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Sex with Shakespeare: Here's Much to Do with Pain, but More with Love
A provocative, moving, kinky, and often absurdly funny memoir about Shakespeare, love, obsession, and spanking
When it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her—until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the story of how the Bard’s plays helped her embrace her unusual sexual identity and find a love story of her own.
Four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, Keenan’s smart and passionate memoir brings new life to his work. With fourteen of his plays as a springboard, she explores the many facets of love and sexuality—from desire and communication to fetish and fantasy. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Keenan unmasks Helena as a sexual masochist—like Jillian herself. In Macbeth, she examines criminalized sexual identities and the dark side of “privacy.” The Taming of the Shrew goes inside the secret world of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, while King Lear exposes the ill-fated king as a possible sexual predator. Moving through the canon, Keenan makes it abundantly clear that literature is a conversation. In Sex with Shakespeare, words are love.
As Keenan wanders the world in search of connection, from desert dictatorships to urban islands to disputed territories, Shakespeare goes with her —and provokes complex, surprising, and wildly important conversations about sexuality, consent, and the secrets that simmer beneath our surfaces.
When it came to understanding love, a teenage Jillian Keenan had nothing to guide her—until a production of The Tempest sent Shakespeare’s language flowing through her blood for the first time. In Sex with Shakespeare, she tells the story of how the Bard’s plays helped her embrace her unusual sexual identity and find a love story of her own.
Four hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, Keenan’s smart and passionate memoir brings new life to his work. With fourteen of his plays as a springboard, she explores the many facets of love and sexuality—from desire and communication to fetish and fantasy. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Keenan unmasks Helena as a sexual masochist—like Jillian herself. In Macbeth, she examines criminalized sexual identities and the dark side of “privacy.” The Taming of the Shrew goes inside the secret world of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism, while King Lear exposes the ill-fated king as a possible sexual predator. Moving through the canon, Keenan makes it abundantly clear that literature is a conversation. In Sex with Shakespeare, words are love.
As Keenan wanders the world in search of connection, from desert dictatorships to urban islands to disputed territories, Shakespeare goes with her —and provokes complex, surprising, and wildly important conversations about sexuality, consent, and the secrets that simmer beneath our surfaces.
331 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 26, 2016
80 people are currently reading
1813 people want to read
About the author
Jillian Keenan
1 book102 followersI'm thrilled to join Goodreads! Please bear with me while I learn the ropes.
I'm a freelance writer based in New York. I've written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Slate, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, National Geographic News, The Daily Beast, Al Jazeera America, Scientific American, Pacific Standard, Playboy, The Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. My work has been discussed by The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Al Jazeera English, BBC World Service, Jezebel, Huffington Post Live, Vox, Vice, The Week, and more.
As a foreign correspondent, I've reported from Somalia, Kazakhstan, Niger, the Philippines, Burundi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Madagascar, and Cuba. My photography has been published in The Washington Post and Foreign Policy. (Marion Ettlinger took the portrait I'm using as my avatar.)
My first book, SEX WITH SHAKESPEARE, will be released by HarperCollins/William Morrow in April 2016. It is available for pre-order at this link: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Shakespeare....
I'm a freelance writer based in New York. I've written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Slate, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, National Geographic News, The Daily Beast, Al Jazeera America, Scientific American, Pacific Standard, Playboy, The Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. My work has been discussed by The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Al Jazeera English, BBC World Service, Jezebel, Huffington Post Live, Vox, Vice, The Week, and more.
As a foreign correspondent, I've reported from Somalia, Kazakhstan, Niger, the Philippines, Burundi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Madagascar, and Cuba. My photography has been published in The Washington Post and Foreign Policy. (Marion Ettlinger took the portrait I'm using as my avatar.)
My first book, SEX WITH SHAKESPEARE, will be released by HarperCollins/William Morrow in April 2016. It is available for pre-order at this link: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Shakespeare....
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 177 reviews
May 31, 2016
This is a modified version of the review that originally appeared on my blog, Shoulda Coulda Woulda Books.
Time on to-read list: A few months
Reason for hesitating to pick up (in the form of an internal monologue): "Ooh, that interview was great, I really want to read that, on the list it goes! Oh wait.... won't that make me look weird for wanting to read that? I don't know.. maybe it's all really narcissistic and stupid anyway... I'll wait... I'll wait. Oh wait, there it is at the bookstore. No wait, too embarrassed to pick it up. Maybe next time. Next time."
Reason for finally picking up (Part II of monologue): "....fuck it, I'm getting it this time. Gonna start reading it while I'm waiting to go to dinner.... *half an hour passes* Damn. Oh man, what time is it? I have to get this- must finish. Plans CANCELLED. Not even the checkout lady's loud, weirded out announcement of 'Sex with Shakespeare'?!?! is going to deter me, nope, nope, but thanks for that anyway, lady. Taking this home now and-*reads for rest of the night obsessively*"
Verdict: This is why book-shaming sucks. This book was wonderful. At least it was for me. I hope, below, you can see if it might be for you, too.
(Caveat: Before I even start, if you're here looking for just sexy Shakespeare roleplay or fanfic, look elsewhere. That's not what this book is, so I'm going to save you some time and send you off in more profitable directions right now. Everyone else, let's dive in!)
***
Sex with Shakespeare is Jillian Keenan’s memoir of growing up and trying to form an identity, and the deep external and, most agonizingly, the deep internal resistance she encounters in this attempt. Keenan’s struggle, however, focuses especially on her sexual identity as what is commonly referred to as a “spanko,”** a person for whom being spanked is the highest possible sexual gratification, if not the only sexual gratification possible. She differentiates early and often between people who have a “kink” of liking to be spanked occasionally as part of generalized BDSM play and people who have a “fetish” for spanking, which she defines as people for whom spanking comes first and sex comes a very very distant second. Keenan calls sex a “dessert”, an optional thing that is nice, but as she says, “if I had to give up sex-all kinds of sex-or spanking, I’d flush sex like a drug smuggler ditching his stash in an airport bathroom. My fetish isn’t something I do. It’s something I am.”
As you might imagine, Keenan encounters more than a few problems growing up as she becomes more and more aware of her fetish, and just how central it is to her core identity. (And she’s got a rough enough childhood situation to contend with without this situation, to be honest.) But luckily, she’s got a pal with her on this journey, one she was lucky enough to meet early: Will Shakespeare. Each chapter focuses on how a different play of Shakespeare’s helps Keenan process a different moment in her life. This can range from an academic discussion of ways to interpret Shakespeare's verse to wonderfully hallucinogenic, personal conversations Keenan has with Shakespeare's characters, who dispense advice to her like older sisters, best friends, demanding mentors, bro-tastic frat boyfriends or offer her ambiguous, helplessly tempting words that could transform her or destroy her, according to her interpretation of them.
This truly wonderful device should be recognizable to anyone who loves literature to this same obsessive degree. It’s the most direct demonstration I’ve ever seen of one of my favorite passages by one of my favorite writers, where he says, “Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head.” *** Keenan is able to get through each day because these characters swoop in and save her in a variety of pensive, soul-searching, comedic, tragic or tragi-comedic circumstances. Again and again, these were my favorite parts of the book. One example of her analysis comes with Macbeth, as she processes through the nature of trying to develop an identity and fit within the fabric of life, faced with someone in her life who is lying to himself in a way even more extreme than she is, a friend with a girlfriend who is against gay marriage that she finds, unexpectedly, in a gay bar in Singapore:
"Macbeth is a play about doubles. But there is a twist.
In Shakespeare's tragedies, the hero (or antihero) often has a double, or a voice-a secondary character who speaks for the main character, linking him to the real world and to the audience. Marjorie Garber describes these sidekicks as "someone on the stage who encounters things and verifies that what seems impossible or unbearable is, nonetheless, true." In Hamlet, Horatio fills that role: at the end of the play, Horatio is the one who promises to tell Hamlet's story. In King Lear, that voice is Edgar...
Macbeth's obsession with equivocation speaks to this idea of double voices. The word equivocation itself comes from the Latin oequivocus, which means "of equal voice". In Macbeth, where even the fundamental premise of the play demands verification- are the witches real, or merely a product of Macbeth's imagination?- that double voice is more important than ever. At first, Banquo fills the the role of the double. He links Macbeth to the audience. We know Banquo saw the sisters too. Unlike the dagger that Macbeth sees, or imagines, before he kills Duncan, Banquo's voice verifies that these sisters do exist.
But Macbeth has a tragedy that sets it apart from every other Shakespeare tragedy: Macbeth mrders his voice. Mad with fear that Banquo's heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth has Banquo killed. After that, our antihero is on his own. There is no one left to verify what is real and what is not. In fact, the night after Banquo dies is the very last time we see Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, who previously had the strongest marriage in Shakespeare canon, speak to each other. When Macbeth's voice dies, everything else disappears, too. Macbeth is alone.
He can't survive that way. No one can.
And the hallucinogenic voices, beyond even the analysis, come to her aid at even more desperate times, like when she doesn’t tries to process something beyond kink, something even more threatening to her that she can’t name:
Cleopatra was standing at the foot of the bed. "Where's David?" I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied coolly.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Why had David left? I sighed.
“Cleo, is Antony’s love for you just an Oedipal thing?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business,” Cleopatra snapped. “If you want to know why David is attracted to you, ask him yourself. Stop displacing your fear onto us.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not ‘displacing’ my feelings onto you,” I replied. “I’m processing them through you. That’s how people experience literature.”
Cleopatra scoffed. “Are you sure there isn’t something more?” she asked. “Something you’re unwilling to face?”
I bristled. “Hey,” I said, pointing my finger at her. “I faced it. I was honest with David about that shit from the beginning.”
Cleopatra’s lip curled in contempt. “Good grief, I’m not talking about your ‘kink’,” she said. “This incessant whining doesn’t impress me at all.”
There were angry shouts upstairs. I slid off the bed. “Is there a point to any of this?” Cleopatra pressed, her voice rising to a yell. “Or are you just wasting our time?"
And again and again at the most compelling moments of her life, Shakespeare’s characters appear to offer her understanding, judgment, laughter and temptation. (The best one comes later and is too much of a climatic moment for me to reveal it, but it’s a great and fitting crescendo.) The endless hours that Keenan has obviously spent studying Shakespeare until he became an extension of her thought and her body, until she can reach for him without effort and feel his lines flowing through her body with such natural ease makes that it makes her use of him both touching and moving to watch in a way it wouldn't with someone who didn't really earn their use by feeling them in their bones. She does not always reach for him, but the way the story is set up, maybe she should. Each time, something in him reflects her back to herself, whether that mirror is flattering or not. She finds, as so many have found before her, truth in Shakespeare. For her, that truth happens to include seeing kinky sex all over Shakespeare’s world. The instinct of the reader is, at first, to of course be skeptical, and even be thrown out of the narrative by what seem like, at best, highly selective interpretations of Shakespeare’s stories. But that would be to miss the point entirely.
