[GLBT Fairy Tale Week] Shanna Germain on Lust and the Big Bad Wolf

I am the girl in red, singing, leaving the proper path.
I am the wolf, saliva from my maw, searching.
I am the crone, waiting for something to arrive.
I am the woodsman, making something happen.
I am the basket and the bread and the hood and the axe.
I am the listener. I am the teller. I am the tale.

I haven’t always loved fairy tales. I went through a “learned phase” in college where I believed I truly understood fairy tales for the first time. The feminist in me called them misogynistic and male-dominated. The bisexual, lustful side of me thought they were poorly drawn morality tales of how to keep a woman’s sexuality hidden and under thumb. The writer in me believed them to be oversimplified, with cardboard characters and see-through plotlines.

Over the years, I’ve come to see fairy tales in an entirely new light. Yes, in some ways, they are all of the above, because the society in which they were created was all of the above.

However, take another read and more elements come to light (especially in the original, darker versions of the tales). The sensuality is everywhere: A young girl who discovers the power of her red hood. Another who is stabbed with a needle and thus experiences a little death. A foot fetish capitalized by a crystal slipper. A submissive princess who bruises so easily that the barest touch can mark her forever. And Twilight’s sexy werewolves have nothing on the Big Bad Wolf.

It’s true that fairy tales do offer a fairly traditional view of sensuality. The guy gets the girl. There is a kiss of true love and then fade to black. The princess marries the prince. And this is why the remaking of fairy tales seems so vital. It’s time to reflect our world today, to show the myriad ways in which we all love and lust. Not to sanitize them, no, nor to over-moralize them. But to use them as a way to mirror our own lives, our own fears and desires.

Read an excerpt of “The Princess of Silk and Pain”

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Rumpled Silk Sheets: Contributors include: Shanna Germain, Sunny Moraine, Vivica Lace, Kilt Kilpatrick, Michael Jones, GG Royale, Kenzie Mathews and Jean Roberta

Available from Ravenous Romance, Fictionwise, ARe, and Kindle

Shanna Germain still hasn’t found her “Red” but that doesn’t keep her from wandering dark paths, looking for a flash of silver and crimson. Her writings about lust, love and leviathans have appeared in places like Absinthe Literary Review, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Bondage, Best Gay Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Romance, Dirty Girls, X: The Erotic Treasury and more. Walk her dark woods at www.shannagermain.com.