Transland: Consent, Kink, and Pleasure

by Mx. Sly

A memoir of transformation and self-discovery that explores fetish communities from a gender diverse perspective. 


Transland is a fiery and revealing memoir that explores what happens when a non-binary person goes looking for self-worth and a sense of belonging in fetish subculture, only to find that fetish communities come with just as many problematic rules, expectations, and hierarchies as mainstream ones.


Moving from wide-eyed optimism that the fetish community is the promised land to realizing the ways fetish communities—even queer ones—reinforce the commodification of bodies, Mx. Sly examines how BDSM helped them understand and articulate their gender, how kink helped them turn shameful experiences into liberating ones, and how they became disillusioned with the BDSM scene—without rejecting the lessons fetish taught them. 


The stories in Transland explore PTSD, intergenerational trauma, memory, consent, gender transition and diversity, queer relationships and subculture, and a lot of bondage. An odyssey of kinky hookups (including a charismatic Toronto femdomme, an Aussie rope bondage expert, and the queer sex tourism neighborhood of Bangkok), gender euphoria, and testing the limits of sensual experience, this memoir is a candid exploration of fetish communities and practices and a wandering quest through sensuality toward personal strength and self-reliance. Sexy, gutting, graphic, and existential, Transland is about finding oneself through intense sensations, reaching a point where being hit has diminishing returns, and coming out wiser on the other side.

This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. This book is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Memoir, Transgender, LGBT, Audiobook, Sexuality

247 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 17, 2023

About the author

Mx. Sly is a non-binary writer, theatre creator, and producer. Their first play, Charisma Furs, was published in the anthology Q2Q: Queer Canadian Performance Texts (finalist in the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards). Sly is developing Canada's first gender diverse performance anthology, to be published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2024. They have lived in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Transland is their first book.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

If anything, this memoir is very enlightening when it comes to understanding what the author gets out of the kink community - and it's explicit: It has chapters entitled "Rope Bondage", "Piss Play" and "Fluffer", and it gives you all the details so, ähem, buckle up, because bodily fluids abound. It certainly makes for an interesting peek into the subculture, and it fearlessly dives into questions of self-discovery and self-analysis, which is intriguing.

The literary quality is nothing to write home about though, as the structure produces repetition, unnecessary time jumps, and some lengths, plus I was grappling with parts of the content, mainly the fact that Mx. Sly consistently shows kink and BDSM as a means to work through trauma, evoked both by individual experiences and repercussions of societal structures that are hostile to trans, queer, and non-binary folk. Don't get me wrong, these are very real issues, but didn't we have this discussion when it came to Christian of Fifty Shades of Grey lore and how the story pathologizes sexual preference? Isn't the constant connection of kink and trauma in this text the exact same thing? Even worse: The author declared in an interview that the structure of the book (hence: their overcoming the wish to be a bottom) amounts to a hero's journey. Wow. Sex positive this is not.

I was also surprised how judgemental the author sometimes gets: They're a person who advocates for allowing people to play with, let's say: the most taboo physical excretions during public kink parties, they're masturbating on stages, they're having sex with all kinds of people, but when their friend (!) of many years, a sex worker, politely asks them whether they would work a job with her, they're offended? Why? Is sex work only valid when they can feel above it? And there are more examples of this moral inconsistency.

And while this is a memoir about kink and identity, the text also shows that reducing your self-discovery to fucking is, well, reductive. Being kinky is less interesting of an identity than some people might think, and the book proves it. People are more than their trauma and their sexual preferences, friends are more than fuck buddies, BDSM is more than therapy. I'm not saying that the author doesn't know that, I'm just saying that the text doesn't reflect it. Still, you have to applaud Mx. Sly for their candid observations and ponderings, this is pretty fearless stuff.

[BellaTheUngrateful · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but had to put it down at the 165 page mark.

This author doesn't seem to be aware that trans women exist, despite being nonbinary themself. The number of times that they refer to someone as their gender assigned at birth (despite never seeing into that person's pants...) was shocking. It reflects surprisingly binary thinking, a lack of attention to what matters, and frankly, a lack of imagination (describe the person instead of guessing at what's in their pants! How do they carry themself? What is their voice like? How have they styled their hair?). What finally made me give up on the book was a section describing the inhospitable mining environment in Australia, when they say that the work is treacherous for anyone AFAB. Think for one second. How safe do you think this environment would be for trans women? For nonbinary trans femmes? Or, lets be honest, anyone who isn't a hyper-macho guy?

