jargon by accident. Also, plenty of S&M terms are super useful, and giving a quick overview of S&M language can go a long way towards describing S&M culture. Hence, I have included a Glossary at the end of this book. Many of the terms in the Glossary aren't terms that I use in this book, but you might find it useful or interesting anyway. (I also included a few terms that come from other subcultures, such as polyamory or queer studies.)
I've received a lot of feedback over the years informing me that I'm the "gateway drug” into feminism for some readers. That's kind of cool, but I want to make it clear that if you're just now getting into feminism, there's lots of other stuff to learn before you draw any conclusions. Feminism is a huge, varied, rich movement with lots of history, schisms, and discontents. Also, in case it needs to be said, I'm not the only feminist who does S&M. There are others, some of whom love my work and some of whom disagree with me frequently.
One advantage of the blog format, as opposed to more traditional formats, is that each post can contain tons of hyperlinks -- and each article has comment space, so there can be fascinating discussions that explore each topic more deeply. (Of course, there can also be silly, boring, or offensive discussions.) As soon as a blog becomes moderately successful, it develops its own community of regular commenters, and mine is no exception. Facilitating and moderating these discussions can be amazingly fun and interesting. It can also be stressful and exhausting. As a commenter community evolves, it shapes how other people read the blog's articles and comment on them; sometimes the community will develop norms or tendencies that make certain people feel more comfortable -- or less comfortable. I've tried to control this with my blog so that it's a welcoming environment for most people, but I have such a diverse range of commenters that it's sometimes quite difficult.
I bring all this up because, if you're intrigued by some of the articles you read in this book, I encourage you to check out the original post. In this book, I've made a lot of hyperlinks into footnotes, but not all of them. More importantly, if you look at the original post, you can read the comments. But my commenter community has changed over time. Sometimes it's more feminist, for example, and sometimes it's less feminist. So just be aware, if you read the comments, that the range of opinions may not reflect any group that would assemble elsewhere on the planet; that a different community might produce really different comments; and that other articles might have really different discussions.
You can buy this book in paperback form at CreateSpace:
https://www.createspace.com/3878670
If you've already read my incredibly awesome book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, then thank you! (Bonus points if you can pick out all the parts of Confessions that I pulled verbatim from articles included in this book.) If you haven't read Confessions, then please check that out, too.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/14445 1 Paperback copies of Confessions: https://www.createspace.com/3830583
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018441