renaissance poisson

this book is part 1 in a series of free, online reads, available in the authors' blog: http://fallschanceranch.blogspot.com/

oy.

i did not know this was a kink book, and a very specific kink -- domestic discipline -- when i started to read it; it was recced by a group in which i participate, which covers a wide range of m/m fiction, and it was recced on the strength of its characters. domestic discipline is not a kink i even understand. spanking for sexual pleasure i can understand intellectually, but for punishment? everything inside me is repelled at that (background: i was physically abused as a child, from spanking to outright being beaten black and blue, and it was all justified as "christian"). so, domestic discipline is anathema to me, even though i realize that there is a huge difference between the serious power imbalance and non-consent situation of an adult using corporal punishment on a child, and two adults deciding with full consent that this is something they want to include in their relationship. i believe corporal punishment of children is abusive and should be illegal. what mentally sane, consenting adults do is none of my business. maybe. i feel profoundly squicked by christian domestic discipline situations where the man is always the top and the women always the spankee. in general, men being tops and women being "brats" bothers me (heck, the terminology alone bothers me). still, i am willing to accept it if i am convinced it's not abusive, but emotionally i do not grok it.

i generally do not like the setup for the story. corporate hyperfocussed CEO wunderkind dale had a mental breakdown complete with hallucinations, and his boss sends him to a remote ranch in wyoming, a working cattle/horse/sheep ranch populated by 4 guys who, aside from running the ranch, also specialize in rehabbing executives who've overworked themselves and run off the rails in some way. they do this by providing a very firm structure, with strict rules, isolating their clients from all outside influence, keeping them there as long as necessary, and retraining them to handle the pressures of their jobs better. which apparently includes spanking them if deemed appropriate *raises eyebrows*. not your usual executive rehab. the problem with this book is that the corporal punishment comes initially across as dubcon at best, and considering dale's mental state when he gets to the ranch, can quite easily be seen as noncon and abusive. he sort of consented to being there, but under duress ("get fired or go there"), and he's too distracted by the sudden ultimatum to actually read the introductory materials. oh man, this is problematic in a lot of ways; there are no safeguards here at all against actual abuse of vulnerable people. i -- figuratively -- tossed my bookreader against the wall. but the rec had promised unusual polyamory, so i picked it back up.

i like the setting -- the story of the ranch's founders, the "strays" they took in, and the network they built, the insights into equine herd behaviour, the connection with nature and the history of the land. very evocative. the world built here is fully realized, and it's a world i wouldn't mind to be part of.

and i am fascinated by dale. the book is very long, and some might find the pace excruciating, but i enjoyed it. i like slow, in-depth character exploration. dale is a work in progress, and it takes a long time to change the damaging habits of a lifetime. the rehabilitation -- aside from the corporal punishment -- is relatively sensible for dale's issues. he's a marvelous character, complex, highly intelligent but hypercritical of himself, extremely analytical and competent when it comes to matters of work, quite inept when it comes to close personal relationships; desperately lonely, yearning for somewhere to belong with someone. i can identify well with him even though we are very different in specific aspects of our personalities, but he's so well designed that i find him easy to understand. and i've learned something about domestic discipline through dale that makes it feel somewhat less objectionable.

i have issues with some of the other characters, though. first, jasper is a cypher and a bit of a stereotyped one (part native american, quiet, connected spiritually with the land, carves totemic animals); i never connect with him and i don't see where dale does -- which is a major problem since we're talking polyamory here. there is a bit more to paul the homemaker who is an excellent listener, and i can write it off as "understated", but i would have still liked to see more. riley is a true brat (and i generally don't like bratty 30 year olds). he has redeeming character traits, but frankly, he seems to me to be quite unaffected by the spankings he gets for any length of time; the effect often doesn't even last for a day. i dunno; my therapeutic abilities tell me that maybe domestic discipline ain't working and they should try something else. also, flynn and riley are locked into a negative behavioural pattern where flynn becomes withdrawn when he gets scared for one of his partners (usually riley), and riley can't stand that and keeps poking him, which results in flynn withdrawing even more, so riley gets brattier and brattier until flynn nearly snaps and leaves for a few days in order to not lose his temper and take it out on riley, all the while riley gets to stew in his own guilt. these two men have done this for 15 years, apparently. hello! the 4 guys specialize in treating bad behaviour patterns in CEOs. physician, heal thyself. maybe flynn needs some spanking? that seems never to be an option for a self-declared "top" -- why not? are there no switches in domestic discipline circles? dale doesn't get to withdraw because it's detrimental to his recovery. flynn's withdrawal is also detrimental. neither flynn nor riley seem to have learned to handle this in 15 years; it takes dale to talk flynn out of his grim mood. i see what you did there, dear authors, and it's too much of a setup.

