Listening to Fresh Air on NPR this week, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a segment on the novel Soft Core by dominatrix and writer Brittnay Newell. It caught my attention.
Every few years, mainstream culture rediscovers dominatrices the way it rediscovers with wide-eyed curiousity..sometimes slightly nervous often eager to translate O/our lived experience into something safe enough for polite conversation. What interested me about Soft Core is that it seems genuine.
That alone makes it worth talking about.
As someone who has spent years working in this world, never as fantasy, but as discipline, lifestyle, real intimacy, psychological architecture. Yes, I’m always curious how our realities are framed when they pass through popularity hands via literature. Too often it seems "the dominatrix" becomes a metaphor instead of a real person. A symbol. Maybe a device. Or worse, a kink dispenser for the masses.
From what I’ve heard so far, Soft Core seems to resist that flattening. It hints toward the contradictions that actually define this work: tenderness alongside controlcausal intensity. The title itself is telling: "soft" where people expect hard edges, deliberate where others expect chaos.
I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m intrigued. And I’m glad NPR gave it airtime. Which brings me to something lighter, but oddly related.
I’m also looking forward to seeing Wicked: Part Two later this year. On the surface, it has nothing to do with dungeons or power exchange. And yet, stories about women whose authority is misunderstood, moralized, or punished tend to resonate with Me. The older I get, the less interested I am in being liked, and the more interested I am in being authentic.
There’s a quiet confidence that comes with that.
Whether through literature, theater, or lived experience, I’m drawn to stories that allow women to be complex and commanding without apology or caricature. If you’ve read Soft Core, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts. Not hot takes. Just genuine impressions.
And if you haven’t, maybe consider why a story about a dominatrix written by a dominatrix feels novel at all.
Link to the NPR PodCast Episode of Fresh Air
