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Recent Issue of Prometheus
GarySwitch@aol.com
Read Gary's Short Story Journal
Entries
SENSUOUS SADIE: You are contributing editor for Prometheus magazine.
What does that entail? How did you come to have this position?
Gary: "The prose stops here. Or actually starts here.
Assisted by a rotating support staff of maybe a dozen copy editors and
proofreaders, I'm the ink-stained wretch who wades through the stack of
submissions, seeks out worthy material on the Web and elsewhere, works
with authors on ideas and revisions, and picks and chooses the first cut
of what goes into each issue, along with doing a lot of nuts-and-bolts
line editing.
"I also write reviews and try to fill-in elsewhere where we're
light on material; my first piece of BDSM fiction resulted from Managing
Editor John noting we had no F/m story for the current team's first
issue and daring me to write one. (F/m means female dominant/male
submissive.) We try to include at least one major piece of fiction in
each of the categories: F/m, M/f, F/f, and M/m in every issue.
"And I contributed to our editing guide, with true-life
counterexamples, like:
"All of her clothes had been removed and she was completely
nude."
"Screaming, Master Jack carried her to the chair."
and my all-time favorite:
"I untie the thong, wanting to touch your hard cock. It falls to
the floor." (Ouch!)
"Some background: Prometheus is published 3 or 4 times a year by
The TES Association, the big NYC BDSM support group, founded in 1971.
(See below for contact info.) We're currently running 96 glossy pages
with a full-color cover – over 50,000 words per issue, entirely
devoted to BDSM in all its manifestations, about half of which is
fiction. True to TES' mandate, we strive to be pansexual, pan-style, and
pan-viewpoint. Our readers and contributors include people of kink of
every identification, from monogamous, heterosexual, 24/7 Doms and subs
to polyamorous, bisexual players who switch.
"Many Scene mags have folded recently and most of the remaining few
emphasize eye-candy – stand-and-model photo spreads – with a few
very brief articles and stories interspersed. Rather than eye-candy,
Prometheus is brain-food. We're fighting the sound-byte with long,
serious, thoughtful articles and full-length fiction. We're the nation's
premiere magazine showcase for pansexual BDSM fiction. Our photographers
capture genuine players playing, not models posing.
"It's a team effort. Managing Editor John handles administration,
coordination, and logistics, all with his magic database. Art Director
Tatsumi handles layout. Poetry, photography, personals, advertising, and
distribution each have a separate department, so I won't be talking
about poetry here. Send poetry inquiries to smfirepoets@yahoo.com.
"I came into this high position of dizzying power and influence by
volunteering to critique submissions when Prometheus emerged from
hibernation several years ago and by putting in a tremendous amount of
work, literally thousands of hours, and learning along the way. Like
most volunteer organizations, TES is a meritocracy: the more work you're
willing to put in, the more influence you can have. Team New has now
produced eight issues and our ninth, #40, may well be in the mail by the
time you read this.
"I'm able to do it because of the gracious support of my wife,
Rebecca Brook, whom I've served (in a totally vanilla sense), as cook,
butler, and cat wrangler since I retired from the corporate world in
1997. Nobody on the Prometheus staff gets paid – are we masochists or
what?"
Sadie: What are the criteria you use for knowing good fiction? What
are the most common problems you see with submitted pieces?
"Any editor's greatest thrill is finding a diamond in the
dross, a writer who has molded all the elements of a story: voice,
style, point-of-view, rhythm, mood, dialogue, character, and plot, into
a seamless whole that's utterly convincing and transporting. If it grabs
me and takes me somewhere, it's a success. This requires large portions
of craft, imagination, and passion. Editors aren't easily grabbed.
"Personally, I'm a sucker for noir, with its cut-to-the-bone
economy, its tough-guy cadence, and its bitter truth, all back-beat and
punch-lines. One of my favorite recent Prometheus pieces is a gorgeous
work of butch/femme neo-noir sleaze-kink, 'The Only Way' by Lydia
Swartz, that we published in #39: 'I will wear the dress. I will walk in
the shoes. You'll remember how I looked when I was pretty. It won't take
that long and I will pay for it.' What a simple phrase: 'when I was
pretty,' and how totally devastating.
