Yolanda CelbridgeBesprekingen

Alright, I will confess, this is really the first book I've read purely in the genre of Erotic Literature. My first experience with something similar was "Justine" by the Marquise de Sade, and maybe this sort of spoiled me and set this genre up to fail in my eyes. Or maybe I'm just not this genres target audience (if in fact this book represents it) and they are after people who aren't nearly as much of an avid reader as myself. However, I do notice that this genre has very poor reviews in describing what the book is about or contains. Maybe there are certain limitations that I don't know about? Be that as it may, I'm going to do an in depth analysis.

I must admit I did not find this book the least bit erotic. It did not play to my specific fantasies, however, I surely cannot give this book a rating of one star based on its lack of arousing me. De Sade didn't really fully arouse me either and I gave that a five. Unfortunately I found the writing in this book to be very inconsistent. Most of the situations the characters are thrust in are stated as a mere matter of fact. You don't really get inside the characters heads to really learn their motivations, so that was a bit of a black mark.

This book focuses mainly on stockings, taking from behind and caning. This was sort of a surprise to me because by the title I rather assumed it would have to do with a whole lingerie outfit of sorts, not domination (though I assumed this from the cover) and punishment. However, throughout the book most girls are not clothed except for garters and stockings, regardless of where they are. This book sort of plays to every possible fantasy, but those three are the top focus throughout the book. It seems like everyone in this fantasy world does these three things. I should warn some that there are scenes involving toilet humiliation, but it stays away from going into coprophagia, which isn't in the book at all. The punishment sequences have all the same tone with the girl being strung up then whipped. Sometimes this happens with a cane or with various kinds of leather whips. Either way, by the end of the book the whipping sequence becomes quite tiresome and not very creative at all. There is also a lot catered to girl on girl, but male on male scenes are steered away from. I did like that the author remained mostly heterosexual, as same sex scenes do not portray my particular interests. There are also no she-male types in this book, though they do have mutants toward the end, which was another very absurd part of this book and I had a hard time following why it would be erotic.

The world the characters are thrust into is almost far too ambitious to be told in a short novel. This is really the whole reason I gave the book two stars rather than just one. The setting seems to be post apocalyptic where nuclear war destroyed our current day civilization and forced humans to flee what they once new. The humans in this setting no longer know much of anything. They don't read books, they don't have cars, they barely know how to make clothes, except for some reason they know how to weave silk. I'm speaking from the general populace level, because the leaders of the areas know quite a bit more. Strangely though, none of this is explained, the reader is just thrust into this bizarre world and told to accept it. I would be happy to accept these abnormalities if it took place on another planet, but this takes place in Madagascar. Maybe there is a previous book by the author that explains this, but the publisher does not make any note of this being a sequel. It would seem global warming has made Antarctica a viable location to live, because that's where our main character, Sindi, is from. However, nothing about this is explained. So she's a princess from Antarctica (or Antarctique in the book) and gets captured and enslaved by this guy in Madagascar. Sounds tragic right? Apparently not, because all girls secretly desire to be enslaved and done by their masters... according to the book at least.

This is where I had major misgivings in the language use, because the author repeatedly uses terms like "vile" or "stench" to describe things which have negative connotations, then a few seconds after the characters are in love with them. This whole universe is driven by this incensed nymphomaniac purpose. The book goes from bizarre to even weirder as it goes on. For some reason juicing a girl has become a regularity for seasoning meals. There's a great focus on food in this book, but what the characters eat is almost repulsive and I wonder why this is an erotic novel. For example, the characters will often suck live eels from "inside" a girl and exclaim how great it is. I'm not sure about most people... but eating an eel raw doesn't sound great. In another instance a girl is consuming a lobster and eats the claw whole... shell and all. People have clearly gone nuts. Maybe this was the whole point of the book, I actually couldn't tell because the language use falls into this vague double standard where I'm unsure of if the characters are supposed to like or dislike it.

One other area that really threw me off was the fact that this book has vampires in it. I'm not even sure why they are included in the story. They're not even a traditional vampire and you can turn a girl into one with special training. This training seems to involve eating animals raw... and that's about it. After a little while her skin turns a very pale white, her hair turns black, and then her tongue becomes furry. Now why a furry tongue is a by product of vampirism is way beyond me. This made the least amount of sense in the whole book. Like everything else... there's no background. No explanation. I'm left wondering why something is all the time in this book and that made it very frustrating to read. Towards the end of this I was left wondering if the author could even answer these "why" questions on her own.

