My book club has a problem. It’s hard to find good fiction.
No I mean it’s really, really hard.
The Leather Bindings Society meets every six weeks and we alternate between reading fiction and non-fiction. We are specifically interested in books about and related to BDSM, Leather, fetish and kink. On these topics, there’s non-fiction aplenty: even if we omit the endless 101-level how-to guides, today’s offerings in memoir, biography, academic work and community-based texts are rich and varied. We don’t end up loving every book we read, but we certainly have plenty of solid ones to choose from.
But when it comes to fiction… hooboy. Not so easy.
We usually omit pure porn/erotica from go, because it’s designed to make you wank, not to provide interesting fodder for discussion. Occasionally a work of erotica manages to hit enough plot, character, setting and metaphor notes to work, but such books are few and far between. While we’re open to genre fiction, it often presents quality issues: predictable plots, ho-hum writing, terrible editing, and ultimately not much to talk about. (I mean… the Gor novels are just… no.)
Searching for BDSM fiction often brings up mostly these two types of books. On the other hand, trying to find BDSM-relevant books in the realm of literary fiction is much harder, because the most relevant ones are often indirect or heavily metaphorical in their discussions—you often won’t find them by using “BDSM” as a search term.
I’ve found two solutions for this problem, and they both come with their own challenges.
One solution is to read classic works: They’re old, they’re famous, and they give us lots to talk about because of their place in our collective history. The problem is, their historical status doesn’t necessarily make them any good. For instance, Story of O is kind of awful. Stilted writing, very little insight into the characters… it was groundbreaking in its time, but it’s not a great read (don’t hate me). And De Sade’s work is a bizarre combination of revolting and tedious. (So. Much. Poop.) (I mean read it so you know what he was doing, you know? But don’t expect to love it.) (Did I mention poop?) Many older works also tend to take a moral stance against kink and to punish their kinky characters, and not in a good way, whether from internalized shame or as a way of getting around publishing biases that would not have allowed truly kink-positive storylines.
The second solution is very labour-intensive (for me), but ultimately has found us most of our favourites. And that is, quite simply, to search all the time. I browse at bookstores and online a lot and seek out recommendations from like-minded readers and author friends. I keep an ongoing list of possibly BDSM-relevant books across all genres that I hear about through one channel or another. I used to simply take people’s recommendations at face value, but, well, ask me sometime about the Viking lesbian bondage novel… or actually, don’t. These days, instead, I search out excerpts and reviews to help me decide whether to invest; then I purchase and pre-read the ones that make it through triage. Of those, I donate the mediocre ones and keep the ones I like for my own collection and as possible book club picks.
Of course my conclusions are subjective, but folks, I’ve been running this book club for TEN YEARS. After a decade of trying to discuss mostly disappointing books with my fellow book club members, I just want to us to read some good-quality literature already.
So, picking from the best of the book club and the best of what I’ve found on my own, without further ado, here is my personal list of recommended fiction reading to inspire thought and discussion about BDSM, Leather, fetishism, kink and similar, listed alphabetically by author last name in each of four sub-categories:
- Classic older works;
- Contemporary literary fiction that approaches kink sideways, metaphorically or as a subplot;
- Contemporary literary fiction written by and for kinksters;
- Contemporary genre fiction that really excels, aka kinky beach reads.
I’m sure members of my book club might disagree about some or add others—that diversity of opinion is what keeps the discussion fun! But perhaps my recommendations will save you some time and disappointment should you wish to create your own book club, or just read some top-notch writing as a thinking pervert.
Classics and older works
I have four classic works to recommend. None of them have happy endings; for various reasons I think these ones are worth reading anyway.
Crash by J. G. Ballard (1973). Possibly Ballard’s best known work, this is a story of people sexually obsessed with car crashes and the resulting injuries and medical assistive devices. Ballard’s prose is cold and crystalline, metallic and yet deeply sexual—in fact his style mirrors his subject matter to a creepy degree of precision. The Cronenberg film based on the novel made a lot more sense once I read the book.
The Real Thing by William Carney (1968). Set in the gay male SM subculture of the 1960s, this epistolary novel, told through letters from an uncle to a nephew, lays out a lavish taxonomy of “this Way,” meaning Leather and SM. With an unreliable narrator, the story turns the corner from carefully explored consensual play to murder and revenge. While it ends on a dark note, it’s remarkable both for its insight into early gay male Leather culture and for its distinct literary quality.
Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel (1928). In this classic tale, a well-to-do housewife is compelled to subject herself to the whims of cruel customers in a brothel by day while her husband is at work. It’s one of the rare works of BDSM-related fiction that takes up the question of class differentials. The actual BDSM is mostly off-page, but the main character’s thinking process is fascinating. The 1967 film, starring Catherine DeNeuve, is pretty hokey and more explicit than the book, but worth watching for kicks if you want to see how the story was taken up 40 years later.
Venus In Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1870). It’s well written and artful, and it’s entirely focused on the mindset of the classic male masochist, with all the problems that implies. A truly foundational text for the thinking pervert. I would recommend pairing this with the script of the play Venus In Fur by David Ives, which is a brilliant feminist work of theatre that takes up the troubling aspects of Masoch’s work and thoroughly skewers them. You’ll appreciate its genius far more if you have read Masoch’s original. If you have the chance, see the play. (It’s available on film, but I can’t vouch for the quality as I haven’t seen it.)
Contemporary fiction, part 1: Kink approached sideways
The following books deal with ideas about kink, in some cases explicitly, but not always as a main focus. As well, by and large they are not set in anything you would understand as a kink community except perhaps obliquely or by way of metaphor.
Nevada by Imogen Binnie. This groundbreaking novel isn’t exactly about kink, but it opens with a choking scene such that we understand the protagonist, a trans woman, comfortably self-identifies as kinky. With that as a baseline, she takes off on a road trip to escape her failing queer relationship and her own emotions. She encounters a young person whom she correctly identifies as a trans woman still unhappily living as a boy. In her attempts to reach this young potential protégée, among other things she discusses the way trans women have been pathologized as inherently kinky. It’s a viewpoint that rarely comes up in fiction, and as such makes for great discussion, alongside the narrator’s detached stream-of-consciousness style.
Fledgling by Octavia Butler. This story is about a young-looking girl who is in fact a much older vampire. She builds herself a sort of polyamorous clan of people willing to feed her their blood, and navigates consent, pain and pleasure with them as she also tries to unravel a plot to harm her family line. On its face this is a vampire story, but in truth it’s doing a whole lot more. I wish this was a series. RIP Octavia Butler.
Consumed by David Cronenberg. This novel is the filmmaker’s first foray into book writing, but it hits tons of familiar notes if you know his body of work. Which is to say it’s creepy and explores the intersection of the body and technology in an alluring yet repulsive way. It’s a fascinating exploration of certain strains of fetishism all wrapped up in a strange story of conspiracy, cannibalism (maybe?) and long-distance love.
The four-book Nevèrÿon series by Samuel R. Delany (Tales of Nevèrÿon, Neveryóna, Flight from Nevèrÿon and Return to Nevèrÿon). Be warned: these books are fucking dense. They are a lot of work to read! And the kink references are few and far between until you hit the third and fourth books. But oh, so fascinating. The books, a compilation of multiple short stories and novellas, form a rich tapestry of tales about a world (possibly our own, thousands of years ago?) as its societies develop language and technology while slowly emerging from an era of chattel slavery. The main protagonist is a man who leads slave uprisings but, erotically speaking, finds himself most at home in consensual master-slave dynamics. A masterful exploration of the eroticism of power that refuses to easily detach itself from its troubling social context.
Palace of Curiosities by Rosie Garland. This gorgeous novel is set in Victorian England and follows the lives of a handful of people who, by wildly different trajectories, end up working in a freak show. The story is not formally kinky, but one of the two main characters can only become aroused when being cut or stabbed, and the other wants sex despite being told she’s too furry to be desirable. Addressing themes of fetishism and the gaze, sex work, fatness, pain, memory, identity, queerness and more, the whole story serves as a beautiful exploration of how community, love and desire can build on the shared foundation of difference and social exclusion.
Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo, translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas. Leather references lurk here and there in this fascinating tale of a magical beast whose pungent essence commands sexual attention and obedience from the gay man who finds him near a dumpster. There are so many potential angles on kink in this book that it’s hard to summarize them, but erotic power is the big one: who has it, who loses it, how we acquire it, how we use it, where the ethical lines lie, and whether it’s okay to fuck a troll.