"Paradoxically, the pieces that editors love the most are the
pieces that barely have to be edited at all. And the pieces they hate
most are the ones with multiple glaring mechanical errors in paragraph
one. Editors know the difference between 'to' and 'too,' between 'its'
and 'it's,' and between 'slaves' and 'slave's,' and if writers want us
to read beyond paragraph one, they better learn them, love them, and
live them. Funny thing, good submissions seldom have mechanical errors,
and submissions with mechanical errors are seldom any good. This stuff
isn't rocket science. For those shaky on mechanics, I recommend The
Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the
Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon, a
highly entertaining way to avoid the mistakes that make submissions
return like a boomerang.
"On a higher level, my single most frequent scream is 'Who ARE
these people?' I swear all we ever learn about some characters is that
they have the appropriate body parts for their gender. No names, no
jobs, no pasts, no experiences, no friends, no family, no opinions, no
hobbies, no habits... And in good fiction, character drives everything;
'people do what they do because of who they are. '
"My second most frequent scream is, 'So what?' That's when I get
what I call a 'Strip-cuff-whip-suck-fuck-cum' story. I mean, I'm glad
you had a good time, but where's the story; what's in it for the reader;
why should I care?
"For a wonderful wade through the slush pile (editors' term for
that vast stack of coffee-stained manuscripts we'd rather do anything
than read), get Leatherwomen III: Clash of the Cultures, an
anthology edited by Laura Antoniou. Her intro is the best 'how-not-to'
I've ever seen: 'Happily-ever-after piercing stories seemed to take over
for several months...' Oh, and the book has a ton of great stories,
too."
Sadie: I have a theory that people are either "writers" or
they are "BDSM players who happen to like writing." The key
difference being the way they feel about their own professionalism as a
writer, and how they respond to editing. What are your thoughts on this?
Gary: "Anyone who writes is a writer; the major split is between
people who write for themselves or a few friends or a mailing list (all
of which are perfectly fine) and writers with ambition to be published,
to reach a larger audience, to crack venues where many submit, but few
are chosen. And the latter group splits into writers who get it and
those who don't.
"The difference between writing for yourself or a few close
friends, and writing for publication is the difference between paddling
around in your backyard pool and trying to win the State Championship in
the 100-meter freestyle. The difference is twofold: craft and
competition. Nobody would claim that you don't have to know the
mechanics of swimming, that there's no need to train, no need to analyze
how champions do it, in order to win such a swimming race, but many
amateur writers seem blissfully unaware of the craft and discipline of
writing, of what a story is, of how great stories are constructed.
They're like someone attempting to drive a car by only turning the
steering wheel and honking the horn and their stories get about as far.
"Competition is like this: say I have 50 stories on my desk and
yours is one of them. Well, you've only got a 2 percent chance even if I
picked one at random. What makes one story better than another? If you
can't tell good writing from mediocre, how are you ever going to write
well? I'm always amazed when people who want to be published refuse to
read what does get published.
"The best way to start is to read the classics of our genre
analytically – BDSM erotica has lots of acknowledged classics – I
call BDSM the Literary Vice, rather than the English Vice. (The English
call it the French Vice.) Take them apart; find out what makes them
tick. Take classes, join workshops – critiquing other's work is
invaluable to learning to critique your own. And be prepared for a lot
of rejections and a long haul. One rule of thumb says you have to write
a million words of shit before you get to the gold.
"The desire to be published alone will not be enough to keep you
going. Love of writing will."
Sadie: Your wife Rebecca Brook is also a writer and Moderator of
LeatherChurch, a discussion list for Religious leatherfolk of all faiths
and orientations. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/leatherchurch/). You do seem like a well-matched couple in terms of your BDSM and
writing interests. How would you describe the BDSM element of your
relationship?
Gary: "Well, I'd characterize us as players, more S/M than B/D.
Sometimes we attempt role-play, generally with me as the Dom, but it
quickly degenerates into chaos, as Rebecca is the SAM's SAM (smart-assed
masochist). She's like, 'Well, you never told me to take off my
watch, did you!' She simply has no respect for Domly authority.
"We're both switches, an ideal combination. On a given night, one
tops and one bottoms, though we're never sure who'll do which in
advance. We like light bondage with cuffs and spreader bars, blindfolds,
spanking, flagellation (I make rubber and leather lace floggers),
paddling, hairbrushing (including torment of tender areas with the
bristles), Wartenberg wheels, titclamps, lambswool dusters, crops, and
canes, used sensually, in the California style: 'Tap, tap, tap, tap,
WHACK!' We're sensation junkies.
