Welcome to “First Chapters,” Cosmo’s column where we shine a spotlight to debut authors who you are definitely going to be obsessed with. And what better what for you to get to know them and their books than with the first chapter of their new release. This round we're highlighting Sonnet's groundbreaking and eye-opening novel, 'Submit.' Get ready to explore the world of BDSM through her eyes and experiences as she opens up about what makes her tick and how she decided to give into what she wanted. Here's some more info from Grand Central Publishing:
The shocking and illuminating memoir of an anonymous submissive immersed in the BDSM community, reckoning with the divide between our desires and the expectations and strictures that keep us from pursuing them.
Sonnet is a writer. She is a professional with a wide network of important people. She is athletic, creative and successful. She always remembers to send Christmas cards.
Sonnet also likes to be caned. She likes to be humiliated. She likes to go into a room blindfolded with ten strangers and have them do whatever they want to her.
Sonnet likes whatever you tell her she likes.
This is the secret memoir of a submissive. A vivid, electric, stunning account of how one woman gets her kicks. It is all true.
This is an experience that can’t be missed, all we ask is that you SUBMIT…
Ready to dive into Sonnet's world and maybe even discover some of your secret desires? Check out this sneak peek at the book's first chapter speak for yourself.
An Excerpt From Submit
By Sonnet
Introduction
I can remember my earliest submissive fantasies, not that I knew that’s what they were back then. My religious mother would read Bible stories to us before bed. When she switched off the lights, I would start picturing myself on an ark surrounded by animals, or living it up in the belly of a whale, but my brain would immediately take me to the— many— places of humiliation and pain I had heard about. I would imagine myself into a desert landscape, being stoned by the elders for a sin my eight-year-old brain certainly couldn’t understand, or being dressed in sackcloth and ashes and paraded through dusty streets. Or forced into servitude by a Babylonian king, then locked in prison with a lion. Even that first fundamental story of castigation would go round my head, as I saw myself naked, eating a delicious apple and receiving the ultimate and shameful punishment: banishment from Eden forever. Lying in bed, I couldn’t stop viscerally imagining myself into these situations. I didn’t know why I kept doing it, and I had a strong sense that I was not supposed to be thinking this way, and that if my parents could somehow see inside my brain they would be horrified. I knew this was not what these stories were for, even if I couldn’t really explain what it was I was doing with them.
Soon my daydream repertoire expanded to include events imagined from books and films. I read The Little Princess and imagined myself stripped of my fine clothes and forced to live as a servant in a garret. I pictured myself as a chimney sweep in The Water Babies, or as Bonnie and Sylvia at the brutal mercy of Miss Slighcarp in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. In a Dickens phase, I fancied myself as an orphaned Oliver Twist or David Copperfield, destined for the workhouse. I loved the asylum in Return to Oz, and even went through a brief period of imagining myself helplessly bound to a wheelchair like Pollyanna or Colin in The Secret Garden.
My primary school had a chilly outdoor pool with rudimentary wooden changing rooms, and I spent hours of childhood night-times vividly imagining variations on the theme of being plunged into an ice-cold pool by the teacher, in front of all my classmates, as punishment for some crime. My Sunday school had strict lessons about right and wrong, and my night-time brain loved to turn over the punishments that would befall me if I fell afoul of the rules.
I didn’t think about whether I did or didn’t want these things to actually happen. I never thought about them during school or ballet lessons or when I was playing with my friends. They were just stories my brain wanted to tell me at night, and I had no choice but to listen. To myself, I called them “bad daydreams”; I had instinctive shame around them and knew not to tell anyone about them. I wonder, now, where that shame came from— no baby is born with a sense of shame. Some shame is taught to us deliberately: around our naked bodies, for example, as once we are past the age of about five, we are told it is just not OK to throw off our clothes in public; and around most bodily functions, which we are taught must only be dealt with in private. But in my case, I wonder if it was simply that I knew I wasn’t doing what I was told, and I knew that was wrong. When I couldn’t sleep, mum told me to imagine “happy things”— running on a beach, turning pirouettes on a stage, building a snowman— and when I didn’t, preferring my other “bad daydreams,” I was therefore disobeying her. It was the early eighties, and my parents would not have heard of the concept of a child psychologist, but I wonder if I had seen one at the time, would I have been misdiagnosed with intrusive thoughts or OCD?