Two lesser qualms, if anyone read this far: I didn't feel that I learned anything new about kink from this book (subjective) and the prose could use work (objective). Despite ostensibly treating questions of kink, gender and sexuality, this book only really scratches the surface of these three topics.

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of fun, a lot of trauma, a lot of sex and a lot of honesty.
I highly enjoyed this and would recommend it to everyone, but check your triggers before starting.
The author gets into many different kinks and why they work for them. What it can feel like to enjoy them and how it can feel when it's not done well.
Safety, comfort, consent, are just a few of the views we get from Sly.
This is a very open, non judgmental book about various bits of the BDSM world.
I found this new perspective fascinating. Anyone already in the lifestyle, curious about the lifestyle, or just want to know what the lifestyle is can enjoy this.

Much love to NetGalley & ECW Press Audio for my ALC.

[dreamgirlreading · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started off the #transrightsreadathon with Mx. Sly’s memoir called Transland on audiobook narrated by Sebastian Marziala. With such topics as BDSM being taboo, I would definitely recommend this book obviously to adults and suggest each reader check the trigger warnings as there are many mature (as well as dark) topics throughout the entirety of the book. This book is very well written and the audiobook is very well narrated. I listened to this one throughout a work day and was never bored. Mx. Sly jumps right into the sexy time but definitely explores more than just the kink community. Sly describes their journey of finding identity and healing through exploring kink culture and meeting people who introduce them to new experiences that help shape their identity and sense of belonging even more. The non-binary artist delves into how they took their agency and power back after abuse and trauma through BDSM specifically to let go of control and worries, giving them a safe space to live in the moment. Throughout their young adulthood, Sly searches for connection, community, and acceptance. They focus a lot on consent which I really appreciated. It is also interesting to read about their experiences with cis queers and their exclusionary treatment toward trans and bi folks. Overall, I’m grateful for the access to this audiobook and would definitely recommend if it sounds like something you’re interested in. I think the insight from this book could help a lot of queer folks thinking of exploring the kink community themselves.

[kavreb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pinging between five stars and three, I decided to finally go with four, not just because it’s the number between those two, but because I want to value the existence of this book, even if I did find myself way too often cringing my way through yet another thing I couldn’t enjoy reading quite as much as the author probably did writing.

[Edit 11.2.25: Decided to change the rating to 3 because it does actually speak closer to what my feeling were about the book (it only took me half a year to understand that). I still think there is some great stuff here, but there's also a worrying lack of self-awareness and a tedious preference for repetition. I do want there to be more books like this, but I'd also like them to be better than this.]

Mainly it’s the sex. “Sexy!” yells the back cover, and yet every time another sex scene began, I repressed a yawn as I got ready for some boredom before getting back to the stuff that wanted me to award the book maximum marks.

And it’s not just that many of the things that turn the author on seem to differ from me, but even the sex scenes that should hit the spot just felt boring. The disgust I felt for many of the things described I can even look past because that’s part of the point - to understand that what turns you on may disgusts others, and hence if the disgust you have for others comes from just an unreasonable moral standpoint (aka there’s nothing truly exploitative about it), it’s something to get over, not implement steps against, or even criticise really (even if there were moments where I really-really wanted to criticise - but Mx Sly could do the same were I to pick up my pen and write down everything that has ever meaningfully turned me on). Instead, it's better to try to understand, and to accept, both in others and ourselves.

Perhaps it’s just that reading clinical descriptions of sex, even when expressed so enthusiastically and almost spiritually as they are here, just don’t interest me. Even if the sex scenes do usually build into some kind of a larger point, I found far more interesting the parts of the book where they were describing the ins and outs of the kink and queer scenes (and revealing the injustice, prejudice and exploitation that still exists amongst people who themselves are part of a niche that others are highly prejudiced against), and where Sly was describing their gender journey and their interactions with the people in their lives, both friends, sex partners and family. A dialogue near the end of the penultimate chapter hit me so hard that I just took the headphones off (as I was listening to an audiobook version of it) and looked around the park where I happened to be sitting (with my dog) and just thought and thought about my own life and experience with abuse and what it has meant for me and how it still affects me.