Breath by Tim Winton. This is maybe an odd inclusion here, because it’s actually quite kink-shaming. Bear with me though. The novel is bookended by scenes of erotic asphyxiation. What happens in the middle of it isn’t kinky at all; it’s a coming-of-age story about a young man in Australia who navigates various relationships as he learns to surf from an aging former champion. It’s beautifully written. You can practically smell the ocean misting off the page. Breath itself is a running theme, but mostly it’s a metaphor for life and risk; a way to discuss the fears and dangers we choose to face in order to become who we want to be. But although Winton uses asphyxiation as an illustration of what we might call the death drive, as opposed to anything truly pleasurable, the book’s fundamental questions are quite relevant to kink and kinksters. We don’t face down Great Whites or sharp reefs, but our play, like surfing, can bring us to terrifying, electrifying places and force us to make choices about risk, reward and identity in the face of fear. And because breath play is such a hot button in many kink communities, this dark take on it might inspire rich discussion. (Note that it was made into a film by the same title in 2018; I haven’t seen it, but I’ll update when I do.)
Contemporary fiction, part 2: “By and for” kink literature
The following books are my personal faves from within an eclectic and vanishingly small genre: literary fiction that’s self-consciously set in the kink world or whose plot is entirely focused on kink.
Leash by Jane DeLynn. A quirky but totally compelling novel about a lesbian who starts visiting a pro-domme who wants to turn her into a dog, perhaps a bit more literally than the besotted customer thinks at first.
My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up by 
Stephen Elliott. This collection of short stories reads like a novella, not like stand-alone pieces. And the introduction is entitled “This Could Have Been a Memoir,” so this definitely straddles genres. Elliott’s writing is concise, gritty and evocative. He brings a veil of trauma-backed dissociation and confusion to the earlier stories in the collection but the later ones read as almost giddy with hope, joy and clarity. Powerful.
NOTE: (2018/10/12) I just found out today that Stephen Elliott was listed on last year’s Shitty Media Men list with allegations of rape and harassment. He has launched a lawsuit against the person who created the SMM list last year seeking huge damages AND the personal info of every person who contributed to the list, which is of course a giant pile of bullshit. AND he is defending himself against the allegations by… wait for it… claiming he can’t possibly have assaulted or harassed anyone because he’s a submissive! OMFG. As someone into BDSM, he is surely well aware that’s a bullshit concept, and is hoping to convince others who are ignorant about BDSM. Which means that on top of whatever he originally did, and this jaw-dropping lawsuit, he’s now also dishonest about how BDSM works. So he’s now an extra-big 100% confirmed douchebag (allegations aside). Stay tuned for a blog post on this topic. I’m leaving this book on my list for now because I prefer, for the moment, to showcase how someone can do great work and still be a complete fucking creep – but I expect I’ll delete it soon enough.
Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey. This achingly beautiful story is a metaphor woven strand by poetic strand to form something truly magical. Lowrey takes the tale of Peter Pan and reimagines it as a story of Leather-involved street kids. The characters form and shift identities as they create and transform queer chosen families. They play hard, they love hard, they hurt each other and save each other’s lives. It’s stunning, and it’s like nothing else you’ve ever read.
Footsucker by Geoff Nicholson. Sly and darkly funny, this novel chronicles the experiences of a foot fetishist who finds the perfect feet and then has to deal with the reality of the woman attached to them. An intelligent meditation on the true cost of obsession and objectification. (Side note: a young gentleman I met after teaching a kink workshop once was so adamant that I should read this book that he went home and came back with his own copy as a gift. I don’t recall his name but I am ever grateful for that act of literary generosity.)
A History of Barbed Wire by Jeff Mann. Gorgeous and disturbing. Mann is a superbly 
skilled writer who has penned some of the most poetic descriptions of kinky gay sex I’ve ever read. But I’m dubious about listing it here because of its poor grasp of consent. Most of the book is made up of short stories, each more beautiful than the last. The last story in the book is a novella, and it’s… super fucked up. It’s basically a story about prolonged sexual assault told from the POV of a kidnapper. I have a problem when a writer has me identifying with the values that underlie their stories—in this case, leathermen and bears are good guys, kinky gay sex is hot, homophobia is bad, etc.—and largely shows his characters in consenting situations, but then portrays those same values as compatible with sexual assault and seems to expect me, as a reader, to be on board with the assaulter as a protagonist. Mann’s novella reminds me of Fifty Shades of Grey: nominally kinky, but actually about a clear case of abuse without ever acknowledging it. So, enjoy these finely crafted stories, but read the last one at your own risk.