Nobody reading this, by the end, will care whether or not Keenan’s interpretations of Shakespeare are the most correct or convincing things you’ve heard. Some definitely aren't. (Although a few of them- like Helena’s situation in Midsummer, like Kate and Petruchio of Taming of the Shrew, like her particularly disturbing Lear reading are challenging enough that I think it would make for excellent debate material to throw them into the mix of any discussion on those plays). But it doesn't matter. Because if you can see anything at all, it is that the knowledge, fierce intelligence, passion and care she puts into each interpretation is what matters most. It is watching her take these pieces of the greatest playwright the world has ever seen and reshuffle them into their best of all possible uses: self-understanding, acceptance, love, the breaking down of walls and the defeat of her worst impulses. It is watching literature become the savior we all already knew it was, allowing this clearly fierce woman to emerge from this place of seclusion and doubt she’s been imprisoning herself in for far too long. It’s watching an uncertain child become a woman. Not a perfect woman by any means, but a woman who has figured out a path that feels true at long last and at great cost.
Yes, there’s some sex (and a few scenes of really sexy sex, if you ask me). Yes, there’s some sad parts and some truly scary parts and some parts where you might cry or be enraged, but what I left this book with was, in the end, however unlikely it seemed at the start, a great feeling of joy. I felt like I’d just watched Keenan climb the Himalayas, and all I thought was: You did it, girl. You did it.
Or, more precisely, we did it. If you’ve got any skin in this emotional game- and no, I don’t only mean the kinky one- you’ll feel like you’ve gone through it with Keenan. I found memories flying through my head as I read, blending with what I was reading. Sometimes I needed to stop and process, it felt like all too much. But like Keenan’s relationship with Shakespeare, her memories allowed me to access my own, opening up the hard to access path that only a few authors seem to really get to walk with each person: the path you don’t always want to walk, but the one that leads you, ever so slowly, to yourself.
(Disclaimer: As I stated in the original review, this is a personal five stars. So lest you think I am totally blinded by my personal experience, I should mention that Keenan's writing style perhaps doesn't appeal to all due to its highly personalized nature. She can also of course be highly self-centered, as you might expect in a biography. She can be melodramatic as you might expect in her teenage scenes and her surreal sequences may not appeal to everyone's sense of the ridiculous and enjoyment. I didn't really care about any of this though, and my bet is you won't either.)
**(A word she despises and compares to “cans of spray cheese”, but I’ll use it just this once for clarity’s sake and then not again, since I happen to agree with her that even the sound the word is both hilarious and gross.)
***Orhan Pamuk, The New Life. He’s good, guys. Get on that. Istanbul is by far his best book, but My Name is Red is pretty brilliant too.
Time on to-read list: A few months
Reason for hesitating to pick up (in the form of an internal monologue): "Ooh, that interview was great, I really want to read that, on the list it goes! Oh wait.... won't that make me look weird for wanting to read that? I don't know.. maybe it's all really narcissistic and stupid anyway... I'll wait... I'll wait. Oh wait, there it is at the bookstore. No wait, too embarrassed to pick it up. Maybe next time. Next time."
Reason for finally picking up (Part II of monologue): "....fuck it, I'm getting it this time. Gonna start reading it while I'm waiting to go to dinner.... *half an hour passes* Damn. Oh man, what time is it? I have to get this- must finish. Plans CANCELLED. Not even the checkout lady's loud, weirded out announcement of 'Sex with Shakespeare'?!?! is going to deter me, nope, nope, but thanks for that anyway, lady. Taking this home now and-*reads for rest of the night obsessively*"
Verdict: This is why book-shaming sucks. This book was wonderful. At least it was for me. I hope, below, you can see if it might be for you, too.
(Caveat: Before I even start, if you're here looking for just sexy Shakespeare roleplay or fanfic, look elsewhere. That's not what this book is, so I'm going to save you some time and send you off in more profitable directions right now. Everyone else, let's dive in!)
***
Sex with Shakespeare is Jillian Keenan’s memoir of growing up and trying to form an identity, and the deep external and, most agonizingly, the deep internal resistance she encounters in this attempt. Keenan’s struggle, however, focuses especially on her sexual identity as what is commonly referred to as a “spanko,”** a person for whom being spanked is the highest possible sexual gratification, if not the only sexual gratification possible. She differentiates early and often between people who have a “kink” of liking to be spanked occasionally as part of generalized BDSM play and people who have a “fetish” for spanking, which she defines as people for whom spanking comes first and sex comes a very very distant second. Keenan calls sex a “dessert”, an optional thing that is nice, but as she says, “if I had to give up sex-all kinds of sex-or spanking, I’d flush sex like a drug smuggler ditching his stash in an airport bathroom. My fetish isn’t something I do. It’s something I am.”
As you might imagine, Keenan encounters more than a few problems growing up as she becomes more and more aware of her fetish, and just how central it is to her core identity. (And she’s got a rough enough childhood situation to contend with without this situation, to be honest.) But luckily, she’s got a pal with her on this journey, one she was lucky enough to meet early: Will Shakespeare. Each chapter focuses on how a different play of Shakespeare’s helps Keenan process a different moment in her life. This can range from an academic discussion of ways to interpret Shakespeare's verse to wonderfully hallucinogenic, personal conversations Keenan has with Shakespeare's characters, who dispense advice to her like older sisters, best friends, demanding mentors, bro-tastic frat boyfriends or offer her ambiguous, helplessly tempting words that could transform her or destroy her, according to her interpretation of them.
This truly wonderful device should be recognizable to anyone who loves literature to this same obsessive degree. It’s the most direct demonstration I’ve ever seen of one of my favorite passages by one of my favorite writers, where he says, “Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head.” *** Keenan is able to get through each day because these characters swoop in and save her in a variety of pensive, soul-searching, comedic, tragic or tragi-comedic circumstances. Again and again, these were my favorite parts of the book. One example of her analysis comes with Macbeth, as she processes through the nature of trying to develop an identity and fit within the fabric of life, faced with someone in her life who is lying to himself in a way even more extreme than she is, a friend with a girlfriend who is against gay marriage that she finds, unexpectedly, in a gay bar in Singapore:
"Macbeth is a play about doubles. But there is a twist.
In Shakespeare's tragedies, the hero (or antihero) often has a double, or a voice-a secondary character who speaks for the main character, linking him to the real world and to the audience. Marjorie Garber describes these sidekicks as "someone on the stage who encounters things and verifies that what seems impossible or unbearable is, nonetheless, true." In Hamlet, Horatio fills that role: at the end of the play, Horatio is the one who promises to tell Hamlet's story. In King Lear, that voice is Edgar...
Macbeth's obsession with equivocation speaks to this idea of double voices. The word equivocation itself comes from the Latin oequivocus, which means "of equal voice". In Macbeth, where even the fundamental premise of the play demands verification- are the witches real, or merely a product of Macbeth's imagination?- that double voice is more important than ever. At first, Banquo fills the the role of the double. He links Macbeth to the audience. We know Banquo saw the sisters too. Unlike the dagger that Macbeth sees, or imagines, before he kills Duncan, Banquo's voice verifies that these sisters do exist.
But Macbeth has a tragedy that sets it apart from every other Shakespeare tragedy: Macbeth mrders his voice. Mad with fear that Banquo's heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth has Banquo killed. After that, our antihero is on his own. There is no one left to verify what is real and what is not. In fact, the night after Banquo dies is the very last time we see Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, who previously had the strongest marriage in Shakespeare canon, speak to each other. When Macbeth's voice dies, everything else disappears, too. Macbeth is alone.
He can't survive that way. No one can.
And the hallucinogenic voices, beyond even the analysis, come to her aid at even more desperate times, like when she doesn’t tries to process something beyond kink, something even more threatening to her that she can’t name:
Cleopatra was standing at the foot of the bed. "Where's David?" I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied coolly.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Why had David left? I sighed.
“Cleo, is Antony’s love for you just an Oedipal thing?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business,” Cleopatra snapped. “If you want to know why David is attracted to you, ask him yourself. Stop displacing your fear onto us.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not ‘displacing’ my feelings onto you,” I replied. “I’m processing them through you. That’s how people experience literature.”
Cleopatra scoffed. “Are you sure there isn’t something more?” she asked. “Something you’re unwilling to face?”
I bristled. “Hey,” I said, pointing my finger at her. “I faced it. I was honest with David about that shit from the beginning.”
Cleopatra’s lip curled in contempt. “Good grief, I’m not talking about your ‘kink’,” she said. “This incessant whining doesn’t impress me at all.”
There were angry shouts upstairs. I slid off the bed. “Is there a point to any of this?” Cleopatra pressed, her voice rising to a yell. “Or are you just wasting our time?"
And again and again at the most compelling moments of her life, Shakespeare’s characters appear to offer her understanding, judgment, laughter and temptation. (The best one comes later and is too much of a climatic moment for me to reveal it, but it’s a great and fitting crescendo.) The endless hours that Keenan has obviously spent studying Shakespeare until he became an extension of her thought and her body, until she can reach for him without effort and feel his lines flowing through her body with such natural ease makes that it makes her use of him both touching and moving to watch in a way it wouldn't with someone who didn't really earn their use by feeling them in their bones. She does not always reach for him, but the way the story is set up, maybe she should. Each time, something in him reflects her back to herself, whether that mirror is flattering or not. She finds, as so many have found before her, truth in Shakespeare. For her, that truth happens to include seeing kinky sex all over Shakespeare’s world. The instinct of the reader is, at first, to of course be skeptical, and even be thrown out of the narrative by what seem like, at best, highly selective interpretations of Shakespeare’s stories. But that would be to miss the point entirely.
Nobody reading this, by the end, will care whether or not Keenan’s interpretations of Shakespeare are the most correct or convincing things you’ve heard. Some definitely aren't. (Although a few of them- like Helena’s situation in Midsummer, like Kate and Petruchio of Taming of the Shrew, like her particularly disturbing Lear reading are challenging enough that I think it would make for excellent debate material to throw them into the mix of any discussion on those plays). But it doesn't matter. Because if you can see anything at all, it is that the knowledge, fierce intelligence, passion and care she puts into each interpretation is what matters most. It is watching her take these pieces of the greatest playwright the world has ever seen and reshuffle them into their best of all possible uses: self-understanding, acceptance, love, the breaking down of walls and the defeat of her worst impulses. It is watching literature become the savior we all already knew it was, allowing this clearly fierce woman to emerge from this place of seclusion and doubt she’s been imprisoning herself in for far too long. It’s watching an uncertain child become a woman. Not a perfect woman by any means, but a woman who has figured out a path that feels true at long last and at great cost.