However, the economics of the world was pretty interesting and it's really the only part I enjoyed reading because it was interesting but made sense (sort of). Society has redeveloped into a sort of slave society, however, unlike the slavery most people here grow up with (especially in America), it seems just about everyone is a slave in some respect. Predominantly, though, women are sold as slaves and men are the owners. So a lot of the scenes involve male domination. Although, there is a balance and there are many scenes that involve female domination. This is usually female on female and there are very few involving a female on a male, but they are there. Regardless, girls are sold at public auctions and the basis for their purchase is dictated to how well a girl can take a beating. The girls are then sold to the males and they are used for pleasure, cooking, hard labor, and just about everything else. In one section of the land the slave girls make up the army (this seems like a foolish idea). Also it is pointed out for the army training, they are trained not to have camaraderie with their fellow soldiers... again, that makes no sense. A slave's station is apparent because they are not clothed and especially not wearing stockings, for stockings are a sign of status. However, and this is where I had a major logic break down, when a girl is going to be punished and beaten she will have to don stockings. Now why a slave would have to dress like royalty to be shamed is beyond me. I mean maybe there's a perfectly good reason for this, but it's never outlined so the reader never knows why.

Once Sindi is captured she seems to be taken from master to master. At first it is Prince Een, then the Rubber Lord sends Loleelo to steal her, then Gunn the outlaw captures her, then she falls into the hands of Peter the German, then to the Bookbinder, then to Ogpan, and then finally to the Bookbinder again. Each of these captures has the same penchant for punishment and by the time I got to the scenes with Ogpan I was summarily bored with them. Interestingly the stocking commerce, discussed throughout these adventures, was fairly fascinating because the trade between the lands was pretty intricate and each nation produced one essential product. Books did exist, but very few could read them and even less could actually make them.

The weirdest part in the story is when she is in the clutches of Peter the German, who appears to know something about genetics and he is obsessed with books. He wants to take over the Rubber Lords domain so that he may acquire his books. Anyway, Peter also has an interest in creating mutants (Misshapes) and just generally deforming humans. This is probably the more disgusting sequence in the book. People with rotten arms, two heads, double "organs" and so forth. He also creates and controls the silkworms, which are humans who have silk for skin and they shed it regularly. Obviously he makes the stockings. The worst part is by far when Sindi is captured by the Misshapes that were exiled and she is forced to pleasure the heavily warted area on the female leader. This is where I nearly gave up on the book altogether.

I will admit that the end of the novel, when it eventually came, was rather interesting. Sindi falls in lieu with the Bookbinder and decides to follow him because he is clearly the strongest. He mounts an army of girls to take over all of Madagascar, which he does, but it's a shame that this is just in the last twenty pages of the book. You have no idea that this is even happening and then out of the blue Sindi fulfills this prophecy to be Queen of the region. However, the underlying message in this section is pretty interesting. Basically it tells the reader that physical power isn't everything, and the person with knowledge (presumably from books) can have more power than anyone else. See, the Bookbinder had all the books and therefore the most knowledge, so he was truly the most powerful.

Well, that's all I have to say on this particular novel. This was my first foray into this genre, and I thought it was an interesting experience. While I did not enjoy this book thoroughly I'm not going to condemn an entire genre and I plan on reading more of these types of books. Who knows, I may find an author I really enjoy at some point. I realize that people enjoy a vast array of different fantasies and more, so I won't rate it based on the content because someone out there may love this, I am just merely reporting what I read and the problems I found within the book. Remember, knowledge is power.½

If you like whipping and masturbation of a girl. This is your book to read. The first chapter starts of ok, but after that it will be more whipping and more masturbating and more whipping. It is just if there is nothing else than this.

Celbridge’s erotic novels are principally about erotic aspects of chastisement, but they also incorporate scenarios that include other fetishes. This book, as with most of her work, is strongly F/F in nature, but it contains much F/M material, mostly involving males given to cross-dressing. Chastisements are consensual. They are also uniformly extreme and in many ways they are complex, employing inventive means of inflicting pain and humiliation. The setting in this book is an establishment in a secluded part of Britain to which clients are sent when they require chastisement, and Prudence Riding is recruited there as a nurse, quickly learning the rigours of the job, both giving and receiving severe attention. Staff of a local air base are involved in maintaining an intriguing hierarchy of power, and punishments flow thick and fast through the narrative. I found it a bit heavy and repetitive, but for those who like women to be competitive and vindictive, this may be an advantage.

