“Wild Side Sex: The Book of Kink” is a fetish book. It’s published by Daedalus Publishing Company and written by Midori. The book is 233 pages long and includes 48 different essays on different fetish, kink, and BDSM topics. The tagline for this book is “Educational, Sensual, and Entertaining Essays”. The book is a softcover book and has completely black and white pages on the inside. The text is about average size for a book, and it’s easy to read. The cover of the book shows a picture of a nude Midori with a typewriter covering up all the juicy bits. The backside shows a different, clothed, but kinky, picture of her. I’d say that this probably isn’t the safest book to read in a public area.
I honestly suck at reading product descriptions. Really. I do. Or even the cover of this one. I think Midori’s pretty face ended up distracting me. I didn’t realize that this was a book of essays until I was actually holding the book in my hands. I had just thought that it was a how-to of different fetishes. Well, I was decently surprised. Even the first time I opened the book, I noticed that it was a collection of essays.
The entire premise of this book is that it’s a collection of essays that Midori wrote for magazines, blogs, and other places of publication. She wanted to bring all of her writing together in one place. She says that she leaves the writing relatively unchanged, and the reader can read exactly what she’s written when it was first published as well. While the vast majority of these essays take an “essay” form, some of the “essays” at the end are actually question and answer format.
Midori writes in an easy-to-read manner. At some points, I’ll admit, it got a little boring, but it usually read really easily. Midori had a (good) habit of including a lot of personal experience. Sometimes the essay would alternate between erotic text and the essay itself, or sometimes Midori would just describe how the essay related to her personal life and how it’s changed her. Most of the stories did just seem to be written in a plain essay format.
Whether I enjoyed reading the essay really depended on the topic of the essay. On some of them, there was quite a bit of history and factual information involved. Those essays tended to get pretty dry pretty quickly. However, in some of the essays like ones about Midori’s past play partners or ones about her opinions on kink topics, it’s much more interesting to read because it’s about a new opinion on a subject.
A neat little feature about the book is a lot of the pictures included in the book. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a different picture of Midori. Of course, since the book is in black and white, the pictures are too, but it doesn’t stop the pictures from looking attractive and being fun to look at. I love fetish photography.
I actually learned something from this book which is something I wasn’t expecting. I’ve read at least 20 different how-to kink books, and most information is usually a rehash of things I already know. However, since this is a fun collection of essays, a lot of it really focused on the history or her opinion about kink-related topics. Very few of the essays were about any sort of “how-to” which is what I’m used to reading. I got to learn Midori’s opinion on romantic BDSM, the history of the leather community, and quite a few other things. It was the fact that it was a collection of essays of things I wasn’t expecting that really made it actually educational for me.
The book is split into four different “sections” which separate the essays. The first chapter is “The Fundamentals of Kink” which includes basic essays like “What is SM?”, “Wrong Reasons to do SM”, and “Modern Chivalry”. The second chapter is “Fundamentals of Kink 2” which includes essays like “Aftercare”, “How to Look Cool with Hardcore Pervs”, and “Chastity Play“. Chapter three is “Fetish Eroticism” which includes essays like “Fetish vrs SM”, “Sex Life of Midori’s Feet”, and “Getting Lucky at Fetish Parties.” Chapter four is “Tips and Tricks for Adventurous Sex” which is made up mostly of question and answer format essays which include “Whipping and Flogging”, “Wax Play“, “Hoods”, and “Japanese Bondage”. (Of all of the essays listed, it isn’t the full list. These are just examples. There are 48 total essays in the book.)
While I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who is seeking a how-to book, I would say that this is a good choice for those who like kink (or are curious about it) and want to learn more about some of the different topics that take part in what it is to be “kinky”. It won’t help you improve your swing of a riding crop, but it will help you to broaden your knowledge and interests about kinky topics (and appear more knowledgeable to friends and potential play partners.) Plus, when is it every bad to get a new view on a subject?