Yes, there’s some sex (and a few scenes of really sexy sex, if you ask me). Yes, there’s some sad parts and some truly scary parts and some parts where you might cry or be enraged, but what I left this book with was, in the end, however unlikely it seemed at the start, a great feeling of joy. I felt like I’d just watched Keenan climb the Himalayas, and all I thought was: You did it, girl. You did it.
Or, more precisely, we did it. If you’ve got any skin in this emotional game- and no, I don’t only mean the kinky one- you’ll feel like you’ve gone through it with Keenan. I found memories flying through my head as I read, blending with what I was reading. Sometimes I needed to stop and process, it felt like all too much. But like Keenan’s relationship with Shakespeare, her memories allowed me to access my own, opening up the hard to access path that only a few authors seem to really get to walk with each person: the path you don’t always want to walk, but the one that leads you, ever so slowly, to yourself.
(Disclaimer: As I stated in the original review, this is a personal five stars. So lest you think I am totally blinded by my personal experience, I should mention that Keenan's writing style perhaps doesn't appeal to all due to its highly personalized nature. She can also of course be highly self-centered, as you might expect in a biography. She can be melodramatic as you might expect in her teenage scenes and her surreal sequences may not appeal to everyone's sense of the ridiculous and enjoyment. I didn't really care about any of this though, and my bet is you won't either.)
**(A word she despises and compares to “cans of spray cheese”, but I’ll use it just this once for clarity’s sake and then not again, since I happen to agree with her that even the sound the word is both hilarious and gross.)
***Orhan Pamuk, The New Life. He’s good, guys. Get on that. Istanbul is by far his best book, but My Name is Red is pretty brilliant too.
Want to read
April 26, 2016And now someone's written a book analyzing her spanking fetish through Shakespeare. It's like putting pie on cake.
January 25, 2016
Not for the uptight or conservative! (So, fine for me.) SEX WITH SHAKESPEARE is a rich and thought-provoking read. Jillian Keenan's writing is wonderful, her spirit intelligent and funny. What I enjoyed most of all about her memoir is how she shares her path towards vulnerability and intimacy with (first) herself, and (then) with her romantic partners. I appreciated this very much, and found this part of her memoir was the universal message, transcending her personal story of coming to terms with her kinky sexuality.
Her story alternates with literary criticism of several of Shakespeare's classic plays. The plays she chooses to write about serve as guideposts for her as she matures into and accepts her kinky sexuality. Keenan's lit crit is no joke--she is steeped in her scholarship from way back; do NOT underestimate her depth of knowledge and understanding of the Bard's work. The way that Shakespeare’s plays reinforced her journey towards truth, honesty, and love was seamlessly done.
Apart from all this (the kink, the lit crit), Keenan reveals herself as a daring globetrotter, pursuing stories in very remote, undeveloped parts of the globe as a journalist. If I didn't already admire her for being remarkably well-adjusted and erudite, her fearlessness and sense of adventure in her professional life would have won me over. I think other readers will find Keenan just as impressive (and maybe even as inspiring) as I do.
Her story alternates with literary criticism of several of Shakespeare's classic plays. The plays she chooses to write about serve as guideposts for her as she matures into and accepts her kinky sexuality. Keenan's lit crit is no joke--she is steeped in her scholarship from way back; do NOT underestimate her depth of knowledge and understanding of the Bard's work. The way that Shakespeare’s plays reinforced her journey towards truth, honesty, and love was seamlessly done.
Apart from all this (the kink, the lit crit), Keenan reveals herself as a daring globetrotter, pursuing stories in very remote, undeveloped parts of the globe as a journalist. If I didn't already admire her for being remarkably well-adjusted and erudite, her fearlessness and sense of adventure in her professional life would have won me over. I think other readers will find Keenan just as impressive (and maybe even as inspiring) as I do.
April 8, 2016
This book is brilliant. Really.
Reading about how someone else thinks about sex and lives sex - especially someone so unassumingly honest - is touching.
Reading about how someone got over insecurity of the deepest kind is uplifing.
Reading about how someone leared to live better by conversing 300+ year old characters is the dream of every bookworm.
re. sex - I felt like when a good friend, at the end of a long talk, looks me straight in the eye and tells me exactly what she's about. With only an outsider's perspective, armed with nothing more than half-truths and prejudices, BDSM feels weird and alien, but after reading Keenan's account, it just went into the 'apparently some people are into that sort of thing... good for them' - where it joined bungee-jumping, poppyseed-brioche and Wagner.
still sex wasn't the most liberating of its themes. I've never seen the idea that you can treat literary works as one side of a conversation more beautifully laid out. Talk to Shakespeare and you'll learn something about yourself - and the same is true for many other pieces of great literature.
this book is going to test people - test their openness to sex and to literature. For your own sake, read it.
Reading about how someone else thinks about sex and lives sex - especially someone so unassumingly honest - is touching.
Reading about how someone got over insecurity of the deepest kind is uplifing.
Reading about how someone leared to live better by conversing 300+ year old characters is the dream of every bookworm.
re. sex - I felt like when a good friend, at the end of a long talk, looks me straight in the eye and tells me exactly what she's about. With only an outsider's perspective, armed with nothing more than half-truths and prejudices, BDSM feels weird and alien, but after reading Keenan's account, it just went into the 'apparently some people are into that sort of thing... good for them' - where it joined bungee-jumping, poppyseed-brioche and Wagner.
still sex wasn't the most liberating of its themes. I've never seen the idea that you can treat literary works as one side of a conversation more beautifully laid out. Talk to Shakespeare and you'll learn something about yourself - and the same is true for many other pieces of great literature.
this book is going to test people - test their openness to sex and to literature. For your own sake, read it.
March 9, 2017
I expected to enjoy this book. I expected to laugh and to learn a lot from it. I did not expect to completely fall in love with it. Yet here we are.
Most of the other reviews have covered the qualities that make this book 5-star-worthy. It's funny. It's touching. It's unflinchingly honest. It covers a lot of uncomfortable subjects with self-awareness and grace. And it taught me a lot about kink that I never knew before. Bonus points for learning something new!
But it's mostly about people. And words. This is a truly astounding work of literary analysis, wrapped in a memoir, wrapped in kink. The things you think it is about - it is not about.
Read it & be amazed!
Most of the other reviews have covered the qualities that make this book 5-star-worthy. It's funny. It's touching. It's unflinchingly honest. It covers a lot of uncomfortable subjects with self-awareness and grace. And it taught me a lot about kink that I never knew before. Bonus points for learning something new!
But it's mostly about people. And words. This is a truly astounding work of literary analysis, wrapped in a memoir, wrapped in kink. The things you think it is about - it is not about.
Read it & be amazed!
February 16, 2016
While not wholly for the conservative, there are only a few scenes which were really out there - well, in a world where adults should be able to talk honestly about sex without blushing.
I loved this book. Keenan beautifully mixes Shakespearean analyses into her own life, sexually and not necessarily so. She taught me much about the Bard and BDSM, about life in general and love. The writing is open, honest, and riddled with humor; the serious moments strike as relatable instead of far-fetched, as I personally find many biographical books to be.
Please, read this book.
I loved this book. Keenan beautifully mixes Shakespearean analyses into her own life, sexually and not necessarily so. She taught me much about the Bard and BDSM, about life in general and love. The writing is open, honest, and riddled with humor; the serious moments strike as relatable instead of far-fetched, as I personally find many biographical books to be.
Please, read this book.
April 6, 2017
So what do you call literary criticism that is done through the lens of your sexual fetish? Not sure, but it is refreshing. Spank the author if you disagree -- she'll enjoy it.
November 11, 2017
A brave, deeply touching memoir for anyone who has wrestled with their own sexuality.
Readers who’ve ever dealt with a part of their sexuality that they couldn’t accept—that they felt somehow was “ugly” or “wrong,” who sought out books as a release from real or perceived isolation—will enjoy Jillian Keenan’s work.
Sex with Shakespeare leads the reader through intriguing and frequently heart-wrenching scenes from Keenan’s own life while interweaving them with an entertaining analysis of 14 of Shakespeare’s plays. Simply put, Keenan is obsessed with being spanked. All other sexual activities pale in comparison to this ultimate erotic experience. “I had often wondered what caused this bizarre obsession,” Keenan says about spanking, “but eventually I gave up. It was exhausting to psychoanalyze my erotic life. Recognition and experience didn’t translate into comfort.” Instead, Keenan seeks comfort in dialogues with Shakespearean characters.
My favorite part of this book centers around Keenan’s first experience with a boyfriend who shared her kink, an American she meets while living in Spain. (What is it about living overseas that makes it a weird never-neverland of hiding from oneself?) As she describes her first erotic spanking with the intensity of a PG-rated romance novel—there is the obligatory fadeout—she grips the reader with one of the better analyses of Romeo & Juliet I have ever read. “Romeo and Juliet isn’t about young people in love. It’s a story about two young people who desperately hope for love, with tragic results.” Like Romeo and Juliet, Keenan and her boyfriend get caught up in an intensity that’s should never be confused with love or even real passion. Extreme it was, but like Romeo and Juliet’s four-day rollercoaster ride, it was a powerful, all-consuming trip that would ultimately end in tragedy. (Note: no one died, but the pain was not limited to the blows landing on Keenan’s butt.)
The book also includes a much-needed discussion of the poisonous nature of “privacy,” and how “privacy” is a silencing technique leading to perilous situations. “’Privacy’ is one of the most potent and insidious weapons a sexual majority can use against people with nonnormative sexualities…it sounds responsible and mature. But ‘privacy’ is tied up with isolation and shame. It drives people underground. It puts people in danger.” When pop culture condemns fetishes, people who have them suffer in silence or turn to unsafe outlets to express them. Sometimes all it takes is a book or a TV show to validate a sexual identity. “Privacy,” which has been losing value in other areas of our lives, including “normal” sexuality, keeps it in the dark. (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” anyone?)
Serious Shakespeare scholars may disagree with her take on things. Shakespeare dilettantes (like me) may appreciate the new perspectives that never came up in college literature courses. Those who don’t care for Shakespeare at all may appreciate how real her struggles feel through no-holds-barred writing. And people who have hidden from their sexuality because it didn’t fit in with what they thought was normal may find it a breath of fresh air.
