The Giles English Interview: Substack's First Male Sub

"Femdom is what dominant women make it!"

Giles English

owns the subdomain femdom.substack.com. He’s a male sub who writes erotica about men being locked up and enslaved in a future version of Great Britain. His novella Bradley Jones's Chastity brings you the exciting love triangle involving girl boss Lydia, a cheeky libertine who likes having Bradley around her little finger and licking between her thighs, sadistic lawyer Caroline, and the “disposable man slut” Bradley who has already been in chastity for four years. It can be purchased on Smashwords and other platforms.

Giles was obedient enough to let me interview him by email. Here are my questions and his answers:

1. Who are some of your dream dominatrixes or powerful women from literature?

I have some very developed historical fantasies: especially Ancient Roman women who genuinely kept male sex slaves, and Empress Theodora of Byzantium who was allegedly hypersexual and certainly dominant. I'm not sure about dominatrixes in literature, but some of the movie stars of yesteryear push my buttons, especially Dietrich.

Marlene Dietrich, star of Shanghai Express and The Devil Is a Woman

Small screen? Just about any of the women from "Ted Lasso", Grace or either daughter from "Grace and Frankie" and - OMG - Vanessa Ives from "Penny Dreadful".

2. You write a lot about male chastity and chastity devices. How important is chastity for your conception of femdom?

   Femdom is what dominant women make it! However, Chastity is certainly important to how our Femdom works. Xena prefers me locked, and that preferences tips me down the slippery slope where I can't escape my own fetish.

3. You’ve been your wife’s slave for eight years. How much of your ideas come from your own experiences?

   A lot. I've been kinky for a long time, and our marriage was kinky from the start, so I've experienced a lot of whippings and chainings and open ended chastity, and mixed emotions and mental masochism. I also dated widely before Xena and draw on what I learned about a certain sort of woman - though I've never just transplanted an ex onto the page.

   I try to write books about realistic people caught up in kinky situations that are just the wrong side of plausible. So my stories are populated by recognisably British women, each with her own quirky personality and hopes and anxieties and a life beyond the bedroom. Somebody referred to the stories as "Porno BritBox".

   
   4. How did you meet Xena, and what advice do you have for other men who want to meet and date dommes?

   We met at university nearly a third of a century ago, so any advice I might have to offer is out of date. That said, I think it's worth paying attention to your local dating scene, and taking the risk of chasing femdom when you are young and everybody is experimenting. Your first port of call should be the local kink community, however also go where playful and adventurous people are to be found. With a "vanilla" relationship, bring up kink early and focus on what's in it for her; the public image of femdom is very malecentric and sex-work adjacent.

   5. You publish your books on Smashwords and iTunes and other outlets but not Amazon (as far as I can tell, right?). Have you tried Amazon? What made you decide to prioritize publishing elsewhere?

   I'm just not interested in writing about wholesome consensual kink! Most of my books are consent-irrelevant, dubcon and often noncon. You can get away with publishing those on Amazon. However, they are against the rules and your entire empire can vanish overnight. So I don't publish there.

   6. You've been on Substack for three years. You must have been one of the first male subs writing about femdom on Substack, right? How has Substack changed as it became more popular and attracted more readers and writers?

   I've only really taken Substack seriously in the last year or so. I think I am one of the first male subs here - the name is so appropriate! They seem to have solved the discoverability problem, and also create a chilled social environment.