I discovered masturbation physically. The water felt nice moving across me in the bath, and I realized I could re-create the feeling with my hands. Some children find it naturally like this; others hear about it and consciously decide to give it a go. When I learned about it from friends— certainly not from my parents—it was a revelation: “Oh, that’s what that is.”
It wasn’t long before the internal storytelling mingled with my tentative physical explorations. As a teenager, I kept trying to get myself off to thoughts of Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt, and romance and beaches and kissing, as Just Seventeen and Mizz magazines implied I should. These attempts did work, but somehow a humiliating or violent subplot would sneak in against my best mental efforts. My version of Four Weddings and a Funeral would inexplicably end with Hugh Grant leading me naked through the rain by a lead. If I was Buffy, the vampires would vanquish me and drink all my blood. I would come, and immediately think, What is wrong with me? I would not have been able to articulate that feeling as sexual shame, but of course that’s what it was.
As a teenager, I launched myself into discovering the kind of sex life we gossiped about in the common room and at sleepovers. I kissed lots of boys and lost my virginity to a special one. I was joyful and curious about sex, and genuinely loved discovering how bodies worked and felt. I talked to my friends about sex and relationships all the time, but it would not have occurred to me to mention anything about what secretly played out in my head, or indeed that there could ever be a connection between my imaginary stories and real life. The fantasies sometimes popped up during sex; I would desperately push them out of my mind, trying to focus on the task at hand, feeling mortified that a vision of my sweet teenage boyfriend stamping his foot onto my face had wormed its way in unbidden— and how extra wet that would make me.
In my final year of university, my boyfriend— a Jude Law lookalike a few years older than me, a Cambridge graduate on a city traineeship, firmly the upper end of middle class, and one of those competent, good guys who would help old ladies, give money to charity, and have definite thoughts on how to barbecue steak— asked me what my fantasies were. It was the first time anyone had asked me that. I blushed bright red, clammed up and refused to tell him, which resulted in him taking offense and us not fucking for weeks. I’d lie awake as he snored with his back to me, fingering myself. The shame at what secretly turned me on, and the fact that I could never tell someone like him, would become arousing in itself, in a meta narrative of delicious imaginary humiliation.
Through my twenties and the pre-crash 2000s, I had f un— I had threesomes (always two girls, one guy), and went to heteronormative sex parties where everyone dressed like they were at a gallery opening and the men never touched each other. I shagged colleagues ill- advisedly on work trips and went home with people I met in bars. But still my inner submissive fantasy life remained just that.
Then I met Max. His boyish, almost cherubic looks, and chilled surfer-boarder-climber calm, belied an imagination so off-the-chart deviant that I rapidly discovered my reluctant, self-invented BDSM fantasizing was not only easy to confess, but actively turned him on. Max’s secret talent was the internet. I had always thought of online dating, early social media, forums— the internet in general— as being for geeky introverts who couldn’t make friends in real life. Max decided it was a miraculous gateway: one that could bring the storylines that had played so secretly through my mind for twenty years into, if not the cold light of day, the dimly lit reality of night. He found clubs behind secret doors throughout the city; he befriended people on special websites and got us invited to private parties. As our friends began to get married, move to the suburbs and have kids, we went gleefully, secretly, hand in hand down a rabbit hole of kink.
I learned that many other people, like me, were innately aroused by being submissive. Others loved to be submitted to, and accepted that this is just what did it for them. Others were “switch”— equally aroused by both scenarios depending on the circumstance. I can certainly play-act the dominatrix, and it can be fun, but for me it would never feel real in the way that it does when I surrender my body and mind to another person or people. Max certainly got off on the creation of scenarios, on pushing me to do things and seeing how far I would go. And he had a classic geek’s love of learning and perfecting a skill: tying shibari, using a flogger, taking photographs and developing his own film (some pictures you just don’t want to take to Snappy Snaps). We met people who had definitely spent their 10,000 hours on perfecting accurate caning, or needle play, or erotic hypnosis, and were truly talented artists. I felt honored to become one of their canvases.