Readers who’ve ever dealt with a part of their sexuality that they couldn’t accept—that they felt somehow was “ugly” or “wrong,” who sought out books as a release from real or perceived isolation—will enjoy Jillian Keenan’s work.
Sex with Shakespeare leads the reader through intriguing and frequently heart-wrenching scenes from Keenan’s own life while interweaving them with an entertaining analysis of 14 of Shakespeare’s plays. Simply put, Keenan is obsessed with being spanked. All other sexual activities pale in comparison to this ultimate erotic experience. “I had often wondered what caused this bizarre obsession,” Keenan says about spanking, “but eventually I gave up. It was exhausting to psychoanalyze my erotic life. Recognition and experience didn’t translate into comfort.” Instead, Keenan seeks comfort in dialogues with Shakespearean characters.
My favorite part of this book centers around Keenan’s first experience with a boyfriend who shared her kink, an American she meets while living in Spain. (What is it about living overseas that makes it a weird never-neverland of hiding from oneself?) As she describes her first erotic spanking with the intensity of a PG-rated romance novel—there is the obligatory fadeout—she grips the reader with one of the better analyses of Romeo & Juliet I have ever read. “Romeo and Juliet isn’t about young people in love. It’s a story about two young people who desperately hope for love, with tragic results.” Like Romeo and Juliet, Keenan and her boyfriend get caught up in an intensity that’s should never be confused with love or even real passion. Extreme it was, but like Romeo and Juliet’s four-day rollercoaster ride, it was a powerful, all-consuming trip that would ultimately end in tragedy. (Note: no one died, but the pain was not limited to the blows landing on Keenan’s butt.)
The book also includes a much-needed discussion of the poisonous nature of “privacy,” and how “privacy” is a silencing technique leading to perilous situations. “’Privacy’ is one of the most potent and insidious weapons a sexual majority can use against people with nonnormative sexualities…it sounds responsible and mature. But ‘privacy’ is tied up with isolation and shame. It drives people underground. It puts people in danger.” When pop culture condemns fetishes, people who have them suffer in silence or turn to unsafe outlets to express them. Sometimes all it takes is a book or a TV show to validate a sexual identity. “Privacy,” which has been losing value in other areas of our lives, including “normal” sexuality, keeps it in the dark. (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” anyone?)
Serious Shakespeare scholars may disagree with her take on things. Shakespeare dilettantes (like me) may appreciate the new perspectives that never came up in college literature courses. Those who don’t care for Shakespeare at all may appreciate how real her struggles feel through no-holds-barred writing. And people who have hidden from their sexuality because it didn’t fit in with what they thought was normal may find it a breath of fresh air.
February 25, 2017
I'll save you from reading my review if you're not feeling up to it - don't waste your time on Sex With Shakespeare.
This was... weird. Not for any prudish reasons, but because the entire point of this book was completely unclear. Was this supposed to be about Shakespeare? About kinks and fetishes? About MS?Or just a chance for the author to toot her own horn? (I'm leaning more towards the latter, going on and on about your Ivy League education, travels to exotic lands as an unaccompanied minor, and several laundry lists of where you've been published grows tedious after awhile.)
It's also flat out contradictory. The author spends so much time assuring her readers that her spanking fetish is NOT a result of any corporal punishment she received from her mother as a child, only to reveal it is absolutely correlated - and then she goes back to denying it all over again.
Throw in the Jiminy Cricket-like conversations with characters from Shakespeare and the buddy-like bard himself - an amateur literary device at best - and then her consensual(?) fictional assault on A Midsummer Night's Dream's Helena - I'd say the issue is less her spanking fetish and more some sort of delusional psychiatric issue.
There are far more interesting works on fetishes and on the bawdiness of Shakespeare - search them out and leave this one on the shelf.
This was... weird. Not for any prudish reasons, but because the entire point of this book was completely unclear. Was this supposed to be about Shakespeare? About kinks and fetishes? About MS?Or just a chance for the author to toot her own horn? (I'm leaning more towards the latter, going on and on about your Ivy League education, travels to exotic lands as an unaccompanied minor, and several laundry lists of where you've been published grows tedious after awhile.)
It's also flat out contradictory. The author spends so much time assuring her readers that her spanking fetish is NOT a result of any corporal punishment she received from her mother as a child, only to reveal it is absolutely correlated - and then she goes back to denying it all over again.
Throw in the Jiminy Cricket-like conversations with characters from Shakespeare and the buddy-like bard himself - an amateur literary device at best - and then her consensual(?) fictional assault on A Midsummer Night's Dream's Helena - I'd say the issue is less her spanking fetish and more some sort of delusional psychiatric issue.
There are far more interesting works on fetishes and on the bawdiness of Shakespeare - search them out and leave this one on the shelf.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 1, 2016
I checked this book out because I had read an article by the author about sex and Shakespeare. I have a slight acquaintance with folks who are into S&M, enough to know that it is emphatically not my kink. Keenan's excellent writing in this book has broadened my understanding of it a bit. What I truly love, however, is her relationship with Shakespeare, how his writing informs and illuminates her life. I can identify with that. This is a passionate, well crafted, humorous and touching book, and I am glad I read it.
August 10, 2016
Love of spanking, love of Shakespeare, love of a dude who doesn't love spanking and multiple sclerosis weave together into this compelling memoir that left me questioning how far I'd go for what I want.
Also, magical realism that I feel like shouldn't work but kinda does.
Also, magical realism that I feel like shouldn't work but kinda does.
July 7, 2017
This book was great! I leaned so much about kink and Shakespeare! A+
August 26, 2019
Better than 50 Shades of Grey. Plus, I want to read all of the plays now, so well done.
June 26, 2016
I wasn't entirely sure going into this book what exactly it contained. I only knew from the blurb it was something of a memoir and something of an examination of sexuality in Shakespeare's plays. In reading it, it's definitely a mixture of both but I'm not sure if the melding of the two was such a good idea. Both ideas separately sound really interesting to me and focusing on them separately I feel like Jillian Keenan did a fairly good job. However in combining them it just wasn't cohesive and didn't work for me.
Sex with Shakespeare begins with Keenan explaining that she has a fetish with spanking and how as a young women living in Oman she had failed to "control" or "escape" her impulses. However this is all interlaced with explanations about A Midsummer's Night Dream and how she reexamines the characters Helena and Demetrius and their relationship. The next chapter moves to Keenan's love for the character Caliban from The Tempest and her interpretation of him and his relationship to other characters from the play. Interspersed with this examination are descriptions of Keenan's complicated relationship with her mother and various selections from Keenan's life when she tried to come to terms with her sexuality. Simply attempting to describe this is already feeling a bit exhausting. I think Keenan's writing was good and the idea of the book was good. Keenan's studied Shakespeare most of her life and so her examinations of the plays are well researched and her interpretations are well argued. Her writings about her personal life and grappling with her sexuality are also intriguing. But interlacing all of these themes together was just not working for me with the constant switching back and forth. Perhaps others might have a less difficult time getting through all the interweaving stories so if this sounds good I would say give it a shot. It was just not for me.
Sex with Shakespeare begins with Keenan explaining that she has a fetish with spanking and how as a young women living in Oman she had failed to "control" or "escape" her impulses. However this is all interlaced with explanations about A Midsummer's Night Dream and how she reexamines the characters Helena and Demetrius and their relationship. The next chapter moves to Keenan's love for the character Caliban from The Tempest and her interpretation of him and his relationship to other characters from the play. Interspersed with this examination are descriptions of Keenan's complicated relationship with her mother and various selections from Keenan's life when she tried to come to terms with her sexuality. Simply attempting to describe this is already feeling a bit exhausting. I think Keenan's writing was good and the idea of the book was good. Keenan's studied Shakespeare most of her life and so her examinations of the plays are well researched and her interpretations are well argued. Her writings about her personal life and grappling with her sexuality are also intriguing. But interlacing all of these themes together was just not working for me with the constant switching back and forth. Perhaps others might have a less difficult time getting through all the interweaving stories so if this sounds good I would say give it a shot. It was just not for me.
June 11, 2018
I usually fall asleep on planes, sometimes before it even takes off. Something about the movement makes me super drowsy. But Sex with Shakespeare is so good it kept me glued to the book on two separate late night 4 hour flights. I’ve never stayed awake on a plane ride that long, so this is really saying something. I couldn’t put it down. Sex with Shakespeare is so brave and funny and smart. Without exaggeration, it’s the most engaging memoir I’ve ever read. It somehow manages to be hilarious, deeply moving, and surprisingly educational (about both Shakespeare and the world of fetishes) all at once. Keenan writes so bravely about her difficult upbringing, her awakening as a spanking fetishist, and the relationships in her life, and she does it in such a funny, personal way that you feel like she’s in the room spilling her guts to you personally. The world of fetishes is one most people don’t usually see, unless they’re already a part of it, and it was really thrilling to get a glimpse of that, and explore the challenges and joys of that world. Also, it’s honestly incredible that one person knows so much about Shakespeare. I’m a former English major, so I’m not completely unfamiliar with his work, but damn---I’m not even sure my lit professors knew as much as Keenan does. But you really don’t have to be a Shakespeare buff or literature nerd to love the Shakespeare parts, because she makes the work so funny and relevant you really won’t even know you’re learning things. And hey, bonus points for being able to bluff your way through a conversation about Shakespeare at your next fancy party. Anyway, in summary, READ THIS BOOK. And then MAKE YOUR FRIENDS READ THIS BOOK, because you'll be a more empathetic and knowledgeable human afterward.
January 2, 2017
As both a kinky person and an English major, I was very excited about a book combining kink with literary criticism. Finding links between the two was done well, and it was interesting to hear about the writer's history with her kink. The parts about her relationships that weren't related to her sexuality bored me, and the imaginary conversations with Shakespearean characters device started to feel forced by the end, but for the most part I enjoyed this book and think it would do a good job giving non-kinky people some insight into how it can work.
June 4, 2016
Memoir is the genre of our age for a reason. As a culture we are just learning to confront reality, and each new story opens another window onto it. This memoir of a young Shakespeare scholar working through her sexual identity is so rich and honest and smart and humane. And her readings of Shakespeare's plays are really insightful. Thrilling, even.
May 20, 2016
Honest, forthright...and tedious. In a minor miracle, the author combines Shakespeare with sexual kink and comes up with something tiresome.
April 25, 2022
Sex with Shakespeare is not a very careful book. Keenan is very explicitly talking from her life history and her decisions: it is first and foremost a memoir about kink, as told through some very light analysis of several of the more canonical Shakespeare plays.
