as these, it is perhaps even more important than any outward expressions. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Thanks, Richard, for a really lovely review. It means even more coming from someone outside the fetish scene, as that's who I was actually hoping this memoir's audience would be. I said in my idealistic pitch to Virgin that I hoped it would reach the housewife who felt guilty about her secret rape fantasies. We all have our quirks and eccentricities - reasons why others can make us feel ashamed or freakish. I've felt that marginalisation on a lesser scale just for liking horror. But when you're talking about sexual predilections outside the vanilla "norm" (whatever that is), it can be truly crushing to feel so alone. So thanks for "accepting" me, warts (or is that bruises?)  and all! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
This sounds facinating. I'm going to have to read it, methinks. "We all have our quirks and eccentricities - reasons why others can make us feel ashamed or freakish." Hear-hear! My own sexual fetish involves pies.  | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Pies? Do tell!  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I enjoy being dominated by big powerful women!! (Robert Crumb is my hero) Is that a kink? Probably not...  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.93 |
Most of us probably end up having intercourse in our own comfortable, clean beds, which is entirely off-putting as far as I'm concerned. No sense of danger, no possibility of being caught in medias res . . . Joel: sounds tempting, albeit a trifle too much like "Again" | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.208.112.230 |
"Most of us probably end up having intercourse in our own comfortable, clean beds, which is entirely off-putting as far as I'm concerned. No sense of danger, no possibility of being caught in medias res . . . " We've got a six year old and a three year old, Hubert, who don't know the concept of knocking at the bedroom door. You've gotta grab it when you can... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.188.119 |
Back in the 1980s, a modern Golden Age of bigotry and normative aggression, it was obvious from many statements made by politicians, journalists and broadcasters that they imagined any deviation from narrowly defined sexual norms to be the product of three forces: the corrupting influence of others (the infection theory of desire), a very low boredom threshold (hence the need to try everything), and a sick compulsion to find the vilest form of pleasure imaginable. All three of which are, as far as I can see, quite irrelevant to anyone's motivation for looking for love in unusual places. But what these pearls of wisdom did reveal is the sick, envious, twisted emotional dishonesty of the self-proclaimed 'normal' guardians of virtue. They are the real perverts. The great poet Edwin Morgan wrote: ...the beds of married love are islands in a sea of desire. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.54.81 |
Niki wrote: "So thanks for "accepting" me, warts (or is that bruises?) and all!" My pleasure, Niki. The book deserves a wider audience. I possess what I believe to be an accurate gauge when it comes to people. Some folks go to extreme lengths to explore and understand both themselves and the world around them, which is entirely healthy. Others are merely driven by semi- or unconscious compulsions. Such individuals are ticking timebombs because they are wholly out of touch with themselves. I can honestly say that Dances with Werewolves is not the product of someone in that latter group. It is a very positive memoir. It is also the next title on my wife's "To Read" pile.  | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.188.26 |
Sounds like a fascinating memoir, Niki, and another book to add to my own teetering "to read" stack (or stacks, to be more precise). | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.25 |
I read Dances With Werewolves about twelve months ago and it was one of my favourite books of last year. As for my own sexual predilections? All I can say is that they involve a castle by the sea, a rooftop laboratory, the glass covering of which the moon shines through on windy nights, and a beautiful woman...of my own creation. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.26.61 |
Lord Probert wrote: "As for my own sexual predilections? All I can say is that they involve a castle by the sea, a rooftop laboratory, the glass covering of which the moon shines through on windy nights, and a beautiful woman...of my own creation." John, since ours are so similar, I'm just going to start incorporating you into my own fantasies from now on.  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.24 |
I'd be careful Richard. Some very strange things have happened in that rooftop laboratory, not to mention in some of the other rooms in that castle. | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 38.113.181.169 |
You have a rooftop lavatory? | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.26.61 |
Simon: Based on the number of shrieks one hears coming from the passers-by on the street below, I don't think John's rooftop lavatory is anything more than a bedpan and a shout of "Look Out Below!" on cleaning day. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
How dare you poo poo my serious posting! | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.125.173 |
"..I enjoy being dominated by big powerful women!!" Allow me to introduce my Missus... gcw | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Lucky man... | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.125.173 |
You gonna be at Fantasycon in September Stephen? If so I will set her upon you! gcw | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.196 |
GCW - I thought your Missus was a very sweet lady | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Fantasycon... is that where all your fantasies come true? If it's full of Crumb women I'll be there! You better fill me in on the details. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.125.173 |
"GCW - I thought your Missus was a very sweet lady" Ha! -She took a shine to you too I think you Suave worker you! She should be serving foaming pints of ale in a Bavarian Tavern on the way to Count Dracula's Castle shouldn't she? (Courtesy of Hammer Films 1966) gcw |