"Rebecca has a low pain threshold, so I'm challenged to use
implements gently and creatively. Lately, I've taken to rubber toys. I
just managed to insert a 30-inch-long, half-inch-wide cane entirely into
a rubber tube of similar diameter (took lots of lube and a hammer) and
I'm eager to use this on Reb the next time she's blindfolded. I always
enjoy hearing her tender submissive murmur: 'What the hell was THAT?'
"Then the oral sex! And the fucking. Yes, I admit it: we use BDSM
as FOREPLAY! You can kick us out of the lifestyle club, now. We'll go
quietly."
Sadie: You write in your story "Sorry DarlinGary: "My exposed
flesh seemed exquisitely sensitive. I could feel the air currents from
the ventilation dance across my back. I was offered up. My sacrifice was
essential for the greater good. My cock was very hard." This is a
lovely combination of the beauty of submissive sacrifice and the hunger
of sex. Do you find that your BDSM orientation is always connected with
your sexual identity? In what other ways do you express either?
Gary: "They're inseparable. I'd say that my sexual orientation is
het BDSM. I certainly enjoy vanilla sex with absolutely no bondage or
beating, but what's going on in my head at the time is often
BDSM-themed.
"Aside from topping prose as an editor (a good top brings out the
best in his bottom), I collect leather literature – finally got a
reasonably-priced used copy of Ian Gibson's 1978 classic The English
Vice: Beating, Sex, and Shame in Victorian England. Also acquired
George Riley Scott's seminal 1940 text A History of Torture for
$25 at an event. (All the other torture books cite it.) On the fiction
side, there's Thongs, Nell in Bridewell, Harriet Marwood Governess
(Grove Press, not the Masquerade hatchet-job edition), and The Rose
Exterminator. My collection will be bequeathed to the Leather
Archives & Museum some day.
"I love finding cheap toys that aren't designed to be toys: a
cheese board with a good handle, a bath brush from Vermont Country
Store, a rattan carpet beater. The best blindfold I've ever found is a
Land's End stretch neck gaiter (they come in black).
"And I follow BDSM-themed cinema. I'm a consultant for TES' New
York S/M Film Festival, which will have its third annual run, this
coming October. Along those lines, if you've got a DVD player, you owe
it to yourself to get a copy of Radley Metzger's 1975 film The Image,
which just came out on DVD. One of the best BDSM films of all time (F/f,
M/f), and the transfer is gorgeous. Now if I could just find a copy of
Pasolini's Salo that they're asking less than $250 for."
Sadie: Rebecca is an Episcopal laywoman who's particularly interested
in the connections between radical sexuality and incarnational Christian
theology and practice, yet you have described yourself as not all that
spiritually oriented. Is this something that you have agreed to disagree
on, or does it sometimes turn to fisticuffs?
"Neither of us feels the need to control what the other believes.
She's also a lay preacher and I edit her sermons – an excellent
example that the rules of good writing don't depend on genre. We joke
that we've reached an arrangement: I don't have to go to church and she
doesn't have to listen to jazz. We both believe that spirituality takes
many forms. Church-based ritual liturgy is her preferred form.
Perfecting the use of garlic is mine."
Sadie: How have you negotiated boundaries in your relationship
vis-à-vis play with other people?
Gary: "Fairly easily. Reb has hard limits in this area and they're
OK with me. We enjoy playing with other people, especially in public
venues. For my 50th birthday, Rebecca and three leatherdyke friends (I
don't believe they'd be offended to be so-called and I use the term with
the highest respect) worked me over in a rented dungeon in San Francisco
for a couple of hours. It was my most memorable scene ever. I especially
enjoyed the vibrator applied to my titclamps (OK, 'enjoyed' maybe isn't
quite the right word) and when they toasted over my helpless body with
four votive candles that had been burning long enough to accumulate
about half a cup of hot wax.
"Our limits in this area are:
1. If either of us plays with anyone else, the other must be present,
even if only as an observer.
2. We only have genital sex with each other – no one else is allowed
to touch our naughty bits."
Sadie: When describing the BDSM lifestyle you say: "In vanilla
sex, don't we often take turns being do-er and do-ee? And don't we
sometimes enjoy a little pain when we get hot? Fingernails down the
back, hickeys, a bite here, a spank there? How 'bout 'Take me, I'm
yours?' That's submission. The taking part is dominance." Is
this how you explain your lifestyle to vanilla people? Are you mostly
out?