And then I put my headphones on, turned on the book, and Sly said another thing that made me cringe. Because there’s two additional things that bothered me:

First, Sly seems to be more on the spiritual side, and as they use sex (and kink especially) as therapy, every noteworthy sexual encounter seems to be an act equivalent to Archimedes running naked out of the bath (wouldn’t be the only person naked), and the greatest, most transcendent thing they’ve ever witnessed (it gets a bit repetitive by the third or fourth time, and by the end Sly themself is questioning how one person can have so many epiphanies; though they consider themself lucky for it). The spirituality really got a bit too much for me honestly (furthermore undermining the final chapter), both as an atheist and as a somewhat timid person who prefers their exclamations more subdued.

And secondly, by the end of the book it’s clear that they have some travelling left to do when it comes to the themes of the book. Part of me almost wishes that the book was written a few years later, maybe even a decade, so that they could look at this time with more awareness and empathy and just more knowledge, perhaps with an answer to the things that are still troubling them at the end of the book (for one they haven’t really dealt with the shame and uncertainty they feel with their body’s favourite wank material, plus the complicated dynamics of their latest relationship that I can’t help but feel like I’m witnessing the unravelling of in writing). (Though I guess if it was written later, what would be written before it? Something had to be the first …)

And for me, the final chapter, after the power of the previous two, felt weirdly light, in a way; and as a person who doesn’t party, ending on a big party that is presented like it’s the most important thing in the world (yet again) just felt off.

But here I go again, complaining about things that probably say more about me than the author. There’s no denying that there’s something beautiful there as well, and the final chapter certainly is looking to end the book on a point that feels more final and, what’s more, hopeful. Because to end where the previous chapter ends, yikes.

But it doesn’t. And the journey doesn’t end either. All our lives will end sooner or later, but our journeys go through deep down and high ups, and there are so many wonderful and gorgeous things described in this book, that even when I think back of the things that bothered me, I can’t be too unkind about them. I’ll rant them to get them out, but I also value what the book is saying and doing, and I’m glad that it exists. Just like Mx Sly.

Now off to watch Drag Race Thailand season 2, I guess.

[Carrie Templeton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using Mx. Sly’s own words: awe and anger, yin and yang. This memoir is poetic and tragic and hopeful and full of sadness and love. A dive into their queer mind- with trauma, desire for community, reality of society, and the escapism and fulfillment found in kink. Sly’s words are absolutely stunning and gut wrenching, and without a doubt will help other queer folks feel a little less alone as they navigate a world that so often invalidates their existence.

[Tara Cignarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Format Read: Ebook from NetGalley (Available now)
Review: This is a very told, heartbreak and sexual story. Be sure to check the triggers. The author isn’t shy. I enjoyed the emotional parts and the parts about how the author and those she knows approached life as a transgender person. The sex scene sure were interesting but they soon took over the book and there were just too many.
Recommended For: Those who want a sex kink filled memoir.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook provided by Net Galley.

I'm not the biggest fan of applying star ratings to memoirs; so just know that. Also I have incredibly low libido so the significance of some parts were probably lost on me...ANYWAY-

While I believe all stories have a right to be told, I am not sure if this memoir was told in a way that makes it tangible to as many people as it otherwise would have been had it had some editing to exclude certain scenes - though maybe me with my disinterest in other people's sexual experiences just means I'm not the ideal audience for this book. Which is FINE. That being said I definitely saw the purpose of most moments included so don't assume I'm just being prudish here.

Both outside of and during these sexual retellings there was a lot of solid commentary on questionable allyship, the importance of consent, and having to compromise for others due to inexperience and trauma that may arise in even consensual spaces.

It was sad how overall taxing their dating and sex life were/are as a result of existing as both a nonbinary individual and someone reliant on kink (instead of vanilla sex) for proper stimulation; at least, that is how I read it, but they had such patience when it came to these moments that it did keep me engaged in their story instead of completely burned out showing true perseverance despite it all.

Overall an interesting enough first hand account of how one can work through various things through controlled spaces where control can at times appear nonexistent.

[achilles · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I was provided a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest review.)

