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beta_vulgarisThe Scientific Method Universe by Kris Ripper
I've gotten really into this series of books by Kris Ripper. Like, REALLY into. I have gotten one of my partners and at least a couple of my friends into it, too. The series is The Scientific Method Universe, and most of the stories in it center on the complex, shifting relationships between three men--Hugh, a thirtyish gay former escort turned therapist and accomplished dominant, Will, the younger guy with an intimacy kink and a submissive-masochist side, and Truman, the formerly vanilla gay therapist who starts dating Hugh. The relationships between these men grow and change throughout the several years covered in the books, with other close friends and current or former lovers playing important roles in their lives as well. The more recent books in the world are beginning to center some of these secondary characters, which is delightful, but it's the relationship between Hugh and Truman and Will that really captured my obsession. Generally I don't think book reviews need to have so much of the review-writer's personal life in them, but these books demonstrate a radical honesty about the characters' emotional landscapes and sexual practices, and I think in this case, a response to them that invokes my own experiences and perspectives makes sense. Reading and loving these books is a personal resonance for me, and so here we are. Spoilers for emotional content of the series in whole. For reference, I'm in a stable polyamorous triad that consists of genderqueer me and two other women, and I do BDSM activities with my partners and some friends.
The first part of the books that caught me was Will, identifying my younger more inexperienced self with him. I never thought I was straight from puberty onward, so I don't really resonate with Will's sexual identity at the beginning of the books, but boy howdy does his experience with vanilla sex, his frustration and fear (and hella research!) around how to get access to BDSM… phew. I had a deep fascination and came to a breaking point that coalesced around kink, one that I ultimately flipped my life over for. My life didn't follow the path Will's did, but there are enough similarities that his experiences resonate heavily for me. In connection with my current situation, his fears in the later books around not wanting to get in the way of what he considered to be a primary relationship (Hugh/Truman) was a huge issue for me with my partners up until exchanging rings with them and deciding to coparent with them. I definitely feel for Will in being happy for the boyfriends as their relationship gets more serious--I've been there. It's rare to see that aspect of poly handled with this level of care, frankness, and complexity--this is not a concern that gets relieved with one sappy conversation, it's a thread throughout the books that turns up in different ways as the different relationships between the men shift, and it's just one of many things that makes these fictional relationships feel so real.
Also, Will may be inexperienced in some things, but he knows how to research! I have always been fond of research--for me, BDSM was first a thought experiment, explored through fic and conversation and nonfiction and later through in-person workshops/demos and good old fashioned experimentation. I tried dating the way Will does in one of the middle books, and though my relationship map looked different than his, I still had valuable experiences in heartbreak, trust, confidence, and eagerness to provide a space of safety for the less experienced. Those relationships inflect Will's self-image, his understanding of his desires and needs, his confidence and trust in himself, and his ability to ask for what he needs from his partners. I'm still on that path--aren't we all?--and each step of it is precious, painful, and lovely. Watching Will navigate growing up and into himself is, in so many ways, similar to looking back on myself. He handles some things with grace, others less so, and those human moments of failure, pettiness, doubt, awkwardness all make him feel real in a way I for one don't always see, especially in romance stories. The narrative doesn't let any of the characters off the hook for their behavior, but shows them in process of learning and growing in a way that both holds them accountable and forgives them for their faults and missteps. More on this later.
If Will is the spectre of my younger self of 6 or 7 years ago, Hugh and Truman reflect the parts of me that are just getting OLD, in a good way. Truman's body image issues especially ping me in a way. Though his partners love him the way he is, Hugh's failure to address Truman's self-consciousness head-on was actually one of the hardest things for me to forgive Hugh for--partly because I've certainly been on both sides of this dynamic and I know I haven't always handled it well, either. I love that these books depict the kind of sex that takes into account aging (if able) bodies. On a related note, one of the side books, Practice Makes Perfect (which is my least favorite of the books in terms of characterization, but still a decent romance story), is a het story that includes a dominant man who uses a wheelchair, and an inexperienced submissive woman who is ablebodied. The way that book explores sex between those characters--particularly the awkwardness of both characters' conversation in general, and their mutual attraction as well--gives so much in terms of a frank, sweet discussions of adaptive sex practices and communication around sexual needs and explorations.
Back to Hugh! Another thing I resonated with was Hugh's feeling resigned to being alone, only having to reevaluate when life changes. Hitting thirty without a stable life partner prospect and after having lived through some difficult events at a young-ish age was A Thing for me (mine got sorted out very shortly, as did Hugh's, but the question of wrenching oneself out of one's well-worn track and embracing emotional vulnerability when one has been getting along just fine dealing with one's traumas on one's own, more or less, I am deeply grateful to this book for giving me that).