Contemporary fiction, part 3: Beach reads
These ones are lighter fare—genre fiction (including graphic novels and erotica) that stands out from the crowd for solid quality, tight plots and memorable characters.
Yes, Roya written by C. Spike Trotman, drawn by Emilee Denich. This gorgeous graphic novel, set in the 1960s, explores a D/s triad dynamic involving a dominant woman of colour who passes off her well-respected cartooning work as that of her submissive white male partner as a strategy for navigating a racist, sexist publishing world. Together, they attract a young submissive man who is also an aspiring artist. I loved this for the sweetness of their connection and the complexity of the way they navigate a world that just wouldn’t get what they’re doing. I hope this becomes a series!
The Leather Daddy and the Femme by Carol Queen. While this novel probably counts as porn, technically speaking, what sets it apart from your average erotic novel is Carol’s focus on place and history. Set in San Francisco in the queer 1990s, the story follows an eclectic cast of characters as they fuck across lines of gender and orientation while telling each other stories about the histories and mores of their respective erotic sub-communities. Best history lesson ever. Look for the more recent editions which include more of the history-related material that was deleted from the first edition.
The Killer Wore Leather by Laura Antoniou. Laura is best known for the Marketplace series, which is worth reading in its own right (see my D/s, M/s and Protocol reading list), but my favourite of her books is this stand-alone novel about a murder at a leather contest. In it, she lets her preferred form of humour run wild: she thoroughly mocks all the wacky groups and personality types that make up the broad BDSM/Leather community. When it comes to kinky fiction, Laura has sort of created her own genre: ensemble casts, humour/caricature, proudly kinky with plot-driven erotic scenes but not enough to be porny. Watch for hilarious acronyms as you follow the investigation to its bloody conclusion.
Red by Kate Kinsey. This is a BDSM-focused murder thriller written by someone who knows how the community works. Here and there a plot twist stretches believability, but it hits all the notes of a tightly paced procedural with a strong, complex female lead character, a dark atmosphere and plenty of surprises. It’s such a joy to read this kind of story without having to worry that kink will be used as shorthand for “that’s the bad guy.” Kinsey’s pro-kink politics shine through, but she does better than simply flipping the script; the kinky folks are allowed their dark sides too, which makes for an intelligent and snappy story.
Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel by Molly Weatherfield. This one’s the second in a pair of novels; the first is entitled Carrie’s Story: An Erotic S/M Novel. Reading Carrie’s Story is sort of necessary as a first step, but it’s nothing special. Sure, it features a submissive woman protagonist who’s somewhat more wry and educated than average, but overall it follows the tropes we know too well: a curious young woman agrees to be an older man’s submissive, and it turns out he’s part of a secret BDSM society into which she will be initiated.
Safe Word, on the other hand, is uncommonly artful for a kinky erotic novel thanks to its unusual narrative structure and surprise ending. It’s set a year after he sends her off for intensive human pony training. They meet in Paris to decide whether to re-enter their former D/s relationship, and in each chapter, one of them tells the other a story about key events that took place during their year apart. Thus we learn more about the inner workings of the secret society and our two characters, their motivations and choices and secrets and lies, and the channels through which power flows between and around them. And we may or may not guess how they choose to proceed in the end.
Blue: A Novel by L.N. Bey. This book is definitely doing a different thing. It’s described as satirical, but I’d say it only really gets there at the very end. It’s also described as erotica, but it’s doing so much beyond kinky sex scenes that I’m not sure that’s quite right either. Mostly it explores the dynamics within a group of suburbanites who lead kinky lives behind their beige exteriors, seen in particular through the eyes of a young divorcée who seeks to join their group. The obnoxious male characters are tedious for the first few chapters—why, why, WHY does anyone think inflated male entitlement is hot because it’s “dominant”? IT IS NOT HOT. (Neither is it hot when a woman displays it, and we get some of that too here.) But the novel eventually expands well beyond the boring premise and into questions of art, specialized fetishes, the limits of consent, the power of submissives, and what happens when love shows up to mess with all the kinky fun.
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I will continue to update this list as I work my way through the list of books that have been recommended to me. Also, stay tuned for a short story list and a list of memoirs and biographies. And of course, further fiction recommendations are always welcome in the comments!
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