Gary: "That passage was about leathersex. In that article, I
referred to people who call themselves 'lifestylers,' but I find the
term 'BDSM lifestyle' problematical. For example, compare 'lesbian
lifestyle,' 'golfing lifestyle,' 'lawyers' lifestyle.' Not all lesbians
live alike; neither do all golfers nor all lawyers nor all people of
leather. 'BDSM lifestyle' sounds exclusionary to me, like 'true master'
or something the extreme rightwing might use as a weapon, similar to the
imaginary 'homosexual agenda.'
"Being a desert hermit househusband, I'm mostly in.
"The quote above was from an article for a mostly vanilla audience,
but I do believe that BDSM is part of the infinitely variable,
continuous spectrum of sexual expression, not something other and apart
from 'vanilla' sex. Divisiveness based on people's preferred forms of
sexual expression has wrought untold horror. Let's not add to that by
being divisive ourselves, by pretending what we do makes us superior to
everybody else. Let's not denigrate sex either, by pretending that we
don't do BDSM because it turns us on sexually. Whether we come or not, I
say it's all sex.
"And sexual liberation is our surest path to acceptance: 'hey, it's
how we have sex, OK? Do we tell you how to have sex? Does the phrase
'consenting adults' mean anything to you?'"
Sadie: You write both fiction and non-fiction. Which do you enjoy
more, and why?
Gary: "I enjoy them about the same. Fiction's a rush when you
pull it off, when you've suspended people's disbelief, when you've
convinced them of a world made out of words on a page. It's such an
elegant con game. (And I love being taken by the great writers. All
readers do.) It's such a miracle when it comes and you sit there
wondering, 'Where is this coming from?' Uh-oh, better watch it, I'm
getting spiritual.
"I also enjoy a good argument. Rhetoric is an art form, too. So are
structure, clarity, and coherence, the standards of good non-fiction.
"Writing is visible thought. I write mostly to find out what I
think."
Sadie: There seems to be a theme of sumptuous food running through
your fiction. For example in your story forfeits, you write: "We’d
polished off Becky’s Linguini Primavera, Alice’s crème brûlée,
and a bottle of Chianti." What's the connection for you?
Gary: "In a Clean Sheets (www.cleansheets.com)
book review of a Nevada brothel cookbook, I wrote:
'Some folks see nothing immoral in paying strangers to titillate them
with exotic, sensual delights while fulfilling a fundamental physical
need. Lawful establishments provide pleasure and satisfaction to patrons
who could be getting it at home. I refer, of course, to the restaurant
industry.'
"Also, recall the movie Spartacus, where Laurence Olivier woos cute
slave-boy Tony Curtis, using food as a metaphor for bisexuality: 'Do you
consider the eating of oysters to be moral, and the eating of snails to
be immoral? My taste includes both snails and oysters.'
"Also, I'm a cook. Just as writers love to read (or they should),
cooks love to eat. Next to sex, food has provided my greatest moments of
sensual bliss. Texture, flavor, aroma, appearance – food engages every
sense except hearing, unless you count the sizzle in the pan and the 'oohs
and ahhs' of the diners. Hmm, it's just like sex that way, too, isn't
it? Sound is where leathersex exceeds vanilla sex. What's more
distinctive than the slap of a hand on a bottom cheek?"
Sadie: You identify as a switch and describe switches as
"members of that sizable segment of leatherfolk who seldom rate
more than a glossary entry or a grudging admission that we're useful at
parties if there's an imbalance between doms and subs." Sounds a
little cynical Gary. What experiences did you have that have made you
feel this way?
Gary: "Cynical, moi? Never. Bitter, ironic, sarcastic, mordant,
sure, but not cynical. You know, I mainly seem to move in switch
circles, so I don't claim to be a victim of real-life prejudice. I'm
reacting more to media and literary representations. There's a Topping
Book and a Bottoming Book, but is there a Switching Book? That 'useful
to make up the difference at parties' bit was actually from a book; I
forget which one. Maybe my resentfulness arises from how my
switch-nature is usually invisible. If I'm topping, people assume I'm a
top; if I'm bottoming, they assume I'm a bottom. Switches need a way to
signify. We need jeans with a middle pocket."
Sadie: You write that: "There tends to be a great online
emphasis on 'what is a Dom,' 'what is a sub.' the sneer of not being a
'true' whatever is consistently seen'. Even among perverts, there are
in-crowds and ostracism." This is also a theme in your wife
Rebecca's article "Wienie Wankers." You clearly both have a
strong sense that the labels are overriding what's important. Can you
expand on this?
