The M.L. Paige Interview: Kindle's Prolific Femdom Author
"Seeing the work that goes into establishing consent, trust, and a roleplay environment--as well as an experience that is also just plain fun--has given me so much respect for the SW BDSM community."
M.L. Paige is the author of some of the hottest femdom erotica I have read. She has a deep catalog of 64 titles and is publishing multiple new ones every month. Amongst her many titles are Trapped in the Tokyo Facesitting Station, Chastising the Bad Boyfriend, Escape From Matriarch Manor: Branching Narrative Femdom Erotic Novel, and her newest work, A Night at the Silk Dungeon: An Asian Femdom Novel.
Her writing is electric, and the domme characters she creates feel real and irresistibly spicy. Yuriko from Cute & Sadistic Japanese Mistress is an excellent example. She's keeping the main male character excited and on edge by doing things like this:
Yuriko took a few minutes to respond. When she did, it was a picture. It was an upskirt shot of hear wearing hot pink lacey panties underneath a deep indigo Japanese schoolgirl skirt. I zoomed in and saw that the crotch of the panties looked wet. She followed up with a text: "I have these. Are they cute?"
I replied: "Very cute. When can I see them in person?"
I knew I was being a little bit forward but after a few days of silence, I found myself lusting hard after Yuriko. But even then, I wasn't ready for what Yuriko messaged next:
"Next time you see me, I won't be wearing panties. And we won't go for dinner because that night you will be eating pussy."Â
A Night at the Silk Dungeon has just been released this week. Bringing the readers along with its main character on an intense journey to a BDSM dungeon in San Francisco for an immersive 24-hour psychological experience of submission, this novel continues on the Asian femdom theme she uses in many of her books. It is her longest Asian femdom book yet, at 199 pages on Kindle.
Concept art of the nine mistresses in A Night at the Silk Dungeon
I had a chance to interview M.L. Paige just after the book was launched.
1. You just published your new and longest Asian femdom book. Can you give a brief introduction and tell us about your journey writing it?
About a year ago, I came off a long writing hiatus with my book Asian Mistress, White Slave (AMWS). In many ways, I let AMWS bubble up organically, often finding myself getting up in the middle of the night to brainstorm scenes and jot down notes. It was also my longest work to date and one that I felt really captured some of the "real feel" elements of the kink/femdom scene that I've been exposed to. To be honest, I thought I would publish it into the ether and that would be that... but to my surprise, it received a really strong reception from old and new readers alike, and I credit AMWS with encouraging me to write my ass off this past year.
I don't do sequels, but I do write "spiritual sequels" that use similar concepts but in standalone stories. I've never given AMWS a spiritual sequel, not really. Part of that was not wanting to go back to the well, so to speak, and--to be totally vulnerable here--fearing that I would try and wind up with a book that wasn't nearly as well-liked. But my newest, longest (girthiest? hah) Asian femdom book, A Night at the Silk Dungeon, came to me all on its own, out of nowhere. Aside from the appeal of a story with lots of variety via group/harem domination, I think part of me has always wanted to address some of the feedback I got on AMWS's last few chapters, which get pretty extreme, with heavy branding and watersports scenes, not to mention a relatively "harsh" attitude of AMWS's domme to her sub. I'm still very happy with the ending of AMWS, but I understand how some readers might've felt a little betrayed and that's something I always wanted to try to make right (I even considered re-releasing AMWS without the intense epilogues at one point).
A Night at the Silk Dungeon once again takes place in an environment full of dominant Asian women, this time all professional mistresses who work at the titular Silk Dungeon in San Francisco. The protagonist--well-off Preston who has traded career success for never truly exploring his desires--signs up for the Dungeon's mysterious "Omakase Package", which puts him in the hands of the Silk Dungeon's most experienced mistresses. What follows is 24 hours of femdom play and self-discovery, where he is guided towards important revelations through his roleplay sessions.
