Writing On Good Authority: Kinky Sex is More Than Spanking

Writing On Good Authority: Kinky Sex is More Than Spanking

By Briana Una McGuckin

For a kinky Victorian Gothic novel, there is very little sex in On Good Authority. I suspect a lot of people are confused by this—that they will wonder where the BDSM is in this BDSM book. But it’s a feature, not a bug: that expectation mismatch between the reader and this topic is something I want the novel to address.

Our popular understanding of BDSM is whips and chains, pain mixed with pleasure, and a vague mental picture of a sex dungeon. This is a workable shorthand for the folks who already have a proclivity for kink, but it leaves others—be they horrified or just ambivalent about the lifestyle—in the dark, asking why would anyone want or like this?

 It’s a fair question, one we ask about anything we encounter that we find peculiar. But our brains are troubled by unanswered questions, and in the absence of any further information, those brains try to fill in answers, whether they have any real basis for a belief or not. I’ve observed lots of discussion around kink in person and online, and traced misunderstandings about BDSM to what I think is a common answer the uninitiated have come up with:

Kinky folks must either hate themselves, and think they deserve to be hurt, or they hate others, and think those people deserve to be hurt.

This answer is not unthoughtful; it shows concerns about real problems in our society: misogyny, toxic masculinity, and abusive relationships of all kinds. If whips and chains were all there was, I’d be worried too.

But I have been a kinky person since my adolescence, and hating or hurting myself, or others, is not what drew me to BDSM. No one in the kink community wants to cause actual harm. In the BDSM literature I have read, and the BDSM community events I have attended, everyone works toward making sure that sex is “safe, sane, and consensual.” It’s a part of every lecture, every workshop, every discussion around sex–before and after.

But the confusion only grows: if folks in the kink community care so much about consent and safety, then why would they want a BDSM relationship?

I wanted On Good Authority to answer that question from my perspective, as a responsible member of the community. I went back to where it started for me, and wrote, not an erotic BDSM novel, but a coming-of-age one. Now, the main story does deal with the adulthood of Marian, our heroine, as she navigates her role as lady’s maid in a dysfunctional Victorian household. But the first scene I ever had in mind—and the first one I wrote—takes place in her adolescence.

The image I saw was two youths—Marian, herself, and her friend Valentine, both in workhouse uniforms, having been institutionalized in London. They are essentially playing a Victorian version of cops and robbers—Marian is under arrest, and Valentine means to punish her.

As an outsider to the scene, we may worry a lot for these characters—what they think about the world, to play a game such as this; what they are teaching each other about what behavior is fair or right; what they think the roles of men and women are; even what dangerous deference to ill-willed authority they might be building up in one another.

But remember: Valentine is not an actual cop, and Marian not an actual robber. That part is just pretend. In reality, they are both inmates in a workhouse, made to eat poorly, sleep little, and toil. They sneak away to play this game—which is actually a re-enactment, we learn, of their respective parents’ arrests.

Ever since their incarceration in the workhouse, their lives as they knew them have been turned upside-down. They are confused, they are lost, they are literally out of control, for nothing to do with their current circumstances has come from their choices, and yet every moment of their existence has been impacted. In life, Marian and Valentine do not have any power over what happens to them. In their game, they do.

As adults, they will play a variation of this same game when their lives get even darker–not because they hate themselves, not to break each other down, but to build one another up.    

That is the true comfort of kink. It is a game of pretend—planned and practiced—that gives people the chance to play with the power which otherwise has such serious impact upon their lives. Some people—people like me—are so used to controlling every little thing, all the time, as a defense mechanism against imminent disaster, that it is a relief to let go for once—to let someone they trust make all the decisions, knowing that they’ve already agreed not to push any buttons that are off limits. Meanwhile, some others often find themselves buffeted by life, struck by bad luck, anxious about making the wrong choices—or even the idea that their choices don’t matter at all. For those people, having all the power for an evening—and a script of exactly which choices will get what reactions—can be very uplifting.

BDSM may sometimes involve whips in a dungeon—but these things are just props and sets for a scene. I argue that the real draw of the game is the script: an emotional catharsis, a mutually beneficial way of soothing one another through the ups and downs of life. It’s the whole functioning BDSM relationship I feature in On Good Authority, and not just the sexy bits, in an attempt to give folks a peek behind the curtain of the play. 

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Briana Una McGuckin has cerebral palsy, a concerningly large collection of perfume oils, and an MFA from Western Connecticut State University. Her debut novel, On Good Authority, is a kink-positive, below-stairs Victorian Gothic/Romantic Suspense novel. Her short fiction appears, among other places, in the Stoker-nominated Not All Monsters anthology (Rooster Republic Press), and the modern Gothic anthology In Somnio (Tenebrous Press). 

Website/Blog: http://brianaunamcguckin.com 

Twitter: @BrianaUna

Facebook: @BrianaUnaMcGuckin

Instagram: @brianaunamcguckin

TikTok: BrianaUnaAuthor

ON GOOD AUTHORITY

Repressed desires, irresistible obsessions, and perception-twisting games.

When lady’s maid Marian Osley and footman Valentine Hobbs assume their positions at the cliff-top estate of Valor Rise, they already share a history. Raised together as paupers in a London workhouse, they escaped through games of imaginary crimes and sublime punishment. Now they’ve been unexpectedly reunited—in subservience to the brooding Wythe Bornholdt and his frail wife, Diana. A master and mistress with their own dark secrets.

In private, Marian and Valentine return to their playful and addictive games—now tinged with BDSM. But when lecherous Wythe sees something he desires in Marian, he turns the pair’s diversions violently against them.

The line between servitude and bondage is drawn, and the dynamics of dominance and submission will shift in this sensually charged novel of Gothic suspense.

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