Gary: "The first part of that quote is by Peggy, aka O, from
her article 'BDSM IRL' (in real life) in Prometheus #33. Cyber BDSM
tends heavily towards the traditional male Dom /female sub roles. As I
wrote in my 'Going Both Ways' article about switching, that style takes
itself very seriously, the way it mirrors the traditional dating/going
steady/marriage structure, but with a collar instead of a wedding ring.
If people are into that, great; I try not to be hypocritical. But I've
been on mailing lists where people who identify as players are called
frivolous and inauthentic in their BDSM, almost like how the family
values crowd treats swingers and the polyamorous (not the same group at
all).
"Reb's column identifies a classic 'My kink is OK; your kink is not
OK' situation, also known as horizontal hostility, where a marginalized
group (BDSMers) treats a subset of that group (guys who enjoy walking
around clubs watching and playing with themselves) exactly as a major
segment of society at large treats BDSMers: as sick, disgusting,
dangerous scum. In both cases, it's demonization. And, in both cases,
the accusing group gets it entirely wrong. Another example is how some
gay groups don't want leather contingents in their Pride Parades because
we'll screw up their accommodation with the mainstream.
"The danger of labels is when they're used for exclusion, rather
than identification. There's more that unites us than divides us.
If you're doing it, it's real.
–Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt
Sadie: I have heard that the Eulenspiegel society members tend to
take a very formal approach to the lifestyle – e.g. wanting guests to
identify themselves clearly as dom or sub, follow protocol, and so on.
Have you found this to be true, and how have you integrated into the
group considering that you identify as a switch?
Gary: "That's a misconception. Reb and I generally hung out with
the switches in TES when we lived in the NYC area. TES has a richly
varied membership, varied in almost every way you can think of and
mostly we all get along. Are there cliques and power struggles and
political intrigue? Sure there are, but you know, the Quakers have
those, too.
"OK, I admit that some of the male dominants tend to be a little
overeager to assert their dominance over women they wish were their
submissives (a Dom once told Reb that he could tell she was submissive
by how she held her hands – I think he's a hood ornament now), but
that's hardly a TES-only situation.
"TES does have a protocol. It's called our Rules of Etiquette (see
the TES website: www.tes.org). The rules are about things like the
importance of respect and consideration, not coming to meetings to hit
on people, and never touching people or their toys without permission,
and they're strictly enforced."
Sadie: You write: "Guys, if you have an interest in playing some
kinky games with your girlfriend or spouse, letting her do unto you
first builds trust, and trust is what it's all about. Besides, you might
enjoy being on the bottom for a change." And yet, so very many male
dominants won't sub/bottom if their life depended on it. Do you think
this is about our culture's issues with machismo, that somehow bottoming
could on the subconscious level be seen as feminine, or maybe even gay?
Gary: "We must always be careful to respect people's limits and
it's dangerous to generalize. Switch-smugness is just as bad as
true-BDSM-lifestyler self-righteousness. That said, I wonder whether
there are men who identify as 100 percent dominant on the Dom/sub Kinsey
scale, who would categorically refuse to sub/bottom, even if that were
the only way to convince a very desirable novice sub to consider subbing
to them. Hmm, that would make a good story.
"It's certainly been established that a lot of homophobic rage is
based on repressed homosexual desires that threaten the identity of men
whose self-image depends heavily on traditional masculinity. Do some
male Doms have similar self-image issues with repressed desires to
sub/bottom? Good question, but I don't think we have anywhere near the
kind of scientific research base we'd need to answer it.
"Reminds me of the story about the guy who wants his girlfriend to
swallow his load after she gives him a blowjob. She asks him if he's
ever tasted it. He goes, 'Ewwwww!'"
Sadie: You have written: "The civilized pleasure of erotic
flagellation bears no relation to the brutal ordeal suffered by American
vandal Michael Fay in Singapore. He was dealt four strokes from a rod
half an inch thick and four feet long, wielded with maximum force by an
executioner using a two-handed grip." This ordeal is what
most vanilla people think of when they hear about caning, and in fact
might even be a little turned on by the idea. What are the key
differences between this kind of punishment and erotic flagellation with
a cane?
Gary: "They aren't turned on when they read about the bloody
furrows and the permanent scars. The key difference is something called
consent. Singapore felons don't get a safeword. Very few people who
fantasize about it would want to actually suffer or to inflict a
Singapore-style judicial caning, but fantasies stubbornly refuse to
conform to SadieC.