It's kind of like an Asian femdom take on the movie "The Game" (itself a take on the novel "The Magus"), and while it has a few semi-intense scenes, I worked hard to avoid areas that are likely to be hard limits for readers, as well as included for the first time a kink appendix and a warning about which chapters have possible triggering scenes. I didn't set out to make it novel-length either, but like most of my longer stories they have a way of refusing to end until they're ready. Hopefully readers feel that same enthusiasm if and when they decide to give it a go.
2. Who are some of your favorite dominant female characters in film or literature?
My OG femdom North Star has got to be Vampirella, or at least the 90s reincarnation that I encountered growing up. Sure, she was thrown in a skimpy infinity-kini or whatever it was, but to my developing mind she was the one biting necks and kicking ass rather than being the helpless beauty with mega T&A, and there was something deeply influential about that for me. Ironically I've never been too bullish on vampires, and yet I have one story--Enthralled by the Vampire Domme as part of my Halloween theme this year--that may be one of the most sensual stories I've ever written. It's criminally unread and unreviewed, but I think it's in many ways my love letter to the Vampirella of my adolescence.
Admiral Cain from the Battlestar Galactica reboot comes to mind too, despite her being a total bitch--or maybe because of it. I love that there was no attempt to overtly sexualize her either, she was simply an ironclad badass woman who commanded respect, even if her methods were questionable. Other worthy mentions include: Pythona and Jinx from the 1987 GI Joe Movie (IYKYK), O-ren Ishii and Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill (Gogo was done dirty IMO), and I think both Medusa and Circe from Greek mythology deserve some credit for being such archetypal femdom figures (I have borrowed a LOT from the myth of Circe in my writing).
3. You write a lot about professional dommes. Are you a pro-domme in real life and do you draw inspiration from your relationships for your stories? Or draw inspiration from your stories for your role plays?
Aren't we all dominant women to some degree? Hah, of course not--unless my readership is full of secret dommes--and while being dominant in many areas of my own life, I am not a prodomme. That said, I do have a number of close prodomme friends who are wonderful people who have helped inspire my stories indirectly and directly by welcoming me into their professional spaces. Seeing the work that goes into establishing consent, trust, and a roleplay environment--as well as an experience that is also just plain fun--has given me so much respect for the SW BDSM community, and my best "on-the-body" details, as they say, are directly thanks to the friends and relationships I've made through kink. Milked by the Asian Humiliatrix is a perfect example of what some submissives (sort of) experience during their regular visits to prodommes and it's the kind of story I would've never been able to write without sitting in the room to see things unfold.
4. What are your favorite kinks and fetishes to write?
Well, it's no surprise I write a lot of raceplay. Odds are I'm the most prolific Asian femdom writer on Amazon right now and have a very vocal following for my Ebony femdom as well. I love both of those since they allow for a lot of allusions to taboo topics around racial stereotypes and power dynamics that I think are very healthy to get people thinking about, but in a fun way without all the finger wagging and guilt-tripping that happens on some platforms (cough cough Twitter cough).
That aside, I always find myself gravitating towards body worship (often humiliatingly so if I can get away with it) and puppy play, though the latter usually only works in the context of a more varied story despite how much I love the puppy/master dynamic for its ability to degrade and humiliate in a range of ways, from loving to cruel (I still adore how puppy play was used at the start of Asian Mistress, White Slave). I also have a big kink for skirting around the edges of toilet play, but I'm not really into any brown/golden shower scenes, only the threat and taboo of them (I blame some formative experiences with Yapoo's Market that both horrified and intrigued me when I was younger). I've gotten some really negative feedback about including detailed golden showers in a few stories so I've pulled back on much of that, but I do still like to tease the fear of it happening to characters.
5. You wrote a lot of stories about Asian mistresses, and your stories include vivid details about the life and culture in various countries, especially Japan. Do you have much experience traveling in the countries you write about?
Yes! I spent a very precious period of my life after school traveling around Asia and living in Japan for a number of years. Since returning to the US, I've been lucky enough to get to go back to Japan for both work and pleasure, and I find it to be a country that never stops being fascinating. It's definitely not perfect--their views on women and the LGBT community are not amazing--but I do appreciate that in their own strange way they embrace BDSM and femdom far more than America does. I've even been lucky enough to sit down with a few Japanese prodommes and see the spaces that they work out of, which was amazing and which I 1000% incorporated into stories like Cute & Sadistic Japanese Mistress.
