There’s something to be said for a good book that you can’t put down after a story/chapter or two. That’s the case with the Big Book of Submission.  I would intend to read a dozen pages, and I would finally put it down some 60 or 70 pages later. I was thoroughly enthralled and aroused, but this typically meant it took time away from sleeping or working or what-else-have-you that I should have been doing.

This meant that it took only a few sittings to get through this book, which boasts an impressive 69 stories. But because I knew I couldn’t put it down, I stretched them out for when I had time to read that much.

The Big Book of Submission is wonderful in terms of variety. There are (ignoring D/s), m/m, m/f and f/f roles. There’s a few trans stories to be found and all sorts of ambiguity around gender and gender roles. In short, it’s not heteronormative. But I think this big tome really goes one step further than that. I was really impressed at how The Big Book of Submission deal with the roles of top/dom and bottom/sub in regards to traditonal gender (roles). Not every man is the dom, nor is every butch. And through the words of the characters — almost, if not all of the stories are written in first person — we understand the implications and the intimacy of turning those roles in their heads.

Aside from variety in roles, there’s a variety in content and even in how most of the characters experience submission. For example, at least two stories dealt with a masochistic dominant and how their sub obeyed by providing sensation. The editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel, contributed one of those particular tales, entitled “Reverse Psychology.”

With 69 stories, you might think that some of them would be a little redundant, but I didn’t find this to be the case at all, even though there’s obviously similarly to the feelings that submissive feel when serving, obeying or worshiping their dominants. Each of them experiences their submission, scene and relationship in a unique way. There’s brand-new experiences, established relationships, breaking of limits and twists and turns that were crafted masterfully.

The writing in this BDSM anthology was pretty top-notch. All the authors were great at capturing the feelings evoked during a scene or in a BDSM relationship, along with the imagery that goes with it. Themes of trust and sometimes fear, hesitation and excitement, growth and pushing the boundaries are touched on time and again in this anthology. Although I am more able to identify some submissiveness in myself, this book might have the most hardened dom consider submitting a time or two!

Was there anything that I didn’t like? Sure, some stories are more forgettable. One in particular involved feet fetish, and that’s reaaalllly not my thing, so once it got to that part, I skipped to the next story. But I enjoyed more than I didn’t.

I especially enjoyed “The Problem Is, I’m a Bitch”, in which Corrine Arundo writes as a stubborn submissive who mocks a “cartoonishly” dress domme.  “Teddy Bare,” is a sexy yet sweet story about two men who wait until their first night of marriage to have sex and how they incorporate power play into their relationship. Another particularly touching story revolves around a submissive whose once-beautiful body had succumbed to illness and surgery and how her dominant helps remind her of her beauty through a public scene. Teresa Roberts penned “Beautiful,” which is one of the stories that truly stands out for me.

The one stand out story was one that managed to be both surprising, sentimental and sexy.  It’s another story by Corrin Arundo, whose work I obviously need to become more familiar with, entitled “Unanchored.” It was thoroughly titillating, like many of the other stories, but it struck an emotional chord with its solemn and sad ending that left me, quite literally, sobbing and perhaps even decimated. There is no snippet that can do the beauty of this story justice.

Just like there is no single story in this erotica collection that sums up the experience that is The Big Book of Submission. You need to dive in and read it all. Perhaps not in order, but there’s no single way to describe the experience.

A sincerely “Thank you!” to Cleis Press, the company that pretty much made my year, for the opportunity to review this book!

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