Review: Seventy Three

Seventy Three by Rebecca Symmons

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A BDSM club which trains women to be sexual slaves and owned by a consortium is definitely a popular fantasy. For said woman to be a happily married wife with a husband who isn't into BDSM, this could be problematic and unfortunately all too common. In Seventy Three, Catherine Adams is finally making the move to fulfill her secret submissive desires. She revels in sexual humiliation and public exposure. The more depraved, the wetter she becomes. She longs for punishment and sexual torment. Her loving husband, Richard is hesitant to commit any of these acts upon her. Fortunately, he has no qualms about watching someone else do it to her.

How does this work when the woman is sexually active with many people other than her husband? Is this cheating? Especially if she isn't thrilled to have her husband sexually interact with other female sex slaves. One specific quote in this book is key to understanding how people in relationships cheat on each other. This is explained to Richard from the man running the secret sex slave club.

“Richard, a woman doesn’t have an affair between her legs; she has it in her head. If the activity between her legs is not emotionally attached to her brain then what provides the activity, and often pleasure, is of no consequence to her relationship." (pg. 24)

One must separate the sexual act from the love between husband and wife. If that is not possible, this story will only piss a reader off. There are times in this story where I'm ill at ease. I will get to those in a moment. First, let's discuss the BDSM in this story. There are parts to it which are very realistic. Many of the sexual acts in this story are possible in real life. The spanking, strapping, caning even the watersports are all easily possible. Serving as a waitress in a skimpy outfit and then later used as a common whore is also quite feasible. The sex acts in this story are all fantasies which can be played out and some do have consequences. From a fantasy perspective, this book hit all my erotic buttons and kept me in a constant state of arousal.

Second, the story is well written with at a good pace. There are enough lulls in between the BDSM sessions. There is a decent character development of Catherine in her erotic awakening journey. The conflict in this story is also nicely done and resolved in the end.

The parts that bugged me are ones which I don't subscribe to in the BDSM lifestyle. First, Catherine is a slave who must do everything she's told otherwise she's out of the club. There was no negotiation about her hard limits. This is a problem for me. Second, if all the dominants in this club were adjusted and good dominants, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is one who is clearly an abusive domineering asshole. And when he does something which I still think is unsafe, the expectation is for Catherine to take it. Because she didn't, she's in the wrong and has to go through a rough session to be taught her place. What is her place? As a slave she should be willing to service everyone, even those who are unattractive and have no use for her other than just to abuse and use. Even someone who is purposely abusive and violating the purpose of an erotic power exchange. This was particularly vomit worthy and I didn't like it at all. I nearly gave the book a two star on this alone. Third, the exposure of the lifestyle to family and friends is not something I can condone. This is because it cannot only ruin a person's livelihood but it is also irresponsible. To non-consensually force our lifestyle to a vanilla is déclassé. In this story, I'm not surprised by it because while it is constantly talking about respecting these intelligent independent women being sexual submissives, the actions didn't align. For the most part, I found the men and women in this book disrespectful of the women. I never saw a reason to trust this group. For a group who is so secretive about its male members, they certainly didn't do shit to protect their female members. And this is why the book lost a star from me. Despite the well written story and smoking hawt BDSM sexual acts, the lack of respect and caring for the slave was hard to swallow.

Lastly, the characters in this book kept harping on how the women were the ones in power. I call BULLSHIT. They were not. I say this because not a single woman could say no. The only way they could say no was to leave the club. This all or nothing attitude isn't the kind of BDSM I practice nor the kind of organization I would be involved in. It is unsafe and demeaning. While it is stated that the scenes are designed for a mutual benefit of the dominant and the slaves, I saw no evidence of this in the book. All I saw were scenes becoming progressively difficult for Catherine to swallow. She had to keep reminding herself that this is what she wanted and it was okay otherwise she would be kicked out of club she so desperately enjoys. In this, I lost all respect for Catherine and didn't really care what happened to her in the end.

In the end, Catherine is just a prostitute for any wealthy man or woman to use and abuse. It demeans the D/s in BDSM and really, this is a book just on sexual gratification. Albeit some very erotic and pleasurable sexual acts, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth from a healthy BDSM lifestyle perspective. Since this is all fantasy, it does work out and is a good read. I'm interested to see the next erotic awakening journey in this series. My guess is it will be with Helen, Catherine's good friend. This BDSM fantasy is recommended to those who love rich men and ladies of leisure getting filthy kinky.

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