6. You have such a deep catalogue. How do you write so many so quickly? Do you have any target for hours or words per day?
Hah, it's funny you should ask this, as I was just going over my lifetime word count and apparently it's just shy of a million words, which is... wow. That's like half of a George R. R. Martin book (kidding!). Jokes aside, I've been writing femdom in one form or another for nearly fifteen years now (including way too much time on the Shangrila MUSH server), with a focus on publishing in the last six years so I've had the benefit of building up a large mental catalog that I've been able to put into saleable story format. More importantly, I've had an unexpected (and serendipitous) opportunity this past year to focus on my writing, so I've really pushed myself to keep putting out work while this moment lasts. It's been a wonderful gift and a great chance to challenge myself as a writer and I know it's not an opportunity most people have.
In all likelihood though, my output will slow next year, but who knows! If I could wave a magic wand and make what I need to survive from my femdom writing alone, I would happily fill my days and nights with nothing but smut (which is more or less what I did this past year...). Is this the wrong time to say I just completed the final draft of an Asian femdom novel, my longest femdom story ever not counting the CYOA novel Escape from Matriarch Manor?
7. What differences do you feel there are between female femdom writers and male femdom writers?
I really think it comes down to less about the gender of the writer and more the gender of the target audience. I'm stereotyping here, but in my experience female markets tend to appreciate more of the "He is amazing and he bows down to me and only to me, which makes me even more amazing!" vibe, which makes sense given how widespread patriarchal pressures are across the world; for female readers, taking the reins of power from sexy men in charge is hot and female domination can often act as a form of steamy empowerment for the FMCs of the stories. Personally, I find a very similar dynamic in many Romance niches and it's never been my thing so I tend to avoid writing to these markets.
Male markets on the other hand definitely index on physicality, but since this is the market I write to I actually see a pretty big schism in it. There's one side of the market that gets a ton of mileage out of the more fantastical and sci-fi ideas that introduce societal paradigm shifts to create femdom scenarios and often write to me wishing I would push boundaries even more than I already do. On the other hand, there's the side of the male market that really is uninterested once things get rough and has a strong aversion to the more extreme possibilities of femdom. I can respect that, even if my own concerns with some--but not all--members of this side of the market is that they seem to want the same old male-leading power dynamic but with a woman who "dominates" a man by giving him oral sex on her terms. No offense to those members of that market, but to me that just feels like maledom with extra steps. My closest comfortable version of this is something like Dominated by the Asian Girlfriend, and even that is definitively femdommy.
8. What tips do you have for new erotica writers?
Don't do it? I'm just kidding of course, but I have noticed a wave of new erotica writers in the last few years who are asking for profitable niches, thinking how to automate as much of the writing as possible, and just generally min-max the act of erotica writing to make as much money as possible. It's not a job to get rich doing, sad to say. There are many reasons for that (Amazon's puritanical take on erotica being a major one), but really if someone is interested in erotica to make a quick buck, it's going to be a waste of everyone's time.
If you are going to do it, you really need to know your niche, either by reading it, being involved in the lifestyle, or ideally both. It's very hard to write convincing stories if you're trying to copy--or worse imagine--what the feel and tone of the story should be. All newbies hate this advice because it's basically a speed bump but it's perennial for a reason. Aside from that, the basics: write consistently, learn how to market (assuming you want to sell your stories), realize the customer/sales are always right. But really the single biggest piece of advice I could offer is to enjoy what you're writing whether you sell a thousand copies or zero. I have written some totally batshit insane stories that I adored (ahem, Welcome to Femdom Hell) and which don't sell at all--and that's okay for me, because I loved writing them and I'm proud that they're in my catalog. You can't get that when you're chasing trends and copying successful authors in a niche and you'll be completely, utterly miserable when you fail.