It was a beautifully written and tender exploration of queer sex, kink culture, and queer identity. It was not only great to read about queer sex but also an eye-opening read in terms of self exploration as a queer trans person myself. Mx. Sly opens up about their most intimate expereinces described in very personal and enchantingly beautiful ways. I've had my prejudices about some kinks before, but reading about their expereinces and thoughts about it did make me reconsider many things and come to better conclusions.

Please check the trigger warnings before reading this book as it goes into detail about many things. I would very much advise reading it if you would like to see conversations around kink, pleasure, consent, and queerness.

[maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was absolutely amazing. it continuously made me feel seen in so many different ways. I am very grateful to have been given such an intimate look into someone's past and mind. I will have to get a copy for myself to keep and reread again in the future

[Lancakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really really fucking beautiful writing about ugly fucking.

[Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved Sly’s descriptions of what subspace feels like, feels pretty similar to my own experiences. Very interesting memoir to read, as a kinky trans masc Canadian myself.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had my moments with this, but frequently left wanting more.... and not in a sexy way....... ://

[Kathyana Carvajal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The intensity of that need - to have something we can control and to have someone who will help us maintain that control - means that sometimes, we queer people ask too much of the people we love most."

[Dagger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this more than I did.

The actual topics Sly gets into (kink as a medium for relationships and personal transformation, estrangement from well-meaning family, struggling freelance artist careers, violations of consent by respected community figures, etc etc) are things I’m both very interested in and very familiar with from personal and professional experience. I can say that Sly’s depiction of them is solid and rings true, down to the details, and for anyone looking to learn more about those experiences, this book is a good option. In particular, their recounting of an experience of consent violation and the subsequent social fallout is nuanced, compelling, and a genuinely exciting and upsetting read.

That said, the prose style is clumsy and weird — often repetitive; peppered with awkward similes and forced motifs that distract from, rather than illuminate, what’s going on; and prone to jumping around in time in a way that seems intended to be flashy and fun but mostly means we need a minute to catch up. I think the book could be about 20% shorter without cutting a single scene.

My biggest issue is Sly’s unrelentingly judgmental attitude toward virtually everyone they interact with, and the seeming total lack of self-awareness with which they judge others for things they do themselves. Over and over they dismiss people around them as binary, cisgender, and therefore oblivious to something important, while expressing frustration that they themselves are incorrectly perceived as a cis woman and their partner as a cis man — apparently without considering that other people in the room might also be experiencing trans and nonbinary invisibility. (See, for example, the scene in a popular queer nightclub toward the end of the book.) They cast family members, lovers, and acquaintances as either all good because they intuitively understand and validate Sly, or utterly in the wrong because they disagree on something complicated (like how to handle a younger family member’s discomfort talking about sex, or what one can expect of sex workers who have accepted a paid gig). We hear constantly about how other people’s missteps, both intentional and born of misunderstanding, make Sly feel invalidated and angry, but Sly doesn’t share a single instance of behavior that they regret. Much of the dialogue is infomercial-level awkward, seemingly shaped to be as reasonable and evolved as possible. By the end of the memoir I felt like I was reading a self-congratulatory account of someone’s formative grievances, rather than a memoir of actual growth and honest reflection.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

i micro dosed this audiobook over a period of MONTHS! I love and cherish this book so so much!!! this book is beautiful, raw, gritty, beautiful! but intense and so well written (check your triggers)

[Leanne Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really intimate look into Sly’s life and how they use/ used kink to unravel their trauma. I really enjoyed their narrative style, though the timeline in how they jumped around did get confusing for me. They did get very poetic about their experiences which sometimes was a bit overkill for me but overall the metaphors and language they used did tickle my brain (in a good way). Would love to read more from them.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. Kink is just so unbelievably beautiful.

This is an amazing memoir. It tackles A Lot and there's a lot of pain, but also a lot of healing.

Definitely recommend. I found the ebook and audiobook on Hoopla.

Check those content warnings. The author provides them in the back of the book.

[Kasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely pay close attention to the TW given at the beginning of the book. I really enjoyed the writing of this book -- it's thoughtful and intense. I learned a lot about kink and the way that Sly approaches their gender, body, sex, kink, and boundaries.