There is an incredible emotional depth and complexity to this book. There is also a lot of very flat characterization and one-note affect. The register is often very shallow when the content isn't. Keenan presents so much of the information she tries to convey as serious and important in the form of conversation, of-the-moment revelations, or character inserts, rather than writing from a position of informed expertise (or actually seeking information beyond her experience, ever). It results in the overall impression she's not thinking through all of the implications for her statements, even when it is clear that she has thought about things very hard. There is an appeal to irreverence in this book, and sometimes it works very well. Often, however, it does not.
Frankly, I think that Keenan is not a good enough writer or really a sufficiently high level thinker (and she clearly believes that she is) to write the kind of book that this book is trying to be. And that is not to deny that she has found success as a writer! But I think it's a very sloppy book that she thinks is careful, and that bothers me somehow. Her characterization of situations and people is often damagingly shallow. For instance, she briefly describes being raped as a teenager and writes "The man who had sex with me while I begged him to stop, for example, did not intend to sexually violate me; according to him, he merely intended to show me how "irresistible" I was" (240) is very hard to swallow and desperately needed more nuance in the context of that line of reasoning as a classic rape defense and justification.
But here's the thing: I don't think she could have written the book any more carefully. I think she's doing her best and it's compelling for a lot of reasons, but not very complex in its analysis. That and the very cheesy character inserts (which are sometimes in super racist scenarios!!!) make it a bit frustrating sometimes. She's very clear that she's not writing from any professional expertise except that gained from experience. And I respect that. I would just prefer a more academic treatment: a sociological exploration of spanking and kink would be really helpful.
Keenan's readings of various Shakespeare plays are fun, but clearly not academic and are not generally compelling to my academic eye (yeah, I'm being a snob here. But you cannot just quote Measure for Measure out of context like that as if it proves your point about an entirely different play, come on). The patent silliness of her relationship with Shakespeare's characters is part of why the readings work in this book, and part of what makes the book so readable and enjoyable. I certainly can't fault her for being silly when I constantly complain that people aren't silly enough about Shakespeare!
I have a lot of respect for this book precisely because it is Keenan's account of her own experience. I don't question that. She has been through a lot, and she has been very brave. But the book is not a good example of any of the things it's trying to be: memoir, book about a sexual subculture, or amateur literary analysis. Fuck genre, but structure is important. The book does work on some levels: I will doubtless be thinking about it for a while. But the stuff about her then-boyfriend, now husband saying her paragraph structure is good made me literally shake my head and sigh, because Stanford and a journalism career simply did not produce a very good writer. These paragraphs are a mess, babe.
It's written like it is written by someone who is very young and like it was written for a very young audience. There is good macrostructure, good cliffhangers, and simplistic (obvious) foreshadowing, but messy, sloppy microstructure. The content is fascinating: Keenan has lived a very vividly interesting life, in good ways and bad. But the book is self-indulgent in a bad way. Yes, Keenan has been brave, but she also wants the reader to know that She is Very Brave. The style is amateurish and juvenile, like the worst of self-insert fanfiction. A considerable portion of the book is self-insert fanfiction, including one graphic scene in which she disciplines and tops Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream. A good editor would have improved this immensely, but I think fundamentally that Keenan is not a good enough writer to write the book she evidently thinks this book is.
Finally, and I've already touched on this above: the explicit privileging of Keenan's experience over others is painful and grating. Keenan consistently fails to acknowledge or at all engage with her privilege, especially as one of very few authors who have written on this topic. I ascribe a lot of responsibility to that role, which isn't necessarily fair. But Keenan is not cognizant of that component at all. It would be nice if she thought it through. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Take, for example, this paragraph on 257:
Cyan and I talked about our fetish's most challenging details: its intersections with misogyny and heteronormativity; its relationship to child abuse and spousal battery; its place within the broader BDSM community; its comparison to self-mutilation. We laughed about our mutual attempts to access fetish erotica from the Middle East. We argued about different kinds of spanking--erotic, maintenance, "good girl", punishment, "funishment", stress relief, rhythmic, role play, just-for-fun, power exchange--and the irony that people like us use spankings for both pleasure and punishment.
Where is THAT book?
Keenan is a successful cisgender bisexual white woman with a cishet husband. As a bisexual cisgender white woman who is often treated as a heterosexual woman, I have complicated feelings about that, and about how her relationships with and attraction to women are sidelined in this narrative, even if that is true and accurate to her life. It is a very complicated issue, and this book isn't complicated enough to address it, even though I'm sure it's already too complicated for many readers. A more systematic approach would have produced a much more nuanced book.
Politically, this is a very naive book. The book lacks detail, which I understand to some extent, but it flattens the variety of kink experiences irresponsibly. She refuses to engage in anything to do with asexuality. Keenan clearly has not looked it up or tried to understand it at all. Similarly, her treatment of polyamory is shallow and callous. The book treats sexual violence seriously, but not carefully: the story she tells about her friend who was entrapped at 15 by a sexual predator that she just doesn't finish is one of the most frightening parts of this book to me. If we're gonna talk about kink and danger and violence, then actually say something. Do not just trail off and leave it unsaid. For a book that purports to explore the exact dangers of forcing people to explore kink in privacy, secrecy, and isolation, it is deeply and sadly ironic that Keenan is not willing or able to be explicit about so many things, or to follow most of her thoughts through to their logical conclusions.
Maybe we will get more books like this one, and with a collective, we will be able to be less critical of any single attempt. I am grateful for this book and for Keenan to have shared so many of her intimate secrets and shame and experiences. I hope she's okay. I hope she doesn't read this review. (I do not expect her to. This is just on goodreads and not elsewhere for a reason, folks.) I hope she does better by other kinky people, by polyamorous people, by asexual people, and by victims of sexual abuse in her real life than she does in this book. I hope she learns to listen more closely when people tell her things about themselves. And I hope one day she learns how to scan Shakespeare aloud properly, in literally any of the ways that have been developed in various performance and academic circles. (I started with the audiobook, which Keenan reads herself, and it was so bad I had to walk away for a solid week before coming back to the print version.)
Tldr: It's not a clear or careful book, and it does NOT stick the landing, but it is absolutely worth reading.
There is an incredible emotional depth and complexity to this book. There is also a lot of very flat characterization and one-note affect. The register is often very shallow when the content isn't. Keenan presents so much of the information she tries to convey as serious and important in the form of conversation, of-the-moment revelations, or character inserts, rather than writing from a position of informed expertise (or actually seeking information beyond her experience, ever). It results in the overall impression she's not thinking through all of the implications for her statements, even when it is clear that she has thought about things very hard. There is an appeal to irreverence in this book, and sometimes it works very well. Often, however, it does not.
Frankly, I think that Keenan is not a good enough writer or really a sufficiently high level thinker (and she clearly believes that she is) to write the kind of book that this book is trying to be. And that is not to deny that she has found success as a writer! But I think it's a very sloppy book that she thinks is careful, and that bothers me somehow. Her characterization of situations and people is often damagingly shallow. For instance, she briefly describes being raped as a teenager and writes "The man who had sex with me while I begged him to stop, for example, did not intend to sexually violate me; according to him, he merely intended to show me how "irresistible" I was" (240) is very hard to swallow and desperately needed more nuance in the context of that line of reasoning as a classic rape defense and justification.
But here's the thing: I don't think she could have written the book any more carefully. I think she's doing her best and it's compelling for a lot of reasons, but not very complex in its analysis. That and the very cheesy character inserts (which are sometimes in super racist scenarios!!!) make it a bit frustrating sometimes. She's very clear that she's not writing from any professional expertise except that gained from experience. And I respect that. I would just prefer a more academic treatment: a sociological exploration of spanking and kink would be really helpful.
Keenan's readings of various Shakespeare plays are fun, but clearly not academic and are not generally compelling to my academic eye (yeah, I'm being a snob here. But you cannot just quote Measure for Measure out of context like that as if it proves your point about an entirely different play, come on). The patent silliness of her relationship with Shakespeare's characters is part of why the readings work in this book, and part of what makes the book so readable and enjoyable. I certainly can't fault her for being silly when I constantly complain that people aren't silly enough about Shakespeare!
I have a lot of respect for this book precisely because it is Keenan's account of her own experience. I don't question that. She has been through a lot, and she has been very brave. But the book is not a good example of any of the things it's trying to be: memoir, book about a sexual subculture, or amateur literary analysis. Fuck genre, but structure is important. The book does work on some levels: I will doubtless be thinking about it for a while. But the stuff about her then-boyfriend, now husband saying her paragraph structure is good made me literally shake my head and sigh, because Stanford and a journalism career simply did not produce a very good writer. These paragraphs are a mess, babe.
It's written like it is written by someone who is very young and like it was written for a very young audience. There is good macrostructure, good cliffhangers, and simplistic (obvious) foreshadowing, but messy, sloppy microstructure. The content is fascinating: Keenan has lived a very vividly interesting life, in good ways and bad. But the book is self-indulgent in a bad way. Yes, Keenan has been brave, but she also wants the reader to know that She is Very Brave. The style is amateurish and juvenile, like the worst of self-insert fanfiction. A considerable portion of the book is self-insert fanfiction, including one graphic scene in which she disciplines and tops Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream. A good editor would have improved this immensely, but I think fundamentally that Keenan is not a good enough writer to write the book she evidently thinks this book is.
Finally, and I've already touched on this above: the explicit privileging of Keenan's experience over others is painful and grating. Keenan consistently fails to acknowledge or at all engage with her privilege, especially as one of very few authors who have written on this topic. I ascribe a lot of responsibility to that role, which isn't necessarily fair. But Keenan is not cognizant of that component at all. It would be nice if she thought it through. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Take, for example, this paragraph on 257:
Cyan and I talked about our fetish's most challenging details: its intersections with misogyny and heteronormativity; its relationship to child abuse and spousal battery; its place within the broader BDSM community; its comparison to self-mutilation. We laughed about our mutual attempts to access fetish erotica from the Middle East. We argued about different kinds of spanking--erotic, maintenance, "good girl", punishment, "funishment", stress relief, rhythmic, role play, just-for-fun, power exchange--and the irony that people like us use spankings for both pleasure and punishment.
Where is THAT book?
Keenan is a successful cisgender bisexual white woman with a cishet husband. As a bisexual cisgender white woman who is often treated as a heterosexual woman, I have complicated feelings about that, and about how her relationships with and attraction to women are sidelined in this narrative, even if that is true and accurate to her life. It is a very complicated issue, and this book isn't complicated enough to address it, even though I'm sure it's already too complicated for many readers. A more systematic approach would have produced a much more nuanced book.