on the plus side, i adore the unconventional polyamourous family. my own is very different from the norm (though talking about "norm" in polyamory at all makes me chuckle), and it's rare that i read about something that is in some ways quite similar, and is very much how i'd love to live if we all were in the same location. i was glad that there was no sex in the book; it would have been very inappropriate for any of the tops to have sex with dale, and since dale was basically asexual for most of the duration of his initial stay on the ranch due to his mental state, it made sense to keep sex between the others off-screen and at most alluded to. i seriously enjoyed the understatement in regard to sex; usually i find an overemphasis on it in society at large while in my own life it's a whole lot less important than many other things, and i feel quite odd when reading constantly about people for whom sex is a major drive that makes and breaks relationships. it's nice to see an intentional family where their love isn't primarily based on sex.

3.75 stars, docking points for unbelievable and potentially abusive setup, and lack of full character development. still, character-wise this is leaps and bounds above the norm, and the pacing is perfect for this story. also, while the authors could have used an extra proofreader to sort the its from the it's, the book is better edited than some published works. i'll be reading the next volume (and thank the authors for offering a quality work for free; much appreciated).

elsenet i was linked to victoria brownworth's article in the lambda literary blog.

let me first say that i read brownworth's article and thought it was abysmally bad, so bad that it totally obscured its own central concern. that's a crying shame. it's also a shame that there was no enlightenment had from the other side in the comments, for the most part. it was typical defensive derailment, complete with the usual bingo excuses, as paul g bens showed so poignantly. but, having observed such discussions before, commenters would have derailed the thread anyway, even if victoria had done her research instead of putting more falsehood than truth out there about m/m, and being rude to everyone who disagreed with her. they wouldn't have listened even if she had been well-informed and courteous. but they should listen, because the central concern is important.

the central concern is that m/m AS A GENRE fetishizes gay relationships for the titillation of heterosexual women, and that this is detrimental to actual gay people.

i believe that concern is warranted.

i read a lot of m/m, and by "a lot" i mean around 1500 stories a year. i do not just read based on reviews; i pick a large number of books at random. disclaimer: i know that there are some actual male writers behind some of the pseudonyms (as well as lesbians and bisexual men and women and trans folk), and i know that some actual gay men read m/m and enjoy it. end disclaimer.

but the vast majority is born from slash fiction and yaoi, is written by straight women, and is read by straight women. and yes, yaoi is much worse when it comes to faulty information and fetishization -- but that doesn't mean m/m escapes the accusation. some of m/m's best selling authors are its worst offenders. and IMO the majority of the genre is at least mildly offensive to actual gay persons.

i also know that m/m is empowering for many women and genderqueers (i won't go into why here, but it's fascinating. and way cool. some of the analysis in fandom way surpasses anything i've seen come out of gender studies.).

but i've also read many comments from fangirls that show they get a lot of misinformation from m/m, and that they thoroughly objectify the men in m/m. if an author writes badly informed fiction, some people will swallow that crap with gusto, and will think they now know something about gay people and their sexuality, their relationships. and they will be wrong. that's not empowering anyone; it damages.

writers who're defensive when confronted with the accusation that they're appropriating and objectifying, are not being asked to "get out" of writing about gay relationships. however, if they don't get it right, if they are lazy, if they write formula, then they better be prepared for scathing criticism from gay people whom they offend with that dreck. it is totally possible to write authentic gay fiction as a non-gay writer; there are many talented m/m authors who're taking their craft seriously. the problem is not THAT women write it, it's HOW they write it.

the entitled whining from some m/m authors in the comments to brownworth's article was painful to watch, and it didn't impress me one bit. yup, it can be hard to look at one's own work with a critical eye, even if one writes "just fiction". but one doesn't get to trample all over an already oppressed group with impunity "just for fun". because fiction is never "just fiction". fiction has power, fiction teaches, fiction influences people. and if, as an author, you appropriate a facsimile of people's lives in order to gain personal profit from what happens to also be their pain, they have every right to tell you that you're an arse who makes their lives harder.

an author is not directly responsible what people do with the information they convey. but the author is culpable. i suggest to take that seriously, even if one just writes plot-what-plot stories -- getting it right matters to those whose lives one borrows in order to have a bit of fun.