gift recommendation

Nothing says “Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/solstice, dear girlfriend/boyfriend/bff/little sis/mom” (okay, maybe not mom) like a memoir by a professional submissive. But seriously, Joan Kelly’s The Pleasure’s All Mine is funny, candid and, in more than one or two scenes, pretty damn hot.

As a woman who likes to get tied up and spanked—but hates to be bossed around in real life—Kelly addresses all the questions you’d want to ask someone in her line of work: Is it possible to meet a nice guy who can be mean on command? How do you avoid laughing when a client wants to “punish” you for being late to the dungeon? Plus plenty of questions you might not think to ask: In a threesome carpool, does the domme automatically get to ride shotgun? (Answer: Yes, if she’s pregnant.)

What enables Kelly to be a good pro is her forthrightness (“I would very much like to play with you,” she tells Mistress K, “I’m just afraid it’ll make me feel attracted to you…and I don’t want that to end up being a weird thing”), and that quality also makes her a good writer. The Pleasure’s All Mine is a simply written memoir about the very complex set of emotions that underlie kink.

I went in expecting lots of stories about crazy clients, and while there’s no shortage of adventure, I was pleasantly surprised by how much respect she maintains for her clients in every scene. Even the asshole who blatantly trades her in for a sub he finds better looking she describes as only “somewhat squirrelly.” Hardly the jaded pro, she approaches each session with sincerity and enthusiasm, making the book feel almost…wholesome. But don’t worry, there are plenty of dirty parts too.