[Hannah Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. It felt like the author was speaking from my own brain and heart. Absolutely devastating and wonderful. Excited to discuss this at book club and eventually read it again.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

sexy prose & vulnerable insights. this is a brave and beautiful book!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I was provided with a free copy of this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

4.5/5

I found the stories told in this memoir to be eye opening and thought provoking, giving me an insight into experiences and lifestyles I know very little about. I loved how I could view these experiences as an outsider while seeing parallels with my own life and shared experiences and feelings as a trans/NB person

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst this is very readable, I felt it lacked scope and insight. I felt that the events described were throwaway sequences that didn't have any particular meaning to the overall narrative. I often wondered what the purpose of this book was? The writing was not embellished enough to be literary fiction but I felt like it lacked the substance to be plain non-fiction. I guess I'm frustrated because I felt like the beginning was so promising.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

time to leave a review!
I have mixed feelings. on one hand, being able to learn about the world of kink from the words of someone with firsthand experience was exciting, and I'm glad Mx Sly was able to publish this. their writing was very clear and informative. I enjoyed when they would get visually poetic with different descriptions of pleasure and submission.
however, there were many parts of this book that I felt, as somebody who has known she's queer for a long time, that relayed information to me that I already knew. I can see these sections being more helpful to somebody who's not as well versed in trans/non-binary issues and their world. this book was a mixed bag-- I learned a lot, but at the same time, got a lot of stuff I already knew thrown back at me.
overall, I'm glad I picked it up and gave it a chance!

[Ally · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mx. Sly, if for some unlikely reason you come across this, please stop with this paragraph, thank you for all the work you put into this & please keep making things & I wish you success and health and happiness.

I hate disliking memoirs, and I especially hate disliking memoirs by trans folks, and I really hate disliking memoirs by trans folks with small circulations. It makes me feel mean. I really hoped I would come around on this one by the end, especially since there are flashes of brilliance in the writing early on. There’s an early scene where some play with a chain (the physics of which I couldn’t totally follow, but it was wonderfully lyric and I didn’t mind) gives the narrator a sensation of having a body that’s more right for them - a half-dozen more moments like that and I might have been able to overlook the rest.

The narrator of a memoir isn’t the author; I don’t know anything about the author and authors are often very different from their authorial voices. The narrator, though, is who the reader spends time with, and the narrator is a terrible person. They don’t seem to ever think kindly of anyone. They have a stunning number of petty hangups (like “millenials” and coloring books for grownups). They’re very comfortable speaking on behalf of other people - from describing the subjective experience of trans women to explaining “why queer people love drag” to portraying Thailand sex tourism as liberatory to declaring what a particular kink means for anyone that engages in it. They mind-read all over everyone they meet.

They’re deeply offended when their SW partner & friend makes a joke about them doing SW, and again deeply offended when she gently offers an actual gig. Instead of politely declining, they lecture her about how consent ought to play into her job. They initiate a degradation scene with her that gets particularly vicious, and they see that they have hurt her beyond what she signed up for, but they don’t talk about it with her and they offer no aftercare.

At a family gathering, they talk about the details of their kink experiences with a naive 20-year-old who reads to me as having a developmental disability (though that’s not stated directly). They’re deeply offended when the 20-year-old’s sister lets them know they made the 20-year-old scared and uncomfortable (“but she consented!”), and they immediately turn the conversation to their own trauma. (Their defense is “why should I look out for her when no one saved me from CSA?”)

They ooze disdain for their transfeminine partner, Kyle. They’re pretending to be more into the relationship than they actually are - which is a major problem because they’ve moved to the opposite side of the world together. Kyle asks for she/her pronouns early on but the narrator doesn’t start using them until she asks again some time later. The narrator tells the reader what Kyle’s experience of the world is. We never see how they learn this information, it’s conveyed with some moderately TERFy discomfort about their “male privilege”, and it rings false in the way you’d expect from someone without much empathy talking about experiences they haven’t had. Particularly gross to me is that the book is structured as a hero’s journey, and the hero’s triumphant return / passing of the torch is when they help to facilitate a gender revelation for Kyle. I'm doubtful that this New Year's Eve moment was actually a moment of gender revelation and expect it was more likely a moment where Kyle gets fed up with her gender not being taken seriously by her partner - a key motivation for a trans femme to move to Australia in particular would be to access the higher quality trans healthcare there. (It was not at all surprising to read in an essay by the author in Archer from June of this year that they hadn’t been together for some time, and also not surprising that a large part of the essay is spent describing Kyle’s medical situation in an oversharing and barbed way. Holy Cybele, if the authorial voice actually is a close representation of the author in this case, I really hope Kyle can extract herself from cohabitating with this person SOON AF.)

