(Posts tagged reference)

I’m so glad you asked! Let me list off what I’ve got for you:

Books I personally recommend:

- The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book, by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy

If you’re having kinky sex at all, you need to read at least one of these two books. Point blank. They’ll teach you the very basics of negotiating properly (which is critical!), and help you identify what you are and aren’t into.

- Mindfucking Mindfully, by Sir Ezra
Where this book really shines isn’t actually in helping you “mindfuck” people, it’s in taking a close look at how to do so ethically. It’s a great answer to the question “how do I get someone to consent to something and still surprise and shock them with it?”

- Real Service by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny
This is a slightly niche pick but there simply isn’t a better book on the subject. It’s written from a 24/7 M/s perspective, which is not what I do, but the book itself is an indispensable guide to giving and receiving service. The phrase “if the Master doesn’t want it, it isn’t service” will be burned into my psyche for quite some time. I love this book a lot. Maybe my favorite out of all of these.

- Enough To Make You Blush: Exploring Erotic Humiliation, by Princess Kali
This one’s high on my reading list; I’ve heard it recommended by a number of people whose opinions on these things I trust.

- Pretty Much Anything Midori Has Ever Done
Midori is a great resource for this stuff - I haven’t personally read much of her work, but she’s a well known sex educator and great at what she does. She’s known for bondage, but has a lot of range beyond that.

- This Negotiations Worksheet from Bex Talks Sex
This is what I default to using a lot of the time for negotiations. Forget BDSMtest, you don’t need that, it’s no good. Just look through this worksheet’s wordbank with your partner. Big fan especially of the “how do you want to feel?” section.

Books I can kind of recommend:

- The Ultimate Guide to Kink, edited by Tristan Taormino
This book is weird. There’s a lot of good info for experienced players, but some of what’s written here skeeves me out. I think if I had a top that thought the way some of the tops in here think, they would not be topping me for long. But there’s some good techniques and so on to pick up that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I liked the distinction one of the authors makes between being sadistic in the sense of inflicting pain and being sadistic in the sense of doing something your sub doesn’t “enjoy.”

- The Ritual of Dominance and Submission, by David English
Man, this book fucking sucks. The writing and editing are garbage, and the fear and protocol play described need way more careful negotiation than he ever lets on, let alone recommends. This is some 50 Shades bullshit. The only time I recommend this book is to tops like me who tend to be very affirming to their partners and need a guide on how to really scare them - when their partner consents and when you negotiate it, which this book sucks at teaching you. Really good content on fear, punishment, and protocol play, really terrible presentation of the topic though. Don’t read this if you don’t already know what you’re doing.

- Paradigms of Power, by Raven Kaldera
I love this book. Great book. Very focused on 24/7 M/s play though, and, being an anthology, some chapters are better than others. If you can’t read something and pick out what is and isn’t for you, don’t bother. But some really great inspiration, and generally pretty well written. Big fan of the discussion of leather throughout the book.

Hope some of these are helpful for people ^-^ for the average person reading this I recommend New Bottoming/Topping, but they’re all important parts of my library and I’ve recommended all of them to friends at some point or another.

May I also suggest Hell on Wheels and Kneeling in Spirit by Raven Kaldera, d/s companion books that address kink with a disability. They're a should read for everyone, imo. You never know when you or a partner are going to have changes in your body that affect what you can physically do. Temporary illness/injury and even just age can affect your sex life.

I'd like to suggest Better Bondage for Every Body! It goes really in depth on anatomy, pain processing, self-tying, and has chapters specifically focusing on how to do rope bondage on/for someone who is disabled or has chronic pain, which was really important to me.

reblogging specifically for these last additions bc I don't think I've ever seen resources for kink w/ disability

Are there any other particularly egregious examples?

This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:

It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).

This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:

The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments

whenever this conversation comes up a lot of people start saying something akin to "just read older books" and while I do agree that humanity has an absolutely staggering backlog of books big enough to keep anyone entertained, it often seems to come with an unspoken implication (or, sometimes, ca very clear statement) that this is necessary because all books published now are Awful and Bad. to which I would like to say, respectfully, Shut The Fuck Up. the books that annoy you are not the sum total of everything being published.

personally I think best results will always come from just wandering around a library or indie bookstore and picking stuff up, but variety is the spice of life so here are some other places where I like to learn about cool new books coming out

BookBrowse is a great resource that includes readalikes, new releases, and the option to filter fiction and nonfiction by genre, subgenres, time period, setting, page count, debut books, and small presses.

BookPage publishes small monthly magazines that can be found in many libraries and bookstores, but all of their lists, author interviews, and reviews can also be found on their website. each month spotlights new releases across a variety of genres and age groups.

Electric Literature publishes short stories, poems, novel excerpts, interviews with authors, and even the occasional book list

the Indie Next List compiles a monthly list of titles recommended by independent booksellers across the US, with an archive of lists

Lit Hub publishes lots of great pieces and literary news, in addition to book lists

over at Paste we've got, you guessed it, reviews, recommendations, and author interviews

like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror? check out Reactor Mag! among other things, they have monthly compilations of all the genre fiction coming out

and for my podcast heads check out The Stacks, where host Traci Thomas is dropping weekly interviews with authors about their new books and the podcasts' monthly book club reads

HOO BOY DO I HAVE DEPRESSION/EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION CLEANING TIPS

in no particular order (because I have depression and executive dysfunction):

1. If something sensory about cleaning bothers you, eliminate that before you start. For example, I wear gloves to do the dishes. If the sound of the vacuum bothers you, wear headphones and turn up the music. etc.

