Meeting a Neighbor's Needs by Qwillia Rain

Okay, so I just finished Meeting a Neighbor's Needs, by Qwillia Rain and honestly, I just feel lied to and absolutely furious about this book. Completely enraged. What started out as a fairly lighthearted (if questionable) sexy romp between neighbors turned into horrifying, graphic rape masquerading as romance.

The entire book is largely plotless smut...which isn't, in and of itself a problem, if that's what you're in the mood for. But what the warnings describe as a BDSM relationship bears no resemblance to a safe, sane, consensual BDSM relationship and the lack of consent or even the recognition of the protagonist as a person, with the right to refuse turns my stomach.

Heavy spoilers. Talks about consent issues, and rape; may be triggery to some.

To be fair, the book starts out a little questionably: George, the male protag, breaks into Gina's apartment while she's having sex with her on-his-way-out boyfriend. George takes over and gives Gina what she hasn't been getting from Boyfriend Bob. It's a little sketchy, but I can handwave that because the story is clearly more a sexual fantasy, a'la Letters to Penthouse (or maybe 9 1/2 Weeks) than anything more serious.

The problem is that the book keeps getting more and more questionable from its already sketchy start. While in a bookstore, George gets Gina riled up and then sends her into the bathroom and tells her to take her panties off, with the presumption that they're going to have a rendezvous in there. Instead, George sends in a stranger, who penetrates Gina before she's even aware that it's not George in the stall with her. Gina's later acquiescence and excitement is supposed to make everything all right, but now I'm squirming and for all the wrong reasons.

George's next plan of attack is to ambush Gina in her own apartment. As she arrives home from work, he blindfolds her, ties her up (they'd never tried bondage before, either, at this point), and plies her with roofie aphrodisiac dosed wine. George has also invited his friend Mike to come and play, again, without talking it through or getting consent from Gina. For me, there's a kind of visceral horror at the idea of even a man I trust invading my physical space (apartment) without permission, let alone inviting his buddy into it. The fact that he's invited his buddy over to share Gina without the two of them talking about it first takes that visceral horror and turns it into rage.

George and Mike continue to drug Gina and use her in every orifice for an unknown number of hours and over her explicit, verbal protests: "Though I think I voiced some protests over my treatment, both men turned a deaf ear. My body was their plaything. My control over it was severed."

After Mike leaves, George drugs Gina again and continues his assault (and despite the fact that Gina derives pleasure from these experiences, I can't think of another word to use here) and then allows her to pass out.

When she awakes, there are even more strange men in her apartment (another 5, not including George). Gina again explicitly and verbally protests. George puts on the pressure, promising it'll just be the one time. He then goes on to tell her that the men have already been viewing and fondling her while she was unconscious: "They've already seen you, Gina. Touched and tasted you while you were resting."

And the gang-bang begins. And goes on for pages. At the beginning of this entire rape interlude, we're told this assault goes on for thirty-six hours; it feels like every moment of it is lovingly described—including the many, many times that Gina says no and is completely ignored by the men using her for their pleasure.

And…here's my thing. I get that this is essentially a woman's rape fantasy, packaged up for sale. I don't have issues with rape fantasy at all. To be perfectly honest, I have plenty of my own rape fantasies, as long as it meets two basic criteria: don't present it to me as rape=love & romance and warn me ahead of time that there are consent issues present in the text.

Further, I don't have problems with bondage or domination or submission. If you've read my fic, you know those are themes I frequently explore and play with, both in formal BDSM relationship and in less formal ones. But I have criteria there, too: consent is made clear and explicit and the sub's boundaries are respected. The sub should know that s/he is in a BDSM relationship and not just have it sprung on hir. The sub should consent to having a BDSM relationship and not just have it assumed by the dom that whatever he does is a-okay. And the dom should respect the sub's boundaries and the boundaries should be set and accepted before any of this bullshit happened.

Being an abusive asshole is not the same thing as being a dom and it's definitely not being a good dom. I could have had zero problems with this book if the basic criteria of consent were met. But they weren't. And that's the difference between BDSM play and rape and abuse. BDSM play=sexy fun times. Rape and abuse=PT wants this dude's pecker cut off with a rusty axe. It takes a lot to trigger me. That's not a boast, it's a statement of fact. Rape fantasies do not, per se, trigger back to my own experiences. This triggered me. And angered me. And sickened me.

This was not what I signed up for. And it definitely didn't meet my needs.