The majority of Celbridge's tales of erotic chastisement concern F/F encounters, with only fleeting episodes of F/M. This novel reverses this trend. It concerns a young man of Austrian extraction who comes to England shortly after WWI, and is here befriended by a retired major, along with his young wife and daughter. His schooling and early experiences have provided him with a tolerance of severe corporal chastisement which predispose him to oblige the punitive needs of these two women, and their circle of friends who share their love of beating and humiliating males. He is joined by another young man of similar disposition, and together they endure the stinging attentions of many women, all with loving tolerance of the pain involved. More than many of Celbridge's books, this one includes many intriguing twists of plot, and thus largely avoids the fault of endless repetition that is common in this genre. The story deals quite sensitively with the paradoxes of love and pain, and pride and humiliation, and it will certainly appeal to those with a liking for F/M scenarios.

Celbridge writes erotic literature with a strong flavour of erotic chastisement, principally of nubile young females by nubile young females. 'The Schooling of Stella' is very much in this vein, using the setting of a remotely situated school for young ladies in Scotland at which discipline is enforced rigorously using canes, whips and tawses, against a background of complex rules of behaviour. A well-endowed male element provides added variety to the nominally all-female list of characters. Chastisements are essentially consensual, indeed they are welcomed by the owners of the receiving fesses, who seem universally to be enthusiastically submissive, although they may be easily persuaded to be dominant as the need arises. The initially virginal Stella, a high-flyer in such an academic environment, finds her erotic calling well rewarded at the school, where (as if often the case in Celbridge's works) the boundaries between teachers and pupils are constantly subject to reversal. Chastisements are both frequent and invariably painful in the books entertaining plot, one of the author's best, replete with twists and turns. Definitely one of Celbridge's best, and the scholastic setting will appeal to many.

Celbridge is one of the most prolific of writers in the style of erotica that focusses on erotic chastisement, mostly of the F/F variety but often, as here, with a significant component of M/F activity. Lisbeth is in business, and she is assigned to negotiate a contract in the Bahamas by a colleague she knew at school and with whom she was intimate. She is interested in chastising the rear parts of pretty girls, and although she begins her assignment with no erotic interest in being so treated herself, she quickly finds herself on the receiving end of canings which have the effect of re-orientating her preferences. She is taken to a remote island where chastisements are routine, and she becomes a slave, preferring such subservience to a post with more power over her fellow girls. The book is well written, with Celbridge's literary idiosyncrasies, and will certainly not disappoint devotees of her work.

Mitch Barnett, an English CP enthusiast, takes the high road to Thailand after catching his wife with his business competitor. But he has ulterior motives, as he has fallen head over heels in lust with Nampoong, a Thai masseuse who's headed back home after a short time in swinging London. What follows is a tour of Thai sleaze, especially the area of Pattya, as he hunts for his lost love.

I like my smut with exotic locations so I loved this one. Celbridge, one of Nexus' more popular authors, lays on the kink in this one with some heady prose to top it off. I also enjoyed the educational side of this book, learning some Thai words for kinky stuff. If you like your kink in humid, tropical locations, this is the book for you. Published in 2006 by Nexus. Highly recommended.

Celbridge’s punitively erotic novels have usually concentrated on F/F scenarios, but this one is much better balanced, with many counterbalancing M/F and F/M encounters. The tale begins with the heroine as a pupil, then as a teacher of young soldiers preparing for demobilisation, before her aggressively correctional experiences expand in local society. Soon she is headed for Africa, to live in a priapic society which has a rigidly authoritarian structure enforced by cane and sjambok. The frequent changes of scene and emphasis suggest a short story origin of the work, but it is cleverly worked, and this construction mostly avoids the temptations of repetition that dog work within this genre. Definitely one of Celbridge’s better books.

Yolanda Celbridge is a prolific author of chastisement novels, and no doubt she has a significant following. However, there is a sameness that characterises the majority of her books which suggests that the reading of a small number may be sufficient. They predominantly relate an intense, steady stream of F/F chastisements by cane or birch, and what plot there is suffices only to provide enough inter-personal conflicts to make this stream barely credible. As here, there is usually a little incidental F/M interest. In each book, the slightest device is employed to reverse roles so that everyone seems, as it were, to get a good crack of the whip. In this particular book, a girls’ school headmistress voluntarily enrols as the lowest of the low in a rival institution, with a different set of arbitrary rules of behaviour, and the merry dance continues. Certainly well written, but I would say with appeal only to particular enthusiasts.