I learned that in real life, unlike in fantasy, submission is much more about a beautiful symbiotic dialogue with another person or people. I began to understand that it is the opposite of sexual assault, where the victim is, by definition, not consenting to what is happening, or has been coerced, or has had systemic power used against them. When I submitted to dominants in real life, it was an act of total, willing surrender— and it was my active positive submission that turned them on, NOT their taking something without permission or through an abuse of status. It is shame-free.
I loved listening to what the dominants thought. I have never met one who is not extremely kind, thoughtful and about as far from endorsing violence against women as people can be. They have often struggled to reconcile what gets them off in the bedroom (practiced with very willing participants) with horrific violence in the outside world, and this can be a source of distress. But they react to a submissive’s desire, and they respond sensitively— albeit perhaps brutally— to what they see and feel. To do this, they need vast reserves of attuned empathy. They have to be hugely creative, as they are leading the proceedings, even if you have been very clear in advance about what does it for you and what’s OK. I’ve found kink people have often given so much thought and reflection to their interactions with others that they are significantly more emotionally articulate and evolved than people whose sexual desires are either so “normal” they’ve never had to, or so sadly repressed that they can’t.
Within the basic idea of “submission,” I learned there was a huge spectrum of ideas to play with. There were a thousand kinds of role play, and every conceivable combination of people, from one-on-one to a vast party of hundreds. My fantasies had always centered around ideas of power and surrender, humiliation and pain. But I began to learn the nuances between them. Humiliation— for me— can be close to exhibitionism. An early discovery of ours was fetish photography. There are many talented photographers out there who want to depict submission, and are always looking for models. The idea of being dropped off by Max on his scooter, at a photographic location, where I would be naked, tied up, forced— maybe manually— into various positions, while someone photographed me, was tinglingly humiliating . . . but also tapped into the massive show-off, attention- loving, vain side of my personality. Opening the door to a man completely naked, or being stripped in front of a group of clothed people, or any variation on that theme, is a very blurry combination of “look at me” and “I’m ashamed.” Even classic humiliating activities— such as being pissed on— have somehow got an air of exhibitionism about them too.
Pain, for me, is something a bit different. Pain can feel humiliating to me, but usually it’s too . . . painful to concentrate on that. The first time I was caned was up there with taking psychedelics— an insane sensory overload. There’s heat and light and so much adrenaline, but also this sense of playing with an edge. Can I take any more? I can’t, I can’ t— no I can . . . I am trusting this person with my body and my brain . . . Can I trust them? And then there’s this huge rush of love and gratitude for them afterward. It’s beautiful but rare for me to find those people. Caning, flogging, whipping: these are really hard physical skills to perfect. A tentative spank is like a bad, too-light massage, and if someone isn’t inspiring confidence in their skills, it’s impossible to relax into the trance-like, extremely present state required— you just worry they’ll take your eye out.
As I met more people, I learned that kink isn’t always sex, or even sexual— in fact, people can get highly offended by the notion that it is. For me, it is one hundred percent arousal, but the people to whom I might want to surrender my skin might not be the same people I would like inside my cunt. As I began to play with others, perhaps the most beautiful thing of all was hearing their stories and desires. There was such a rich tapestry of human feeling and creativity within people’s kinks, and discovering that was just as much fun and just as interesting as learning more about my own body and mind. Every dom or sub is driven by a different set of neurons, their endocrine and nervous systems firing in their own unique way.
One of the most difficult things for me to reconcile, as I allowed my fantasies to become realities more often, was a sense that to be submissive was at best lazy, and at worst, extremely selfish. Like with most women, the patriarchy has bequeathed me a definite sense that I should check everyone else is fine at all times, and that to give is better than to receive. Outside of the playroom, it feels like a moral duty to check glasses are full on social occasions, and that no one is left out or lonely. We feel the need to be responsible at work, and to ensure that things are in order at home. Of course, the dominant is getting off on the fact that you are surrendering all of that, but I came to realize that a submissive, or a good submissive, which I had initially thought of as being the very easy ride side of the equation, actually does have skills to be proud of. Apparently not so many people are able to get out of their anxious heads enough to be fully present and willingly vulnerable, and fewer still to breathe through ten cracks of a bullwhip across their back. So after a while, I began to feel a strange pride in being able to offer something to people who wanted it— needed it— which might be hard to find. A pride, might I add, that invariably comes before an exquisitely painful and humiliating fall, should I ever exhibit it.
