What is your favorite aspect of BDSM to write about and why?

Janine Ashbless, author of Red Grow the Roses and contributor to Shameful Thrills, Exposure and The Visitor

 At the moment: one helpless girl getting seen to by several rough and very dominant guys. Why?  Pure greed on my part.

Felix Baron, author of petite novel Look at Me!

Domination, because it's my favourite in real life. 

Rachel Kramer Bussel, contributor to Exposure, At Your Mercy, Shameful Thrills and Girl for Hire and Too Fast For Love

I like getting inside the minds of kinky characters and exploring how and why they eroticize pain, humiliation, degradation, and other things that outside the context of BDSM they, and certainly I, wouldn't enjoy. Being able to humanize those emotions and explore the complexities of power dynamics fascinates me, and shows me that there are endless possibilities for playing out these kinds of encounters, like in my story "Stranded," in At Your Mercy, where a woman is left with no money and no phone to "work off" a restaurant bill when her boyfriend walks out, knowing full well what she might have to do sexually to get out of the situation. There are often multiple levels of arousal, and a push/pull, where part of the attraction of BDSM is the part where the character is a little bit unnerved/scared/horrified/shocked that she or he is into what they're into. I love exploring how both sides of a BDSM relationship or encounter play on that sensation and take it to its full fantasy limits.

Angela Caperton, contributor toThe Visitor and Underworlds

I think what I like most about writing BDSM is the exploration of the relationship dynamics at play and how those relationships are expressed. I can take one look at the precise, intricate patterns of rope bondage and my mind wanders all over the place, especially to the personalities and lives of the top and bottom. This is, of course, true of all relationships, not just subs and Doms, but with a sub/Dom relationship, the lines tend to be more sharply etched and the expressions of love and lust more interesting. 

Kyoko Church, At Her Feet (March 2013), contributor to Submission and My Secret Life

Oo, it's definitely the power exchange aspect. To consider what happens in a relationship when one person willingly gives his or her power over to another is infinitely interesting to me. There are just so many places you can take that.

Rose de Fer, author of Lust Ever After

Bondage and general dominance/submission dynamics. I love to describe the heady and secure feeling of surrender. I'm not really into pain. For me it's more about the psychological angle. I love the theatre of BDSM and roleplay. Petplay is a favourite. The idea of trusting someone enough to be that open and vulnerable is just irresistible.

Megan Hart, contributor to My Secret Life

I write only lightly about BDSM, but the fascination, for me, is the idea of control. Of giving and receiving it. On the surface, dominance and submission seem like total opposites, but the reasons people like to be dominated or like to submit can actually be very similar. I like to explore that part of it.

Sommer Marsden, author of Boys Next Door (September 2012), contributor to At Your Mercy, Exposure and Across My Knee

The trust that is given by the sub and the responsibility placed on the Dom. If written correctly, I think BDSM can really explore the honor given to a Dominant by a submissive when they submit. And the amount of strength it takes as a submissive to give yourself over to another person. I like to try and illuminate the little nuances of that power exchange.

Madeline Moore, author of Debutante and contributor to The Swap

I enjoy taking my heroine through the HBT (Horrified But Thrilled) stage to the SGHI (She's Gotta Have It) stage. The conflict between her self-image as an intelligent, independent woman and her new found interest in a thrilling form of sex that puts her firmly under the thumb of a man is always fun to describe. I like to push the envelope by including fetishes like "infantalism" and "age play." I suppose there's a part of me that wants to explain these things to readers with preconceived notions about the immorality of these fetishes. I'd like to write about "breath play" but that's still taboo.

Kristina Wright, author of Seduce Me Tonight (October 2012)

I love exploring the emotional side of BDSM. In particular, I find myself writing about the catalyst that compels characters to acknowledge their submissive or dominant side. Determining how that plays out in a story, what it means to the characters and their relationship and what happens in the aftermath is intriguing and thought provoking for me.