Celbridge has an extensive list of remarkable books. Lately she has concentrated on a highly stylised type of plot, concerning heavily F/F situations in modern or futuristic settings, but this book is from her earlier style, quite close to that used in Victorian/Edwardian erotic works (but thankfully more readable to modern readers). It concerns an all-girls academy, frequented nevertheless by a resident male and a number of transient males, all of whom willingly participate in the punitive regime instituted by the Governess. Having set the scene, all that may be done in this style is the (rather repetitive) iteration of erotic chastisement scenarios, with minimal plot and character variations. The eroticism mostly leads to its natural conclusion, of course. As the major role of such literature may well be to offer a substantial variety of stimulating situations and detailed descriptions of (F/F, F/M and M/F) fustigation, then this can be seen as a good thing. However, for many this may well be a disadvantage.

As prime examples of F/F spanking literature Celbridge’s novels tend to be substantially identical in terms of plot structure, varying only in the way they establish their (mostly scholastic) scenarios in which the many characters enjoy their contrived pain-infliction episodes, and in the blow-by-blow details of those episodes. If you’ve read one then (to a large extent) you’d want another only because you craved the thrill of encountering such differences in minor details. This one concerns an institution whose inmates, rich middle-class young women, uniformly rapidly healing from skin damage, pay handsomely to be very harshly mistreated by their peers. Allegiances between protagonists are rather fickle. There are small elements of M/F and of bondage situations here. Perhaps more credible in its scenes than the average Celbridge work, and a ‘must have’ volume for her aficionados.

Celbridge writes entertaining disciplinary erotic fiction, with a strongly F/M flavour, although, as in this case, she is also comfortable in the F/F arena. This book leads on from ‘Memoirs of a Cornish Governess’, and ‘The Governess at St Agatha’s’, detailing the adventures of the highly erotically charged Miss Constance de Comynge as she instils scholastic (and amatory) discipline into her bare-bottomed male charges and her more-than-willing female assistants. As always, she demonstrates her willingness to undergo the same stinging ordeals as her victims, and is also willing to temper her painful justice with libidinous access to her female charms. The plot here concerns her travels in foreign parts, including voyaging with a British Naval vessel, and capture by female pirates, who inevitably succumb to her disciplinary charms. An enjoyably jolly romp for those in search of F/M disciplinary erotica.

Miss Celbridge’s books, at least those published recently, have concerned mostly F/F physical chastisement of a particularly intense kind, and fictional situations of a highly fantastic nature. 'The English Vice' is characteristic of these traits, and it will please those who are excited by a high density of punitive engagements that involve copious emissions of bodily fluids within an arcane (quasi-educational?) and complex web of intrigue, shifting identities, and dominant-submissive relationships. Relationships have a habit of frequently making sudden U-turns, and are never what they seem. In addition to chastisements involving stinging instruments, the work includes quite a lot of pony-girl action, and humiliations such as inhumation, mud, the insertion of worms, gas masks, and (inevitably) a high proportion of ‘rear-passage usage’. Celbridge is fond of neologisms such as ‘humiliance’, and ‘bum-flans’, which give her work an inimitable style. It could be seen as overly repetitive, a frequent criticism of erotic writing, but that may be seen as a positive factor for devotees of Miss Celbridge.

Celbridge’s more recent works have concentrated mainly on F/F erotic spanking situations, but this novel covers a broader canvas, with much more emphasis on M/F situations, although it does not neglect the F/F side of things. The principal character, by virtue of her chastising relationship with a rich older man, inherits the wherewithal to set up a school for young ladies. The first part of the book is concerned with her progress in making the necessary arrangements, using invariably flirtatious approaches to the various men whose help she requires. The descriptions of these activities, and also those detailing the recruitment (and chastisement) of necessary female staff are really entertaining and erotic, and largely justify acquisition of the book. I found it rather unfortunate, however, that the principal character appears to abandon such promising beginnings in favour of the clichéd visit to the seamy erotic side of Paris well beloved of other writers in the Victorian/Edwardian style. The book thereby loses momentum in describing orgiastic activities that involve many upper class people who are largely unrelated to the basic aim of opening and running a school. It then also loses its freshness and its basic erotic appeal. Still my favourite Celbridge so far, though.

Devotees of Ms Celbridge will be well aware that her style in the erotic spanking literature is both strongly orientated as F/F, with M/F and F/M playing quite minor roles, and also firmly positioned at the far end of the erotic pain spectrum. As with Celbridge’s other novels the plot is both complex and difficult to comprehend, but for those turned on by seemingly endless mostly consensual F/F canings that are by no means constrained to the ‘lower back’ region, such fine points of the literary craft are presumably of little significance. The setting is in and around some far-eastern wartime camp that vaguely involves Japanese soldiers and a large number of nurses, both British and Japanese, whose aim, much greater than military victory, is to have their bodies thrashed to (and beyond) frequent orgasms. There is also a parallel plot, that I had difficulty understanding, involving a tribe of extreme, flagellation-obsessed ‘feminists’. Scatology and anal penetration figure strongly, and the book is not for the squeamish. My rating is based on its appeal to its specialist audience.

