After being approached by a well known Third Wave feminist author who saw some of her work in the USENET news group alt.sex.bondage, Polly Peachum wrote Violence in the Garden for inclusion in a collection of Third Wave feminist essays. The book's stated purpose was to demonstrate that women can be feminists while also living lives that appear incompatible with traditional feminist principles. While the editor of the book loved the article and called it one of the strongest pieces in the collection, she decided, under the influence of other doctrinaire feminists, not to include it because the life and ideas it describes are too controversial (or "sick," as one of her advisors put it) and would turn unwanted media attention on that single essay instead of on her book as a whole. Apparently, women whose life styles resemble Polly's are not worthy of notice, let alone defense, by mainstream feminists.

Special Note: Nearly ten years later, "Violence in the Garden" is now in print. It appears in The World's Best Sex Writing 2005 ed. by Mitzi Szereto. Check it out! There are lots of other hot essays in that volume, as well.

Romanticism Vs. Realism

Polly's writing about sadomasochism is usually practical rather than romantic. Why?

Jon's "Pearls Before Ponygirls" article

One of the most tragic situations that people can encounter occurs when they discover that someone they've spent years with and whom they still love is sexually incompatible. This occurs when one partner discovers that he or she is gay, or a transsexual, or is interested in any sexual practice in which his or her spouse is uninterested. When a submissive woman discovers her special sexual needs while deeply involved in a loving but sexually conventional relationship, she may not realize that she faces much of a problem, as she would if she suddenly discovered she were gay. Our society's stereotyped view of manhood, which often equates it with dominance, may make the submissive woman and her mate assume that he can become her sexual dominant just by willing it so. Unfortunately, the sexual incompatibilities between a man or woman of conventional sexual interests and a submissive woman often run as deep as those between a heterosexual man and a lesbian. If you are a submissive woman who is trying to turn a beloved spouse or boyfriend with no interest in or need for power exchange into a dominant, this article, by Jon Jacobs, is essential reading.

Note: In addition to this article, you may also wish to go to our Conversations page to read what has happened to actual submissives engaged in dealing with sexual incompatibility between themselves and their partners.

What is Absolute Power Exchange?

We attempt to address this often-confusing question, with a collection of the articles on our site which discuss it.

Submissive Needs Versus Submissive Wants

In this article, Polly provides a way to distinguish between the fantasy aspects of dominance and submission and the reality of power-exchange relationships. She suggests that submissive women start to distinguish between those things that they imagine to be necessary in a power-exchange relationship and those things that actually are necessary by dividing up their desires, fantasies, and urges into two categories: needs and wants. To assist submissive readers with doing this, Polly provides examples from her personal lists of submissive needs and submissive wants.

The Chilling Winds of Cyberia

Have you ever noticed how communicating over a computer often brings out the worst in people? At the same time, these very people proclaim how communicating via computer is a marvelous and revolutionary new way to share the deepest parts of your soul with other people. What's wrong with cyber-communications, anyway? The obsessive addiction some people have to the "cyber worlds" they inhabit; the strangely lowered inhibitions and a disregard for others on line which causes flaming and extremes of egotistical rudeness; the cliques, in-groups, and rapidly changing liaisons that make you feel that you are back in high school again; the incautious gut-spilling to near-strangers; the preponderance of severely dysfunctional people in admired roles in on-line communities; group dynamics of a typical on-line organization; and how all of this affects the S&M communities on line are just a few of the topics discussed in Polly's in-depth and provocative analysis of life lived over a modem.

The Importance of Taking Your Time

One of the most common and tragic errors that submissive women make is to meet someone either at a social event or on the net, to like what she sees and hears at first, and to make serious commitments on the basis of far too little information and far too little interaction. This brief exchange of letters with our comments allows you to "overhear" a situation which could have led someone we once knew to disaster had she not been patient and tested this potential partner.

Jon's and Polly's IRC Presentations

On Tuesday, October 8th, 1996, we were invited to speak on the #surrender_discuss Undernet channel on the general theme: "Defining the BDSM Life Style." If you missed that evening (or if you were there and missed part of our talks), you can read our presentation on this site by selecting the link, above.

Writings of Countess Velveeta

Despite the odd name, C.V. is a submissive, and a lively, eloquent one at that. Some of her posts to the news group alt.sex.bondage are reprinted on our site with her permission. The Countess writes about how submissives can express anger to a dominant, whether withdrawal is a good form of punishment, the difficulties of relinquishing power, and other topics of interest to submissive women.

The "Rosie" Archives

One of alt.sex.bondage's most prolific female submissive writers, Rosie posted numerous news-group articles about her life as a submissive woman in an absolute master-slave relationship. Some of her better pieces are reproduced here.