Diary of a Submissive - A Book Review

I saw the older couple across from me shift uncomfortably after I sat down on the cozy couch and opened my book. I pretended not to notice the amused expression on the husband as his wife’s face turned crimson and she giggled. I pretended disinterest when I saw them looking in my direction and then whispering excitedly.

I brought the wrong book to the doctor’s office waiting room.

 In the next hour and half, I also came to appreciate my apparently wise choice in bra as mine provided ample padding to cover whatever excitement I was getting from this book. I was so flustered by the time that my name was called, that I am pretty sure I dropped everything twice in my rush to flee the scene.

I am not into being submissive. I have been hit with a belt before (actually a lot) and a paddle. I don’t need to have these instruments added to my bedtime routine and I am pretty sure that they would only serve to reawaken some long since squashed post-traumatic stress disorder if I attempted to.

I have a hard time equating any type of pain with pleasure, I am not one of those girls that can orgasm a baby out of my lady bits – I will be the first to admit that that stuff hurt (a lot). If that’s your thing, then by all means go for it, but being punished, bruised, beaten to get your rocks off? Not really my thing.

In Diary of a Submissive, author Sophie Morgan (not her real name) writes about her true experiences of being a submissive in BDSM relationships. Being rather vanilla myself, I did have to google BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism) to figure out what it all really meant.

While the book itself is more realistic and much better written than the Shades of Grey trilogy (and honestly, how could it not be better written than that?), I struggled quite a bit with the imagery that she lays forth for the reader. I found myself angrily willing her to put her damn clothes back on and get out of the apartment over and over.

And she never would.

This book did teach me a few things as well (although, admittedly, not the things that my husband would have wished for) and prompted several conversations between us as well as a very interesting discussion about the dissolution of sex after marriage with the Scare Bear.

Men. Please read this and understand that I am not critiquing you, or calling you out. I am trying to help you understand your woman better. We are filled with uncertainty, body-image issues (especially if we have birthed and/or nursed a baby), jealousy, and a calendar that is constantly demanding us to do more, better. There is a reason that 50 Shades became so popular, so fast, that there are country songs demanding that you “throw me up against the wall” while kissing. We want you to take control, to show us that you want us, to know that your body still lusts after ours even after babies and life and marriage have taken their tolls out on us.

This book provided an avenue for us to talk about sex again, like we haven’t since before we got married. It encouraged us to talk about our needs (some of which have changed since we were younger, some of which that haven’t) and while I can’t imagine living life as a submissive, I am glad that a submissive taught me a few new tricks about marriage and life.

I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.