Politically, this is a very naive book. The book lacks detail, which I understand to some extent, but it flattens the variety of kink experiences irresponsibly. She refuses to engage in anything to do with asexuality. Keenan clearly has not looked it up or tried to understand it at all. Similarly, her treatment of polyamory is shallow and callous. The book treats sexual violence seriously, but not carefully: the story she tells about her friend who was entrapped at 15 by a sexual predator that she just doesn't finish is one of the most frightening parts of this book to me. If we're gonna talk about kink and danger and violence, then actually say something. Do not just trail off and leave it unsaid. For a book that purports to explore the exact dangers of forcing people to explore kink in privacy, secrecy, and isolation, it is deeply and sadly ironic that Keenan is not willing or able to be explicit about so many things, or to follow most of her thoughts through to their logical conclusions.
Maybe we will get more books like this one, and with a collective, we will be able to be less critical of any single attempt. I am grateful for this book and for Keenan to have shared so many of her intimate secrets and shame and experiences. I hope she's okay. I hope she doesn't read this review. (I do not expect her to. This is just on goodreads and not elsewhere for a reason, folks.) I hope she does better by other kinky people, by polyamorous people, by asexual people, and by victims of sexual abuse in her real life than she does in this book. I hope she learns to listen more closely when people tell her things about themselves. And I hope one day she learns how to scan Shakespeare aloud properly, in literally any of the ways that have been developed in various performance and academic circles. (I started with the audiobook, which Keenan reads herself, and it was so bad I had to walk away for a solid week before coming back to the print version.)
Tldr: It's not a clear or careful book, and it does NOT stick the landing, but it is absolutely worth reading.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 24, 2022
4.5/5 Stoya's Bookclub.
I really liked this one. Keenan is a Shakespeare specialist and uses her love of the work to explore, understand and accept her very specific sexuality: Spanking. Keenan did a wonderful job on this, exploring both sexuality, Shakespeare, language at large and her life (it is ultimately a memoir first), and it is just insanely readable. It gets scholarly, but always approachable and understandable (at least to this barely literate public educated reader), and it does get more than a little sexy in the explorations.
I just adored this one, it wasn't what I expected (spanking porn) but it was incredibly thought provoking and a really interesting breakdown into what sexuality can mean to a person.
I really liked this one. Keenan is a Shakespeare specialist and uses her love of the work to explore, understand and accept her very specific sexuality: Spanking. Keenan did a wonderful job on this, exploring both sexuality, Shakespeare, language at large and her life (it is ultimately a memoir first), and it is just insanely readable. It gets scholarly, but always approachable and understandable (at least to this barely literate public educated reader), and it does get more than a little sexy in the explorations.
I just adored this one, it wasn't what I expected (spanking porn) but it was incredibly thought provoking and a really interesting breakdown into what sexuality can mean to a person.
July 10, 2022
4.5 stars for Shakespearean analysis, 2.5 stars for analysis of self
January 26, 2023
Fascinating memoir, and very interesting observations and analysis about relationships in Shakespeare's plays, but it often felt like two separate books to me. The parts where the fictional characters came to life in her everyday life didn't always quite land for me, but were still interesting. I liked the ending to her story with David, and overall it was a great book, and takes a ton of courage to be that vulnerable and open up your life to the world. Kudos.
January 7, 2017
This book, you guys. This fuckin' book. Wow.
"Sex with Shakespeare" is about three things: Shakespeare, spanking, and love. Author Jillian Keenan seamlessly weaves a memoir together about her spanking fetish, her love of Shakespeare, and the love story of how she met, dated, and married a (vanilla!) man--and opened up to him about her deepest needs.
Those looking closely at the list of books I've read can put two and two together and figure out that I identify as kinky, just like Jillian Keenan. I do have a fetish (not spanking, tho that can be p. cool) and a number of kinks that have been with me since childhood. So when Keenan writes about the weird games she and her friends played and weird stories she wrote as a kid, I'm right there with her. To have someone so beautifully put on paper the experiences--the desire, the shame, the conflicting emotions--that people like us have surrounding our sexuality, well, it's wonderful.
Keenan uses Shakespeare's plays and characters as a lens to understand herself and to explain her sexuality and love life to the reader. From "A Midsummer Night's Dream"'s masochistic Helena to "The Taming of the Shrew"'s supposedly submissive (but maybe just playing at submission?) Kate to "Antony and Cleopatra"'s sexpot Cleo, they're all here to help Keenan tell her story. Lovers of the Bard will enjoy Keenan's unique interpretations of his plays, including a take on "King Lear" I haven't heard before (what if Lear was sexually abusing his daughters, which is why Cordelia refused to flatter him and Goneril and Regan treated him with such contempt?).
And speaking of abuse, Keenan makes a strong argument for why parents shouldn't spank their kids. She points out there her fetish was well in place by the time her unstable mother unleashed spankings on her, which, to the young, terrified Keenan was nothing less than a sexual violation even though her mom didn't know or understand that. I've joked for years that if I have kids I'll never spank them because "Spanking is an adults-only activity", but Keenan's harrowing depiction of trying to hide her butt from her mom's smacks really solidified this as a moral issue for me.
And at the heart of it all is Keenan's lovely romance with her husband, who she met in college. She hid the true depths of her fetish from him for years before finally opening up and communicating to him what she really needed. And lo and behold, he didn't run away screaming. Instead, after many months of tutelage and discussion, he learned to spank her the way she needed and understand that, to Keenan, spanking isn't a side dish to sex--it's the main course.
I love this book for its bravery, its honesty, its humor, and its art. I can't recommend it enough--even to the most vanilla of readers.
"Sex with Shakespeare" is about three things: Shakespeare, spanking, and love. Author Jillian Keenan seamlessly weaves a memoir together about her spanking fetish, her love of Shakespeare, and the love story of how she met, dated, and married a (vanilla!) man--and opened up to him about her deepest needs.
Those looking closely at the list of books I've read can put two and two together and figure out that I identify as kinky, just like Jillian Keenan. I do have a fetish (not spanking, tho that can be p. cool) and a number of kinks that have been with me since childhood. So when Keenan writes about the weird games she and her friends played and weird stories she wrote as a kid, I'm right there with her. To have someone so beautifully put on paper the experiences--the desire, the shame, the conflicting emotions--that people like us have surrounding our sexuality, well, it's wonderful.
Keenan uses Shakespeare's plays and characters as a lens to understand herself and to explain her sexuality and love life to the reader. From "A Midsummer Night's Dream"'s masochistic Helena to "The Taming of the Shrew"'s supposedly submissive (but maybe just playing at submission?) Kate to "Antony and Cleopatra"'s sexpot Cleo, they're all here to help Keenan tell her story. Lovers of the Bard will enjoy Keenan's unique interpretations of his plays, including a take on "King Lear" I haven't heard before (what if Lear was sexually abusing his daughters, which is why Cordelia refused to flatter him and Goneril and Regan treated him with such contempt?).
And speaking of abuse, Keenan makes a strong argument for why parents shouldn't spank their kids. She points out there her fetish was well in place by the time her unstable mother unleashed spankings on her, which, to the young, terrified Keenan was nothing less than a sexual violation even though her mom didn't know or understand that. I've joked for years that if I have kids I'll never spank them because "Spanking is an adults-only activity", but Keenan's harrowing depiction of trying to hide her butt from her mom's smacks really solidified this as a moral issue for me.
And at the heart of it all is Keenan's lovely romance with her husband, who she met in college. She hid the true depths of her fetish from him for years before finally opening up and communicating to him what she really needed. And lo and behold, he didn't run away screaming. Instead, after many months of tutelage and discussion, he learned to spank her the way she needed and understand that, to Keenan, spanking isn't a side dish to sex--it's the main course.
I love this book for its bravery, its honesty, its humor, and its art. I can't recommend it enough--even to the most vanilla of readers.
do-not-read
February 24, 2017Decided not to read because the author's note states "I dislike trigger warnings. But some people find them helpful..." & then goes on to give trigger warnings. This is not the book for me. I value trigger warnings, and I am not interested in a book that talks about them this way. This framing of them implies negative judgment about people who need trigger warnings--people like me.
January 10, 2020
Really more of a 2.5 for me, rounded up because a) the concept behind this book should earn Keenan credit, no matter how I felt about the execution; b) I liked her a lot as a person, and I was rooting for her; and c) her oftentimes literally naked honesty / willingness to lay herself bare was refreshing. But there were some issues for me, and the main one was that the 'conversations' didn't work for me, except in one or two very rare instances; I felt talked down to every time one appeared. I also thought that the weaving in of Shakespearean quotes worked only sometimes; in a number of cases, I feel it actually worked to distance me from Keenan and understand LESS how she feels/what she thinks. Finally, I had a pretty strong reaction to one...not PART of the book so much as theme within it, I guess. It seemed to contradict so much of what she was saying elsewhere, and I really REALLY wanted to talk to her about it...which, again, is why I rounded up. Because I think that would be a great conversation, and that she'd be able to explain things to me (not that she owes me an explanation of course!), and that I'd probably agree in the end. But the fact that so much of this just didn't quite connect in the first place makes this a read that I can and would recommend, but only with limited enthusiasm. TL;DR: Great concept, needed a stronger editor.
December 31, 2020
I have NO idea how this book got on my list....and I was reluctant to read it because....Shakespeare, but I have to say, this one was a winner. This is part memoir, part Shakespeare analysis , part intro to fetishes/kink. It was fascinating. I really enjoyed learning so much....shockingly, about Shakespeare. The book made me want to go back and read more of his plays...and analyze/discuss....study them. Yes, I need a life.
The author, Jillian Keenan writes very openly about her love/sex life, childhood and relationships with all sorts of people while weaving different plays and characters through her anecdotes to help illustrate how she understands Shakespeare's writing....and her own view of the world. She talks about both comedies and tragedies--- both Shakespeare's plays her and her own world. She has MS. She has a spanking fetish. She has a deep love for a man who does not understand her style. She is a journalist....and an expert. She manages to juggle all of this so that you don't read this book JUST to her about her sex anecdotes, but also to find out why Antony never returned to Rome....and how Juliet really felt about Romeo. I really felt this book was worth my time.
Read if you enjoy Shakespeare and read with an open mind.
Popsugar 2020: A book by or about a journalist
The author, Jillian Keenan writes very openly about her love/sex life, childhood and relationships with all sorts of people while weaving different plays and characters through her anecdotes to help illustrate how she understands Shakespeare's writing....and her own view of the world. She talks about both comedies and tragedies--- both Shakespeare's plays her and her own world. She has MS. She has a spanking fetish. She has a deep love for a man who does not understand her style. She is a journalist....and an expert. She manages to juggle all of this so that you don't read this book JUST to her about her sex anecdotes, but also to find out why Antony never returned to Rome....and how Juliet really felt about Romeo. I really felt this book was worth my time.