2. If you can, make a list of everything that needs to be done. Then acknowledge that you probably can’t do it all, and circle all the things that absolutely, no matter what, have to be done. Pick one (ONE! ONLY ONE! START WITH ONE!) of those things and break it down into smaller steps. Then even smaller steps. Seriously, if step one is “stand up” and step two is “walk to closet” and step 3 is “get mop”, that’s fine. It can be that small.

3. Take a break. “But I literally only started five minutes ago!” Don’t care. If you want a break, take a break. “At this point I’ve spent more time on breaks than I’ve spent on cleaning.” Ok, but you’ve spent more than zero time on cleaning, so you’ve accomplished more than you had at the beginning. “If I take a break it won’t get done!” If you burn out it won’t get done either. Take a break.

4. If nothing is working, try what I call bin cleaning/box cleaning. Take a big trash bag and a box. Pick up the first object you see. Step 1: Is it trash? Put it in the trash bag. Step 2: Will you use it in the next 2 days? No? Put it in the box. It’s a problem for Future You. If you’ll use it in the next 2 days, take time to put it away. Rinse and repeat.

5. Did you get distracted and forget what you were doing? Don’t worry about it. Just clean a thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s the thing you were cleaning before. You have to clean lots of things, so just pick a thing and clean it. Eventually you’ll get around to the thing you forgot.

6. If you have to do a thing you really hate, do a thing you like afterwards. I hate doing dishes, but folding laundry soothes me, so that’s a nice one to do afterwards. YMMV. If there are no cleaning things you like that you can do afterwards, see number 3.

7. Make it fun. Play loud music and dance while you’re cleaning. Wear something that makes you feel cute, or if you prefer, something comfy. Light your favorite candle. Whatever.

8. If it’s nice out, open a window. Seriously, it helps.

This is seriously so helpful, thank you.

I put NCIS on the TV – it gives me something to listen to/watch while I’m cleaning, but I don’t care about it enough to care if I miss a minute or two while I’m putting something away in another room.

Also, something I was talking with my therapist about the other day: one of the reasons I find cleaning really difficult is that I value efficiency above all, so every time I think of something I should clean — let’s say the kitchen sink — I think of something I should do before that — move the dirty dishes from the sink to the dishwasher — and something I should do before that — empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher — and so ad infinitum until I get totally overwhelmed. But my therapist pointed out that if I can do something in the short term that makes me feel better even if in some imaginary long term it’s not the most productive way, that’s better than doing nothing. In other words, if the dirty sink is bothering me, there is no reason I can’t just move the dishes out of the sink temporarily, clean the sink, and put the dishes back in. It’s totally inefficient, but at least I have a clean sink.

Oh man, I’m executive-function-deficient as fuck, do I ever relate. My house is always a disaster.

For me, I pick one room. Say, the kitchen. If it doesn’t have anything to do with the kitchen, I put it out of my mind. If the messiness of the kitchen threatens to overwhelm, I just start emptying it without getting sucked into “where does this go, I must return this to its proper spot” because then I’ll get sucked into other rooms and the whole mission imperative will be forgotten. Like, just empty the fucking room out into the next room. Just move it out of the room, even just three feet into the next one, it’s fine. If the sink is full of dishes to the point of making it impossible to wash said dishes, pile ‘em up elsewhere until the sink is empty – really, pile ‘em in the next room, who cares? Then when you’re standing in a room with cleared-off surfaces, clean them. This is very satisfying and will make you feel accomplished. Then go in the next room, bring a few things back in, wash them or put them away or whatever. 

I just do this room by room, temporarily pushing the detritus of one room into the next, cleaning it, then bringing the piles back in and putting them away. Sometimes this ends up with the last room housing random piles of shit that end up kinda staying there for a while … but what the hell, my house will still be cleaner on the whole than when I started so it’s still a win!

Glad I’m not the only one who finds cleaning difficult for reasons that might seem stupid to others.

Start at the door to the room and clean clockwise, one quarter of the room at a time. Don’t leave the room until you’re ¼ done. If something belongs in another room, set it by the door and return it when you get to your ¼ break. This works for my ADHD self.

Get A Kitchen Timer. Mine is in the shape of a small yellow owl. It is my focus friend. Set timer for ten minutes, see how much I can get done in, say, the kitchen in that short amount of time (answer: more than I think. Always more than I think). The only rule is that I may ONLY clean up the kitchen during those ten minutes. Also I find @ufyh (unfuckyourhabitat) here on Tumblr very helpful.

for bras: go to ebay (seriously) type in your cup and a band size as well as price point and GO!

I’ve bought all my bras this way for the last 5 years with no problems. 

As always with shopping on ebay always looking for good ratings. 

I personally don’t like cacique but the ebay market is flooded with them

@fyerfaerie