Some of the descriptions of the sensations of the narrator during a kink scene are really lovely. But when they interact with other people? Their inability to empathize, the way they use their traumatic childhood experiences to justify a self-absorption that borders on sociopathy, and their rigid thinking makes me want to throw the book across the room.

This is a book called Transland whose front cover copy says it’s about consent and kink.

But this is not any kind of Transland: there are only two trans characters with speaking roles including the narrator, plus a walk-on appearance from a couple Drag Race Thailand contestants, plus a brief description of a person that the narrator labels non-binary with no evidence beyond visual inspection, with no trans community visible. The narrator’s treatment of gender and sexuality is fairly ignorant - over and over the narrator claims to know someone’s assigned gender at birth, and whether they’re straight, on sight from across a crowded room - there’s no possible way they’re guessing correctly all the time, especially in kink communities! Our glimpses of the narrator’s evolving relationship to gender are interesting, but not particularly examined. And there’s a fair amount of generic gender politics speechifying that’s uninsightful, abstracted from the narrative, and boring.

And this is not much of a book about consent. Throughout the book consent is treated as a very simple binary state that’s unambiguous to everyone involved. None of its nuances are examined. The narrator kind of sucks at consent, mitigated by the fact that they usually avoid initiating anything.

Kink is treated with more depth, but most of the analysis is still pretty shallow - one example is how the narrator treats kink identities (like bottom or little) as obvious, innate, and fixed without ever examining that. The play-by-play is occasionally hot, but every sexual experience is either life-changingly revelatory or traumatic, with none of the silliness or boredom or mild frustration or small satisfactions or playfulness or confusing mixed emotions that make up so much of actual sex and kink. (There’s maybe one exception in an adult coloring book scene, but the narrator labels that interaction as non-sexual. I’m not sure I’d agree, even if it wasn’t sexually satisfying for either person?)

A few chunks of this book appeared many years before in essay form in Xtra, and the writing is much sharper there - the fat is trimmed, there’s no gimmicky timeline games, the voice claims less unearned authority over other people’s experience. The writing is so much less *defensive*.

I think this last bit, that defensiveness, tells me something about why I’m so repulsed by this book. The narrator is so wrapped up in their own need to be respected and safe, so wrapped up in past trauma, that they can’t see the people around them. They can’t empathize with the reader enough to keep their storytelling clear and effectively execute their timeline-hopping. They can’t see their own actions, can’t reckon with their own capacity to help and hurt others. People in that state are dangerous. People are at their most evil when they’re consumed by their pain. They’re incapable of opening themselves up enough for kindness, generosity, doubt, humility. They’re prone to violence. I was on edge spending the book with them, and frightened for the people around them. It was a lot like watching/reading _You_ except that I didn’t sign up for the dynamic and I doubted that the book was doing it on purpose.

Maybe if I was, myself, less wrapped up in my hurt, less defensive, I could extend the narrator more grace, could feel safe enough on the other side of the page from them that I could receive more of what they’re offering. Maybe I could move past their myopia more easily - after all, won’t most any memoir incline toward self-absorption? (Maybe that’s why I tend to prefer fiction and non-memoir non-fiction, which attract authors who have practice trying to reach beyond their own experience?) But I wanted to spend time with someone more self-aware, a narrator more sensitive to the people around them, a narrator capable of relating to a reader, a narrator present enough in their life that I could trust their insights. I couldn’t move past it, this time. And that was the gift that this book offered me, in the end: a chance to examine in what ways my own fears might constrain my own kindness.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

First off, absolutely heed the trigger/content warnings if you need them, because this memoir is EXPLICIT. That's not a bad thing, I don't think- it's true to the writer's own life, and in a work that is about sex and kink and how the experience and performance of those things is both heavily informed by trauma and a way of working out said trauma, dulling down and softening those experiences is untrue and disrespectful to a lived life.