Depictions of BDSM in popular culture are at best exasperating, and at worst prejudiced and offensive. Subs and doms are always presented as having a history of mental illness: see Christian Grey’s childhood trauma, or Lee Holloway’s suicide attempt and self- harming in Secretary. Even in the amazing Nymphomaniac, I don’t think we see Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character, Joe, as very . . . mentally well. Dominant women always dress like Catwoman, and BDSM men are usually genuine serial-killing psychopaths à la American Psycho or Seven. In Hollywood, if you are into kink of any kind, this is your whole identity. For me, it’s not even my whole sexual identity— I like a slow, languid, skin-on-skin spooning on a Sunday morning, or a vanilla foursome on the sofa after a nice dinner party, as much as the next person. To paraphrase Christopher Nolan’s Batman, “It’s not who I am, it’s something I sometimes like to do.” And guess what? The rest of the time, I like going to the pub, watching Netflix, working out, cooking roast dinners, and playing with my nieces and nephews on the beach. Some friends know about my occasional adventures, some don’t (my religious mother certainly does not). I’m not ashamed of them, apart from in a hot way, but I know that for some people, it would become my entire self for them. Also, it’s a bit . . . braggy. “Kink bores” are up there with “drug bores,” and we’ve all heard the adage about how sex is like money—i f you have lots of it, you don’t talk about it.
My inclination and ability to schedule kinky fun ebbs and flows, largely due to other parts of life taking up more time. A busy phase at work, a family illness or a friend in crisis can make it unappealing or impossible for weeks or months. But I’ve noticed that during periods when I am able to skip off for hours of happy deviance on the regular, I feel calmer, happier, empowered and more positive about life. It’s partly because having a bunch of orgasms caused by other people tends to do that, but I think there is something more. I think that the state you have to go to when submitting is extremely mindful— there is no way you cannot be present, because there’s just too much going on with your body for you to get distracted by tomorrow morning’s meeting or the fact you need to get the dishwasher fixed. More than that, I think if you can learn to be calm and accepting in the face of pain and humiliation in the safe— albeit testing— microcosm of a submissive session, your subconscious remembers this, and when you encounter stress in day-to-day life, these skills kick in automatically. After all, you have practiced them. Yoga teaches the same thing, but with fewer ball gags.
As I tried more things and met more people, I realized that I wanted to record my experiences. Writing things down helped me think them through, particularly at first when I was trying to understand complicated issues around consent within a BDSM context, for example, and how to articulate my own desires and listen to those of others. I also realized that with every experience I chronicled in my journal, I was developing an excellent reserve of homemade, completely personalized, porn.
Max loved reading my diary, sometimes telling me to write it as he watched, seeing me get turned on as I recounted in type how I had been humiliated, beaten, fucked. Sometimes he made me read it to him, loving watching me get shy and embarrassed as I described aloud how slutty and perverted I had been. I began to share extracts with the people they involved, as a literary memento of a fun night. Dominants seemed to find it fascinating to learn what I had been thinking during a session. It often led to them revealing what had been going through their own minds; in fact, one of them wrote his version of the same session, and it was fascinating.
I began to see my diary as a celebration— of being curious about people and the vastly beautiful range of physical and emotional feelings we can inspire in each other. From a union of minds, thinking and talking and finding out we’re not alone in our weird desires, to accessing bodily sensations we have never dreamed of, playing with other people can be scary, comforting, painful, soulful, adrenaline-spiking, tear-inducing, euphoric, multi- orgasmic . . . and often, pretty funny. To me, that feels sublime.
Excerpted from SUBMIT: A Memoir
©2024 Sonnet and reprinted by permission from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group.
Submit, by Sonnet, will be released on September 17, 2024. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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