The Fundamental Paradox of Femdom Fiction (and Slasher Movies)

So I've been watching a lot of B horror movies preparing for Halloween and I just realized: good horror movies have the same problem as really good femdom fiction.  And the same saving grace.


Consider this movie poster:

(Used without permission, just like a college film class might.  I'm not making a buck off the movie, just making an academic point.)

Usually they put the star of the movie on the poster, like a James Bond movie with Bond front and center.  Who's the star of that movie?  Not the "heros", the innocent kids who will somehow find the strength to rise up and defeat a horrible supernatural evil in the final climax.  No, the poster prominently features the "villain", the horrible evil that is running amok.

Why do people go to franchise horror movies?  To see the "heros" win?  Name one kid that survived a Jason movie.  Their faces are never on the poster.  No, folks go to see the "villain".  They go to see how the villain will get the good guys this time, the cool kills or stalking tactics.

So now to get sexy...  why do we read femdom fiction?  To see the plucky male triumph over the mean, teasing, cruel domme?  Or do we read to see how the female is going to "get" the guy this time?  What cool teasing technique is she going to roll out now?

In all femdom fiction, the guy has to be "trapped" somehow.  Some reason he just can't flip the woman the bird and go off to find a loving, blow-job-giving Stepford wife in another city.  A chastity belt with only one key, blackmail photos, a female-led society, maybe a literal chain holding him down, or maybe he's "trapped" by his own desire to be dominated.  No different than running out of gas next to Crystal Lake or getting locked into a house with a serial killer.  If he suddenly finds extra gas and drives to safety and lives happily ever after, that's a pretty shitty horror movie.   

So this leads to a problem for authors like me.  Who is the "hero" of a femdom story?  If it's the dude, then he should win at the end.  But that dispels the femdom situation, which is a bummer.  If it's the woman, then it's like a movie where we're cheering for Jason Voorhies to kill more innocent campers; it doesn't work because we no longer care about the camper's struggles or pain, and thus the kills don't matter.    

Some femdom fiction deals with this paradox by giving the male character an "original sin".  He's too cocky about sleeping around, he's a jerk to women, or he's done something worth getting punished for in the past.  But then we're supposed to root for him?  No, we're obviously going to root for the woman domme.  But as the majority of femdom readers are males, now we're rooting for more of our fellow innocent campers to get killed again? 

Stories need tension.  Two opposing sides striving in opposition to each other.  If a femdom story begins with all women around the world in supreme, unassailable positions over sniveling, beaten males, where's the tension?  But then if a rag-tag group of mountain men overthrow the gynocracy and return life to normal, that's a bummer again.

So there's a needle's eye to thread.  People read femdom stories for "the monster".  You might as well replace the hockey mask in that poster with a chastity belt for most of the fiction I read.  (Actually, I would go see that movie, about a supernatural chastity belt that terrifies a small town or something.)  But we also have to put in a "good" side, guys who we side with so that when his cock gets teased and he's begging for relief, we feel it too, and we want it to end. 

I try to do that in my CFNM and orgasm denial books, have a non-original sin male opposing a cool villain we kind of want to see defeated but not really.  It's a tough balancing act, but when it's done right (see Cabin in the Woods for an incredibly good horror movie example, and my free "The Sissy Sort" story here for a femdom example, I think), it's a sublime victory.

Your thoughts?  Maybe I'm crazy, and femdom stories are more like rom-coms or something.  I watch those around Valentine's day, so stay tuned.

P. F. Dee