Celbridge specialises in novels of erotic chastisement, mostly involving females taking both roles. Each of her books has a highly inventive plot which involves almost continuous action of either punitive or other erotic natures. Humiliation also figures, but things are generally good-natured. In 'The Smarting of Selina' the leading character is a young nubile journalist with substantial and resilient hindquarters, whose agony column regularly recommends domestic discipline. She decides to investigate a special government-sponsored all-female correctional facility, assuming that her voluntary status will be respected, but things get rapidly out of hand, and she finds a new calling. The book is well-written, as are all of Celbridge's many books, and I found this to be one of her better ones. a real story, then this may be for you.

Yolande Celbridge has written many books in the erotic flagellation genre, principally within the F/F subdivision. This one is a good example, and if you seek countless descriptions of nubile young women exercising instruments of chastisement on the vulnerable hindquarters of other nubile young women, this is for you. However, be warned that this one in particular stretches credibility on both the ability of human flesh to withstand (and recover from) extremely vigorous beating, and the capacity of the female to be repeatedly aroused to climax throughout extended sessions of such treatment. There is a minor component of M/F and F/M activity within the book, which provides some variation, but females are mostly dominant, even when they are being ‘submissive’. As with many of the author’s works, the storyline involves institutional settings, mostly of an educational flavour, but the motivations of characters barely intrude, and provide only minimal variety in scenarios. There seems little difference between ‘teachers’ and ‘pupils’, and grouping of pupils into competing gangs is mostly irrelevant. The effect too often degenerates into a catalogue of who is doing what to whom, in which it is scarcely important if one remembers who’s who! For those needing lots of flagellatory descriptions, with minimal distractions expected from plot.

This book belongs to the ‘erotic flagellation’ genre, in which Yolanda Celbridge is an acknowledged mistress. The subset of the genre to which this example belongs involves the erotic chastisement of the unclothed nether regions of nubile young women who, thus stimulated, are spurred on to more conventional sexual activities. The genre in general is designed to excite readers more by its subject matter than its literary erudition, and although it thus tends to be repetitive, to a large extent that’s what its readers probably desire. However, readers tend to want significant variation from one chastisement situation to the next. Subtle variations in scenario, in the characters involved, and in their motivations for their actions can all add to the disparate range of stimuli that is needed for engaging the erotic attention of readers. No two individuals are identical in what turns them on, and well-structured repetition, involving wide variations in scenario, characters and motivations, allows a book to hit the buttons of many different readers.
In this context, I found that this book lacks an adequate range of invention. It begins reasonably well, with a nicely described, highly atmospheric caning of a nubile young woman by another nubile young woman, the latter having just (rather improbably) been appointed governess of the institution in which most of the action takes place. The institution – a rigidly disciplinarian one, of course - appears to manufacture cigars, with the help of (willing?) female slaves called ‘maids’, and it seems to be associated with a similar operation in Cuba, where other parts of the book’s action take place.
So it started tolerably well, but I soon found that the chastisements of the workers, called ‘maids’, and of the other staff, started to seem either excessive or unlikely (or both), even though the flagellated recipients always manage to gush copiously in their consequent orgasms. There is much swapping of chastiser/chastised roles, and lots of girl-on-girl engagement, but somehow it all seems to be inconsequentially repetitive, and the motives of the individuals (if they may be so called) are far from clear, apart from a seemingly insatiable desire to be beaten so hard that the marks take a long time to fade.
It is an unfortunate tendency of works within this genre to drift towards excessive chastisements, towards complex orgiastic interactions involving many players, and towards activities best described as bizarre, and for me, this book strays in all three ways. Another unfortunate tendency of this genre is a failure to accept that it is easier to turn someone off than it is to turn them on.
Heterosexual activity, apart from that with the ‘master’, who boasts an organ of amazing size, is provided by a gardener and several gang members, but invariably males are treated solely as sexual objects with large appendages. The males are treated perhaps even more two-dimensionally than the females in the book. Perhaps this appeals to many readers, but I found it rather shallow. I own more than a dozen of Celbridge’s books, and my criticisms of this one apply throughout, to varying extent. This is a reasonably good book, but it is flawed, and potential readers need to be aware of the area of its failings.½