What do vampires have to do with it?

No, this isn't an analysis of the leitmotif of dominance and submission running through the Twilight series; although, I would be more than happy to spend time, with anyone who's interested, analyzing any number of sci-fi or fantasy works for hidden themes. We could start with the Bene Gesserit: a whole race of powerful women bred and trained to serve the ruling class, while they really pull all the strings from behind the scenes. Lots to ponder there....

But, I did say I would explain how vampires played a pivotal role in my about face from rigidly independent and unyeilding to recognizing the way submission fits for me in my marriage. And it does involve vampires, or at least vampire stories, but perhaps not in any very deep or profound way. In fact, it's much more a story of how I never would have discovered any of this without the internet.

Shortly after the time that I got fed up with myself and turned over control to my husband in all things boudoir, a friend gave me the Twilight series to read. The fact that it's really a teenage romance, not a vampire story, aside, she asked me if I knew of any other vampire series she might like. I gave her the few Anne Rice paperbacks I still had around. The interesteing part started when I went to find the names of the other Anne Rice books that I had read but didn't own. That search reminded me that Rice had also written erotica under other names, and, being curious, I searched on those titles also. The wikipedia description of one, or maybe several, of those stories included the words dominance and submission and BDSM. I had only a vague notion about the first two and no idea what BDSM stood for. So of course, I kept following my curiosity.

The wikipedia page on BDSM included a whole bunch more terms and abbreviations I didn't know. Trying to figure those out took me to the Taken in Hand website, which was waaaay too much information all on one small page, very un-user friendly for the casual drop-in. I did find links to short story writers though, at which point I abandonded my quest for definitions, and just started reading. Needless to say, this particular flavor of stories affected me in new and very different ways. After I worked my way through a few authors, I started following the links on their sites to other sites, and so on and so on. Eventually, I even started looking at actual information again. Some things were starting to make sense.