"Plenty of vanilla women enjoy rape fantasies, too, which doesn't
mean they'd enjoy being raped. Look at the popularity of bodice-ripper
romance. The key difference between fantasy rape and actual rape is
that, in their fantasies, these women specify exactly who they'd like to
be raped by, and exactly how. Which means that they're really in
control. Sounds a lot like BDSM, doesn't it?
"Erotic flagellation is performed for the bottom's delight. The
bottom is the one calling the shots."
Sadie: Another frequent caning fantasy is described in your article
"The Rod of Rods: "British school prefects used to do this as
an aid in striking repeatedly in precisely the same spot, a sadistic
practice that is extremely painful and may result in deep, long-lasting
bruises." What are some of the things you recommend so as to
minimize damage?
Gary: "Treat the cane as a whip, not a stick. To avoid wrapping,
aim short of where you intend to strike. Start off with a shorter,
thicker, stiffer cane and work up to long, thin, whippy ones, which are
very difficult to control without a lot of experience. Don't make big
swings with all your force. Most bottoms will be well satisfied with
strokes resulting from a flick of your wrist and only slight arm
movement. Practice on a target: cane your teddy bear. Start with
repeated, rhythmic, tapping strokes. This will get you familiar with the
natural flexibility and movement of the end of the cane. Note carefully
where the last six inches of the cane strike. Learn to make the last six
inches strike parallel to the skin's surface; you don't want just the
tip digging in.
"If you cane hard, you should never use a cane on more than one
bottom. You have to worry about transparent lymph fluid as well as
blood. Canes are hard to disinfect and reasonably cheap, if you find a
good supplier. Raw rattan is available very cheaply in coils and it's
not difficult to learn how to straighten it and make your own canes. At
the moderate intensity that most bottoms enjoy caning strokes, however,
I don't believe you have to worry about contamination."
Sadie: What is your favorite BDSM quote? Do you have any quotes that
are about BDSM and writing?
Gary:
Sade had to make up his theater of punishment and
delight from scratch, improvising the décor and costumes and
blasphemous rites. Now there is a master scenario available to everyone.
The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty,
the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death.
~ Susan Sontag
Write to me about women who don't know they're doing SM.
~ Laura Antoniou, Leatherwomen III, Introduction
Sadie: Thank you very much!
~~~~~~~~~~~
INFORMATION ON PROMETHEUS MAGAZINE
PROMETHEUS: Quarterly literary magazine of the TES Association (formerly
known as The Eulenspiegel Society) of New York, the country's oldest and
largest existing BDSM support organization, founded in 1971.
EDITOR: Prometheus@tes.org
CONTACT: http://www.tes.org/publications/prometheus.html
COST: $11.95
HOW OFTEN: Quarterly, more or less
CONTENT: Non-fiction includes first-person experience, consumer reports,
media reviews, how-to's, reports on leather events, articles, and
essays. PROMETHEUS fiction and poetry range from literary erotica to
explicit porn, from fantasy to humor.
WRITER'S GUIDELINES:
Each issue is currently 88-96 glossy pages with professional-quality
production and design and a print run of 2,500 copies distributed to
1,000 TES members and through select vendors nationwide.
We are looking for well-crafted, creative fiction, non-fiction, and
poetry (also B/W photography and artwork) exploring some aspect of
dominance and submission, bondage and discipline, fetish, role play,
power exchange or S/M between consenting adults. TES is a pansexual
organization so material involving all genders, sexual orientations and
BDSM orientations (dom(me), sub, top, bottom, switch) is welcomed. We
receive a majority of heterosexual, dominant male/submissive female
(M/f) material so writing featuring other combinations (e.g. F/m, F/f,
M/m or bend those genders anyway you want) is especially sought after
and will face less competition. Our primary criterion is literary
quality.
We prefer submission via e-mail attachments in Microsoft Word,
rich-text, or plain text formats, under 3000 words in length if
possible. Send submissions and requests for further information to the
editors at Prometheus@tes.org. Hard copy submissions should be in
standard manuscript format and may be mailed to: The TES Association, PO
Box 2783, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-2783. SASE required
for return. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. Author retains
copyright; submission of material signifies that the author grants
one-time publication rights to the TES Association.
Since PROMETHEUS is an all-volunteer effort, we pay in contributor's
copies only. Single copies are available at TES meetings, by mail, and
at selected retail outlets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous
Sadie is the author of It's Not
About the Whip: Love, Sex, and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene (http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html).
She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of
Rose
&
Thorn
,
Vermont
's first BDSM group.
Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting
can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com
or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information
freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing
in most venues.
Copyright
2003 Sadie Sez Publications
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