"Dog Breath" by Dafney Dewitt. The author prefaces this story with the following disclaimer: "The intent of this story is to elicit disgust and poke fun at stories featuring humiliation and submission by using a soap opera type melodrama to help maintain the suspense. If you finish this story feeling just a little queasy, if you have a sudden desire to brush your teeth, then this story has accomplished its purpose." The author carries off this parody beautifully.

The gist of the story is that the heroine of the story hears voices that tell her that in order to obtain sexual fulfillment she must, among other things, jerk the dog off and swallow his cum. A serious cliffhanger moment arises when she has to kiss her husband - the urine on her sleeve is innocuous, but she is afraid that her husband will slip her the tongue and discover that she has dog breath. This may sound goofy; but parodies are SUPPOSED to sound goofy - it's the parallelism between the goofy and more serious events that gives a parody its punch. This is a very good parody.

Let me preface these next few paragraphs by saying that I do NOT think that everyone who reads or writes a bdsm story or who practices a variation of bdsm is necessarily a loony or a danger to society. My problem is that I sometimes read stories that appear to me to be just as grotesque as this one; but they are not parodies - I'm supposed to take them seriously. For example, I may read a story in which a man inflicts pain on a woman in such a way that my common sense tells me that she is experiencing degradation very similar to that described in this story. As I read it, I say to myself, "This is weird. The author must be kidding." I look for a disclaimer, and there's no indication that the author is kidding; the writer really seems to believe that people can express love by giving and receiving degradation. My reaction is that such a story is not very realistic.

Occasionally one of the authors will write to me after I post a review. The message will essentially tell me that I "have a problem" with bdsm. I have missed the point; the people in the story really love each other. {Or women really enjoy getting raped or being pissed on or whatever it is that I didn't understand.} These people usually assure me that they are sane and productive members of society, and I believe that assertion. My question is why do they assume that I am the one who has a problem?

Note that if I knew the lady in this story in real life, I would assume that she was seriously dysfunctional. If she asked my advice, I would suggest she see a counselor. She is not leading a productive alternative lifestyle. She needs to get her act together. My problem is that the characters in some of the stories are just as dysfunctional, but readers are supposed to assume (without any further evidence) that their behavior is a realistic depiction of what normal people do.

I may be arrogant, but it is my belief that the AUTHOR has the responsibility to express ideas in such a way as to communicate a story to his/her audience. The stories to which I give relatively low ratings for lack of realism (usually stories that involve bdsm, water sports, rape, or pedophile behavior) are usually written in such a way that INSIDERS will enjoy them. In other words, a person will enjoy the story if he or she already believes that it is productive to express love by torturing a partner or who thinks that kids who are molested by adults normally experience no ill effects. However, I review the stories as what I'll call a "mainstream" reader of erotica. If the authors want to include people like myself (and that's a lot of readers on this newsgroup), then it seems to me that it is THEIR responsibility to help the rest of us understand why the story is realistic rather than silly.

In other words, the author of the present story shouldn't have had to tell me that this was satire. As I read the story, I should have been able to say, this is so silly that he must be kidding!

Please note that I DO frequently give high ratings to bdsm, water-sports, rape, pedophile, etc. stories. This happens not only when they are parodies (as in this case) but also when the authors present the story in such a way that a non-insider like myself can see the point. I appreciate those stories and I find that I not only enjoy them - I also grow by reading them. My suggestion here is that authors whose stories are based on counterintuitive premises should assume the burden of communicating their stories realistically to the rest of us. That's part of being a good author.