Female Dominance - guides to a better sex by Citadel Press - review by Kayla

"Female Dominance" is a Claudia Varrin how-to book. It's intended to be the sequel to "The Sensual Art of Female Dominance". Claudia Varrin writes this and a couple other FemDom books. This book is published by Citadel Press, is softcover, and includes 278 pages split into 17 different chapters. The text is very tiny in this book - it's about the size of your average romance novel. This means this book is going to take you a long time to read. It took me about 10 hours. It was ten hours of my life I'd prefer to take back.

I actually liked "The Sensual Art of Female Dominance". It seemed to explain a lot of points about FemDom that other books don't cover. It seemed a bit prissy and "Female Power!!" at times, but it still was a good resource. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for this book. Maybe it's that I've grown in experience or what, but I just can not recommend this book as an actual how-to guide.

Why? For one, it's just downright boring. Jay Wiseman, while he's a great guy and amazing with safety, usually writes in a boring fashion. This book with Varrin? It's worse. The author tends to babble on about certain points, and something that you feel was explained in the first sentence will last another three paragraphs. When it's not dragging out a point, we're also hearing about side comments about Claudia's life. They don't always apply to the topic at hand which is why this is a downside instead of an upside.

For two, this book is so far all over the place. Like, really. It's not comprehensive really; it's just all over. For example, this book covers bondage and also covers vampirism. (Yes, that's exactly why you bought a FemDom book. To learn to become a vampire.) It covers edge play like fire play and such, but it only devotes a couple paragraphs to it which I think is more dangerous than not mentioning it at all. Some of the things covered here just really needed more information to make it useful.

For another aspect, this book is just wrong. Really. For one, it says that urine is unsafe to drink. That is completely false. Urine is safe to drink "straight from the tap" although you can pick up a person's medication/drugs if you do as such. After sitting around, it does collect bacteria though. For another, it mentions that, as a punishment for a Dominant having her menstrual cycle (which she refuses to call by name. It's referenced as a "moon cycle".), the submissive should be forced to wear a tampon up his butt all day. Goodbye tampon. Hope you never wanted to see the light of day again. That's only a couple of the many examples of wrong information.

Claudia is also very judgmental. Roman Showers (vomiting) is not my cup of tea, but she says you're one "sick perverted person" if you participate in them and that no one would participate of their own free will. Yes, that's really a really accepting way to look at it in a book about tying people up.

Of course, the straw that broke the camel's back is the fact that this reads like an erotica. Not literally, but in the acts that are recommended. This book reads like I'm expected to be living in a 24/7 world where all I do is punish and pay attention to my slave all day long, and that's just not how things work. For example, things that are recommended are things like pulling out his pubic hair if he's been bad and keeping it in a jewelry box to show off. Or, if he's sorting your socks and gets a red sock in the white socks, cut up the sock and force him to eat it - provide a glass of water if you're feeling generous. The things mentioned are just really extreme, and while some people would really enjoy stuff like that, I just feel like they lend themselves better to erotic novels than real-life.

Is this book all bad? No. It does have some good aspects, but I can't, in good conscience, recommend this book to a newbie who will take all of this advice seriously. Varrin seems to be very opinionated, and it shows in the book. Some of the advice is just bad and unsafe, and some of it is extreme. However, if you are an experienced Dominant and want some ideas on how to be more extreme or take your scenes to the next level, it is worth checking out just to draw ideas from.

Of course, I'm sure you're curious what this book includes. It includes: The Domina: Role and Attributes, The Submissive: Role and Attributes, Essential Elements and Irrational Logic, The Loose Ends, Bondage, Cross-Dress for Success, Discipline, Edge Play, Fabulous Fetishists, Fetishes in the Lower Body, Humiliation, The Masochist and the Sadist, Objects of Beauty and Usefulness, Role Playing, Slaves to Sensation, Well-Trained Slaves, Vampirism, Air Water and Body (Watersports and Markings), and Sample Scenes.

If you want to, read this book with a grain of salt. It's so out there that it's hilarious at times, and Claudia Varrin oddly puts on her "I'm better than you" routine for a book directed towards a bunch of female Dominants. This book is only intended for the female Dom/male sub relationship. However, I can not, in good will, recommend this to anyone who actually wants to learn something.

I still really, really dislike this book and can not recommend it to anyone. I actually will go out of my way to let people know not to consider this realistic. I just wish more realism was put into the book.