This book, broadly, is 'kink as trauma processing' and written so very beautifully, so real and raw I as someone who only listens to audiobooks while driving wanted to spend more time in the parking lot or driving around to just keep pressing the story into my own skin. The non-linear format really works as that's how memories and experiences shape us! And any time jumps make sense in context.

Transland was masterfully performed by Sebastian Marziali (they/them) and at first I was surprised because I'm so used to self-narrated memoirs, but THEN I was surprised because the performance is SO GOOD, it feels as if the person reading is the person who really experienced all of these things, from the most transcendent pleasure to the most uncomfortable familial conversations.

I've listened to a lot of hard memoirs this year, a lot of really great memoirs performed fantastically but this... this is definitely up there.

Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press Audio for the ALC, and honestly the whole country of Canada for providing funding and support for artists to be able to create works like this, and the art and theater spaces that Mx Sly references and is currently part of.

[Celah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I think, often, queer nonfiction has this sort of overhanging cloud of pressure on representing the whole queer community, which can lessen the power that comes from specificity in literature. The author and narrator of this book is not necessarily as concerned with being good or perfect representation of queerness as they are with telling their story well, something I find moving and effective. There are certainly things we can criticize about how they handle scenarios, or describe their impressions/thoughts of how queer people function in the world--for example, they describe a certain industry as being unsafe for "AFAB" people despite later showing that the same industry is unsafe for a trans femme person as well. The book, however, is not a doctrine on Universal Queer Truths. It is this person's story, and I do find that the honesty, self-reflection, and transience of their development, as well as their willingness to explore their own flaws, mistakes, and misjudgements, is more important than being perfectly balanced between the various experiences of queerness.

[Katy]

I read this over Folsom weekend and I thought it would have a lot more in common with [my experience of] Folsom than it did. Overall, despite the title, there was very little pleasure in the book itself. Language is always evolving, especially vis-a-vis queer and gendernonconforming identities, but the numerous AFAB/AMABs in the book made me wince. It's an offensive and binary way to refer to people. The prose was often confusing and too conversational. Stories that would make sense in conversation don't actually always make sense on the page. I really wanted to like this book because of the urgency and timeliness of the topics, and the honesty and bravery of the author, but I think it needed more editing.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

i’m not trying to punch down here but i think we should all be suspicious of the contemporary urge to retool kink & play as some sort of therapeutic modality. IMO the constant reframe of s/m as inherently "healing" is just another sinister tentacle of respectability politics. not everything has to mean a second thing 🤨

save your time and read some Avgi Saketopoulou and/or 90s leatherdyke erotica instead

[Sage · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Its as if looking for the meaning of my life through sex has become my part time profession." Really brave to write and publish something like this so I feel a little guilty digging in to it but that is still what i come here to do lol. The voyeur in me really enjoyed this memoir tho I didn't always like or agree with the author and their perspectives.
There was a certain oppression Olympics vibes and millennial posturing i find obnoxious and a lot of discourse about kink and trauma that felt complicated and perhaps a little fraught, implying that of course they love bdsm because all they've ever known is pain in intimate relationships but ~those~ cis het girls who are into bdsm are so sad because they're just recreating their own trauma and falling prey to yucky men in the scene- which Sly certainly also was at times to but the holier than thou & my trauma is different was a lot. Its giving internalized misogyny meets transmasc frustration.
Really thinking about the scene in which Sly worries abt transphobia after their domme's bff brings a nameless transmasc fluffer to the club and they feel their domme's desire to perhaps recieve similar dynamic attention from them in that way tho its not explicitly stated but they compare it to frat bros saying my buddy is getting a blow job so shouldn't I be getting one to, and then they respond by asking to verbally berate her in their scene with misogynistic slurs until she breaks down. Its feeling like oppression as a zero sum game its feeling like oh ur only seeing me as my gender let me attack urs in a very public way? Really complicated and fraught and sad :( not really dug into by the author or worked thru between the sub & domme either despiteknowing each other for yrs and continuing to play unscripted intense scene together? Wild. Also their relationship to sex work as great for u but how dare u imply I might be interested in it too felt a lil icky idk...
Certainly an interesting and entertaining read! Would love to hear what others who've read this have thought abt it!