Special
» BDSM in Popular Culture
From a sympathetic review of John Keates play about married female domination, Special:
In Special, the fantasy roles of bondage, pain, punishment and submission seem to have no place in a relationship that confounds us with its ordinariness. Though we know S&M happens, we like to keep it at arm’s length. The dominatrix, for example, is usually reduced to a kind of caricature Miss Whiplash so that she can be easily separated from “normal” women. By forcing us to face the sight of a functional, articulate, happily married woman taking pleasure from walking on her husband’s testicles wearing stilettos, Keates leaves us feeling conflicted.