Read if you enjoy Shakespeare and read with an open mind.
Popsugar 2020: A book by or about a journalist
December 19, 2018
It was pretty impressive that she managed to tie together some seemingly disparate topics into one storyline. As I’m not a Shakespeare fan, I found the quotes and play summaries repetitive and dry, but nonetheless interesting how it always had a tie in to her life and her progress toward accepting her fetish.
August 27, 2020
"What you blush to tell….is the most important part of the whole matter." Ars Amatoria
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love." Romeo & Juliet
Full disclosure: I checked this book out of the library because of its title. I figured, it could be awful but, with that title, I had to give it a chance.
It got off to a bad start: I was annoyed by the author's trigger warning -- until I read her snarky send-up of the concept.
The book starts, implausibly, in Oman, where the author is taking a gap year from Stanford to find herself, although, at first, she thinks she is there to escape herself. Until she finds herself face-to-face with a goat, as one does, and thinks: "If I were going to walk by myself, at night, into the middle of the desert, wearing cartoon duck pajamas and an abaya, just to scream the name of one of Shakespeare's least lovable male characters, it might as well be on the same day that I tried to find spanking porn in an Islamic public Internet café. Go big or go home, right?" (pp. 6-7)
Keenan is an insightful and observant scholar of Shakespeare, with a unique take on his work. She captures the evergreen appeal of the Bard: the sensuality in the rhythm of his words. "Wordplay is sex play" (p. 77) is my mantra, which could explain why I like Shakespeare. But this book isn't really about Shakespeare; it's about coming to terms with having a fetish.
The term "fetish" is often used loosely to mean anything you like, even in a non-sexual way. For example, I like magazines and subscribe to an obscene number of them, so I joke that I have a "magazine fetish". But a true fetish is something its victim cannot get off without. It is not a part of their sexuality; it displaces their sexuality, and Keenan worried it might disrupt intimacy in other ways, too: "My fetish makes gender irrelevant. It makes conventional physical attractiveness irrelevant. It makes even sex irrelevant. Does it make love irrelevant, too?" (p. 276) She does a stark and sobering job of explaining how a fetish is not a choice, it is an obsession. There is nothing casual about a fetish and it is extremely limiting. Fetishes are generally a turn-off for those who do not share them. The Internet has enabled the author to find fellow fetishists, and willing partners to indulge her kink, but absent the Internet she could have been suicidally-depressed or celibate. It sounds funny that she needs to be spanked, but it isn't humorous to her. I am guilty of using the term "fetish" as loosely as anyone but I am grateful not to have any true fetishes, nor would I wish one on anyone. (Well, I might wish a particularly embarrassing and humiliating one on my ex.)
Keenan's fetish troubled her because of its anti-feminist connotations and connections to domestic violence. The book chronicles her coming to terms, and finding partners, including, eventually, a husband, who indulge her kink. Fetishes are not usually reciprocal; she had no use for a partner who also liked being spanked. She needed to find people who liked to spank and who were otherwise suitable partners. It's hard enough to find someone compatible without the added complication of a fetish. She could not be happy with a great guy who was perfect in every way but took no pleasure in applying her hairbrush to her behind, nor with a jerk who was great with a paddle.
Keenan never fully psychoanalyses where her fetish originates. She avoids pointing the finger at her volatile, physically and emotionally abusive mother. ("I had understood ever since I was nine….that I wasn't entitled to anything." p. 200) She poignantly opines that we learn how to love from observing our parents – something she was unable to do. She seeks love in the normal way that is simply part of human nature ("Love is dangerous, but I think that's how love has to be sometimes. Love is a miracle." p. 152), but she needs her kink catered to because it is "the only thing that could free me from the confines of my neurotic, self-conscious, insecure mind and release me into my body" (p. 77). If I could apply a little amateur psychoanalysis to her, I'd note that people who are into BDSM often have something in their past that has caused them to disconnect to survive. They have difficulty with feelings because they have become so good at blocking them out for self-protection. Pain is the one thing that breaks through. This is why people cut themselves. (If you've seen the movie Secretary you know that the main character is scarred from cutting herself.) "Pain is not the opposite of pleasure. The opposite of pleasure is numbness." (p. 102) BDSM is self-medication; it's a coping strategy.
I used to write an advice column in the persona of a dominatrix. It was just a lark but I received genuine pleas for advice from people like Keenan, who wanted to hurt themselves or who wanted other people to hurt them. I made myself despised in the BDSM world because, whilst these people wanted to know how to find someone who would tie them up & carve knife art into their backs, I advised them to seek therapy to deal with the underlying issues. The mentality in the BDSM world is that you can't control what turns you on; it's formed in early childhood and it's fixed and immutable by adulthood, and therapy doesn't always work so it's as healthy a coping mechanism as any. I don't agree that it's always healthy. I'm open to being proven wrong, and I don't see anything unhealthy about indulging in the lighter end of the BDSM spectrum with your partner if it appeals to both of you (I've applied my hand to someone's ass on a few occasions – it makes a satisfying sound when you do it right), but I don't think self-medicating with hardcore BDSM is any healthier than using drugs or alcohol for the same purpose.
This book is about the author's journey to acceptance of her fetish, and how Shakespeare helped. She starts off with the obvious point that we can't view Shakespeare's plays through the lens of modern sensibilities. Demetrius telling Helena she is foolish to risk her honour by meeting him alone is a rape threat; Oberon giving Titania the potion to make her fall for Bottom ("of course that's his name" p. 23) is tantamount to using a date rape drug. (Just imagine applying this same exercise to opera – Tristan and Isolde would fill a book on its own.)
Keenan sees a solution to the problem of consent in Shakespeare: What if the characters are kinky? What if Helena isn't pathetic and self-debasing, but a sexual masochist? What if, given their lack of power, Shakespeare's women are topping from the bottom – e.g., What if Kate's shrewishness is a deliberate protection from her father marrying her off against her will? "Characters," she notes, "are like clouds: we all see different animals hidden in them." (p. 21)
Using Shakespeare as a medium to work through her issues was a brilliant move. She stumbled on it after a few false starts: "When beginning to explore a divergent sexual identity, do not turn to French cinema." (p. 38) Good advice. But why no Much Ado amongst the featured plays? You could hardly pick a more appropriate one for expounding on honour, shaming, and issues of dominance/submission between the sexes. Beatrice, to no-one's surprise, is my favourite Shakespearean character and the delicious wordplay of her sparring with Benedick is perfect for this.
As I said, I am grateful not to suffer the limitations of any fetish (no, ice cream doesn't count). The closest I came to observing one was back when City Boy and I attended play parties. We were monogamous, so we went for the voyeurism and exhibitionism, not to interact with anyone. But I dressed as a dom and one night a young Australian man asked if he could lick my boots. I consented, and quickly regretted it. He knelt at my feet and licked with a cringe-inducing self-debasement, paying special attention to the soles. Considering this was NYC, and I'd taken the subway there, I found this nauseating. He did this for a long time, clearly getting off on it, whilst I remained transfixed in fascinated horror. City Boy, missing my obvious disgust, accused me of enjoying it but I would have had no qualms about admitting it if I had. Owning up to enjoying a dominant role is generally easier than admitting to submissive tendencies; except in extreme form, it doesn't carry the same baggage, as Keenan discovered. I don't have a submissive bone in my body but, had I any submissive tendencies, I'd face the same feminist barriers to admitting them as the author and I doubt I'd have her courage to go public.
There are few things less appealing than other people's fetishes but, if "Sex with Shakespeare" is any guide, that does not necessarily apply to books about fetishes. I recommend this one to Shakespearean scholars and to anyone exploring their sexuality. Even if you don't have a specific fetish like Keenan, it takes a great deal of vulnerability, of courage to risk rejection and ridicule, to share what turns you on. You can't achieve true intimacy without vulnerability so some people simply live without it. The author stood up to her fears -- or, should I say, bent over – it stung a bit and raised a few welts of self-doubt, but she wound up rosy-cheeked and happy in the end.
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love." Romeo & Juliet
Full disclosure: I checked this book out of the library because of its title. I figured, it could be awful but, with that title, I had to give it a chance.
It got off to a bad start: I was annoyed by the author's trigger warning -- until I read her snarky send-up of the concept.
The book starts, implausibly, in Oman, where the author is taking a gap year from Stanford to find herself, although, at first, she thinks she is there to escape herself. Until she finds herself face-to-face with a goat, as one does, and thinks: "If I were going to walk by myself, at night, into the middle of the desert, wearing cartoon duck pajamas and an abaya, just to scream the name of one of Shakespeare's least lovable male characters, it might as well be on the same day that I tried to find spanking porn in an Islamic public Internet café. Go big or go home, right?" (pp. 6-7)
Keenan is an insightful and observant scholar of Shakespeare, with a unique take on his work. She captures the evergreen appeal of the Bard: the sensuality in the rhythm of his words. "Wordplay is sex play" (p. 77) is my mantra, which could explain why I like Shakespeare. But this book isn't really about Shakespeare; it's about coming to terms with having a fetish.
The term "fetish" is often used loosely to mean anything you like, even in a non-sexual way. For example, I like magazines and subscribe to an obscene number of them, so I joke that I have a "magazine fetish". But a true fetish is something its victim cannot get off without. It is not a part of their sexuality; it displaces their sexuality, and Keenan worried it might disrupt intimacy in other ways, too: "My fetish makes gender irrelevant. It makes conventional physical attractiveness irrelevant. It makes even sex irrelevant. Does it make love irrelevant, too?" (p. 276) She does a stark and sobering job of explaining how a fetish is not a choice, it is an obsession. There is nothing casual about a fetish and it is extremely limiting. Fetishes are generally a turn-off for those who do not share them. The Internet has enabled the author to find fellow fetishists, and willing partners to indulge her kink, but absent the Internet she could have been suicidally-depressed or celibate. It sounds funny that she needs to be spanked, but it isn't humorous to her. I am guilty of using the term "fetish" as loosely as anyone but I am grateful not to have any true fetishes, nor would I wish one on anyone. (Well, I might wish a particularly embarrassing and humiliating one on my ex.)
Keenan's fetish troubled her because of its anti-feminist connotations and connections to domestic violence. The book chronicles her coming to terms, and finding partners, including, eventually, a husband, who indulge her kink. Fetishes are not usually reciprocal; she had no use for a partner who also liked being spanked. She needed to find people who liked to spank and who were otherwise suitable partners. It's hard enough to find someone compatible without the added complication of a fetish. She could not be happy with a great guy who was perfect in every way but took no pleasure in applying her hairbrush to her behind, nor with a jerk who was great with a paddle.
Keenan never fully psychoanalyses where her fetish originates. She avoids pointing the finger at her volatile, physically and emotionally abusive mother. ("I had understood ever since I was nine….that I wasn't entitled to anything." p. 200) She poignantly opines that we learn how to love from observing our parents – something she was unable to do. She seeks love in the normal way that is simply part of human nature ("Love is dangerous, but I think that's how love has to be sometimes. Love is a miracle." p. 152), but she needs her kink catered to because it is "the only thing that could free me from the confines of my neurotic, self-conscious, insecure mind and release me into my body" (p. 77). If I could apply a little amateur psychoanalysis to her, I'd note that people who are into BDSM often have something in their past that has caused them to disconnect to survive. They have difficulty with feelings because they have become so good at blocking them out for self-protection. Pain is the one thing that breaks through. This is why people cut themselves. (If you've seen the movie Secretary you know that the main character is scarred from cutting herself.) "Pain is not the opposite of pleasure. The opposite of pleasure is numbness." (p. 102) BDSM is self-medication; it's a coping strategy.
I used to write an advice column in the persona of a dominatrix. It was just a lark but I received genuine pleas for advice from people like Keenan, who wanted to hurt themselves or who wanted other people to hurt them. I made myself despised in the BDSM world because, whilst these people wanted to know how to find someone who would tie them up & carve knife art into their backs, I advised them to seek therapy to deal with the underlying issues. The mentality in the BDSM world is that you can't control what turns you on; it's formed in early childhood and it's fixed and immutable by adulthood, and therapy doesn't always work so it's as healthy a coping mechanism as any. I don't agree that it's always healthy. I'm open to being proven wrong, and I don't see anything unhealthy about indulging in the lighter end of the BDSM spectrum with your partner if it appeals to both of you (I've applied my hand to someone's ass on a few occasions – it makes a satisfying sound when you do it right), but I don't think self-medicating with hardcore BDSM is any healthier than using drugs or alcohol for the same purpose.
This book is about the author's journey to acceptance of her fetish, and how Shakespeare helped. She starts off with the obvious point that we can't view Shakespeare's plays through the lens of modern sensibilities. Demetrius telling Helena she is foolish to risk her honour by meeting him alone is a rape threat; Oberon giving Titania the potion to make her fall for Bottom ("of course that's his name" p. 23) is tantamount to using a date rape drug. (Just imagine applying this same exercise to opera – Tristan and Isolde would fill a book on its own.)
Keenan sees a solution to the problem of consent in Shakespeare: What if the characters are kinky? What if Helena isn't pathetic and self-debasing, but a sexual masochist? What if, given their lack of power, Shakespeare's women are topping from the bottom – e.g., What if Kate's shrewishness is a deliberate protection from her father marrying her off against her will? "Characters," she notes, "are like clouds: we all see different animals hidden in them." (p. 21)
Using Shakespeare as a medium to work through her issues was a brilliant move. She stumbled on it after a few false starts: "When beginning to explore a divergent sexual identity, do not turn to French cinema." (p. 38) Good advice. But why no Much Ado amongst the featured plays? You could hardly pick a more appropriate one for expounding on honour, shaming, and issues of dominance/submission between the sexes. Beatrice, to no-one's surprise, is my favourite Shakespearean character and the delicious wordplay of her sparring with Benedick is perfect for this.
As I said, I am grateful not to suffer the limitations of any fetish (no, ice cream doesn't count). The closest I came to observing one was back when City Boy and I attended play parties. We were monogamous, so we went for the voyeurism and exhibitionism, not to interact with anyone. But I dressed as a dom and one night a young Australian man asked if he could lick my boots. I consented, and quickly regretted it. He knelt at my feet and licked with a cringe-inducing self-debasement, paying special attention to the soles. Considering this was NYC, and I'd taken the subway there, I found this nauseating. He did this for a long time, clearly getting off on it, whilst I remained transfixed in fascinated horror. City Boy, missing my obvious disgust, accused me of enjoying it but I would have had no qualms about admitting it if I had. Owning up to enjoying a dominant role is generally easier than admitting to submissive tendencies; except in extreme form, it doesn't carry the same baggage, as Keenan discovered. I don't have a submissive bone in my body but, had I any submissive tendencies, I'd face the same feminist barriers to admitting them as the author and I doubt I'd have her courage to go public.
There are few things less appealing than other people's fetishes but, if "Sex with Shakespeare" is any guide, that does not necessarily apply to books about fetishes. I recommend this one to Shakespearean scholars and to anyone exploring their sexuality. Even if you don't have a specific fetish like Keenan, it takes a great deal of vulnerability, of courage to risk rejection and ridicule, to share what turns you on. You can't achieve true intimacy without vulnerability so some people simply live without it. The author stood up to her fears -- or, should I say, bent over – it stung a bit and raised a few welts of self-doubt, but she wound up rosy-cheeked and happy in the end.
September 9, 2018
Content warning: Sex, sexuality, fetishes, molestation, assault, drug use, health issues
Jillian Keenan’s “Sex with Shakespeare” is either going to be your exact cup of tea or it’s going to absolutely annoy the shit out of you. Fortunately, dear reader, you will know this either by just looking at the cover or by thumbing through the first few pages.
Keenan’s memoir opens during her time in Oman where she’s trying to conquer and fully get rid of her spanking fetish and her love of playwright William Shakespeare in one fell swoop. (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work.) Neither are conducive to her life and won’t help her be productive, you see, so it’s just better to cut that part of herself away.
But neither these parts of herself can be denied, which she discovers while umm…befriending a goat. Yeah, you read that correctly.
Again, this is why I say you’ll either be fully into this book or you’ll put it down and never pick it up again.
Then the rest of the book follows Keenan from her unusual and difficult childhood to the beginning of her career as a writer and journalist. We also follow her through several romantic relationships and trips across the globe. All the while she envisions many of Shakespeare’s classic heroes and heroines and dissects the plays. At times, it’s a little much, especially toward the end, but it works.
It’s a complex little memoir, but Keenan has an accessible and breezy style. It’s been years since I read any of the Bard’s stuff, but she’s able to break down the plots and sonnets without dumbing them down. She also has some interesting interpretations of the plays, which I’m into.
There are a lot of things really stick out about this book, namely that Keenan is coming to terms with her sexuality. This book takes you on a journey, not only through travel, but emotions as well. You’ll feel joy, sadness and embarrassment. You’ll also laugh a lot and cringe more than a few times. (Keenan makes some questionable choices.)
Some of the content will be shocking to readers, but at the same time, it’s an important book. It’s 2018 and the U.S. is literally still debating if women and folks with uteruses can have bodily autonomy. So something like “Sex with Shakespeare” where our author is going after the sex and romance she wants would, undoubtedly, cause some pearl clutching among folks who don’t think women are people. (They exist. They’re awful. I hope they step on a Lego.) And among those people, Keenan’s upbringing and the contents of the book will probably reinforce some not-so-good assumptions they have about kinky people, though Keenan does address all these points.
That said, there were some things that did irritate me as a reader, just a little bit. The first was the aforementioned literally envisioning Shakespeare’s characters speaking to Keenan. It’s just a little much.
Second, Keenan does some things that are unbelievably frustrating. I’m not just talking about her actions in the book, but the fact that she leaves out some critical information during her childhood and adolescence that are referenced in later chapters. It’s hard not to feel cheated when that happens.
Thirdly, Keenan has this annoying habit of saying something along the lines of “this thing is hard to describe!” even though she’s been describing it for pages and pages and living it. This grated on me more than a few times.
Fourth, she has a joke-y “content warning” at the beginning of the book, which wasn’t cool.
But on the whole, I enjoyed this. It was an insightful and funny memoir.
Jillian Keenan’s “Sex with Shakespeare” is either going to be your exact cup of tea or it’s going to absolutely annoy the shit out of you. Fortunately, dear reader, you will know this either by just looking at the cover or by thumbing through the first few pages.
Keenan’s memoir opens during her time in Oman where she’s trying to conquer and fully get rid of her spanking fetish and her love of playwright William Shakespeare in one fell swoop. (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work.) Neither are conducive to her life and won’t help her be productive, you see, so it’s just better to cut that part of herself away.
But neither these parts of herself can be denied, which she discovers while umm…befriending a goat. Yeah, you read that correctly.
Again, this is why I say you’ll either be fully into this book or you’ll put it down and never pick it up again.
Then the rest of the book follows Keenan from her unusual and difficult childhood to the beginning of her career as a writer and journalist. We also follow her through several romantic relationships and trips across the globe. All the while she envisions many of Shakespeare’s classic heroes and heroines and dissects the plays. At times, it’s a little much, especially toward the end, but it works.
It’s a complex little memoir, but Keenan has an accessible and breezy style. It’s been years since I read any of the Bard’s stuff, but she’s able to break down the plots and sonnets without dumbing them down. She also has some interesting interpretations of the plays, which I’m into.
There are a lot of things really stick out about this book, namely that Keenan is coming to terms with her sexuality. This book takes you on a journey, not only through travel, but emotions as well. You’ll feel joy, sadness and embarrassment. You’ll also laugh a lot and cringe more than a few times. (Keenan makes some questionable choices.)
Some of the content will be shocking to readers, but at the same time, it’s an important book. It’s 2018 and the U.S. is literally still debating if women and folks with uteruses can have bodily autonomy. So something like “Sex with Shakespeare” where our author is going after the sex and romance she wants would, undoubtedly, cause some pearl clutching among folks who don’t think women are people. (They exist. They’re awful. I hope they step on a Lego.) And among those people, Keenan’s upbringing and the contents of the book will probably reinforce some not-so-good assumptions they have about kinky people, though Keenan does address all these points.
That said, there were some things that did irritate me as a reader, just a little bit. The first was the aforementioned literally envisioning Shakespeare’s characters speaking to Keenan. It’s just a little much.
Second, Keenan does some things that are unbelievably frustrating. I’m not just talking about her actions in the book, but the fact that she leaves out some critical information during her childhood and adolescence that are referenced in later chapters. It’s hard not to feel cheated when that happens.
Thirdly, Keenan has this annoying habit of saying something along the lines of “this thing is hard to describe!” even though she’s been describing it for pages and pages and living it. This grated on me more than a few times.
Fourth, she has a joke-y “content warning” at the beginning of the book, which wasn’t cool.
But on the whole, I enjoyed this. It was an insightful and funny memoir.
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