Relationships demand more than simple functioning coping mechanisms, and I really appreciate the way these books focus on dealing with this. Hugh's descent into depression in book three and his triggered cancer fears in "Extremes" both hit home for me, as did Molly's anger at Will in Breaking Down. These are characters who have lived through very intense traumas and come through in the best ways they can. What we have in these books is not the immediate aftermath of trauma, but the distant reckonings when one's coping mechanisms no longer work. These are the messiest points in each of the characters' relationships, when the emotional conflict is hardest to resolve and the characters' interactions get more upsetting to read, from all sides. I think that the exploration of the effects trauma can have on building a normal, quotidian, ongoing life is extremely valuable, moreso in a series that so centers intimacy, sex, BDSM, and emotional health. For me, there's something healing in attaching to characters who can fuck up so intensely with one another, in some cases in ways that some people would find unforgivable (I'm thinking particularly of the consent issues in "Extremes", but there are multiple examples throughout the series). However, watching characters grapple with these problems, face them, call one another out, and find trust and healing again is a profound shift in perspective from relationships as requiring absolute constant perfection. Strong, good relationships can also come with the best that messy, fallible, messed up people can manage in a given moment. This is especially apparent with Molly and Will's clashing needs during Breaking Down, following her assault and Will's inability to follow the way she wants to move forward from it. It's dark and powerful and walks a difficult line. There's also a beautiful vein of support for characters choosing to end relationships that aren't what they need, or are no longer working for them. Seeing characters grieve these relationships while still finding happiness, support, solace in other relationships is powerful. Moreso when the breaking-up partners aren't demonized by anyone in the story--it's just the way things need to be.
I find a lot of value in the emotionally difficult parts of this series, but let's face it--they're also ridiculously hot books, full of warmth and love and lots of positive depictions of people being as emotionally healthy as possible (and working around their various and sometimes competing emotional needs with the kind of emotional intelligence I can only aspire to) and I think the sex scenes alone are worth the price of admission. I really think if these were books that focused primarily on emotional trauma, I would have a hard time with them. I think the way that the characters, through everyday moments and intense sex scenes alike, build one another's trust and knowledge of each other, gives the books room to explore those deeper and darker issues and moments of difficulty without feeling like hurt/comfort. I like that Hugh's central kink is, basically, getting inside someone (Will)'s head, and even with his high degree of observational skill and understanding of Will's emotional state, he doesn't always get it right. Ditto his relationship with Truman, which is scarier and harder for him still. I love that communication threads throughout every interaction these characters have, that attraction is so thoroughly discussed AND acted upon (and that the characters have enough humor to laugh at themselves/ each other with great fondness). The emotional integrity of the characterizations, the deep understanding they come to in sex and kink, the way they approach new experiences with curiosity, vulnerability, and brimming with joy and self-discovery, feeds my kinky little heart. When these stories go dark, they really go there, but wow the porn is hot and real.
The joy and delight in exploring kink, the contrast of the reserve both Will and Hugh feel in the first book against their open love for one another in later books, even the approach to sexual and kink exploration inherent in the series' name, is such a relief. It's hard to find books that reflect my relatively delighted approach to BDSM, to masochism, and these sometimes come close (though Will and Hugh carry a more persistent d/s dynamic/consistent roles than I do in my personal relationships). Masochism, pain processing for its own sake, snark and humor and mutual egging each other on, the way Truman enters their sexual relationship as a voyeur whose interest slowly expands through curiosity and appreciation rather than need the way Will came to BDSM… even the beach house books, which center different characters and give us further glimpses into other approaches to kink, show such a delightful array of desires, interests, needs, and experimental approaches. Nick and Bernie's almost antagonistic deep d/s contrasts so vibrantly with Will's comfortable masochism and curious, fraught forays into total power exchange in later books. Allowing zir characters not only to change but to shift in a deep sense in terms of their desires and needs sexually and even socially, while retaining their fault lines, is one of Ripper's strengths as a series author.
Okay I could ramble on forever about these characters. Who has read these books??? Come talk to me about them!
I've gotten really into this series of books by Kris Ripper. Like, REALLY into. I have gotten one of my partners and at least a couple of my friends into it, too. The series is The Scientific Method Universe, and most of the stories in it center on the complex, shifting relationships between three men--Hugh, a thirtyish gay former escort turned therapist and accomplished dominant, Will, the younger guy with an intimacy kink and a submissive-masochist side, and Truman, the formerly vanilla gay therapist who starts dating Hugh. The relationships between these men grow and change throughout the several years covered in the books, with other close friends and current or former lovers playing important roles in their lives as well. The more recent books in the world are beginning to center some of these secondary characters, which is delightful, but it's the relationship between Hugh and Truman and Will that really captured my obsession. Generally I don't think book reviews need to have so much of the review-writer's personal life in them, but these books demonstrate a radical honesty about the characters' emotional landscapes and sexual practices, and I think in this case, a response to them that invokes my own experiences and perspectives makes sense. Reading and loving these books is a personal resonance for me, and so here we are. Spoilers for emotional content of the series in whole. For reference, I'm in a stable polyamorous triad that consists of genderqueer me and two other women, and I do BDSM activities with my partners and some friends.
The first part of the books that caught me was Will, identifying my younger more inexperienced self with him. I never thought I was straight from puberty onward, so I don't really resonate with Will's sexual identity at the beginning of the books, but boy howdy does his experience with vanilla sex, his frustration and fear (and hella research!) around how to get access to BDSM… phew. I had a deep fascination and came to a breaking point that coalesced around kink, one that I ultimately flipped my life over for. My life didn't follow the path Will's did, but there are enough similarities that his experiences resonate heavily for me. In connection with my current situation, his fears in the later books around not wanting to get in the way of what he considered to be a primary relationship (Hugh/Truman) was a huge issue for me with my partners up until exchanging rings with them and deciding to coparent with them. I definitely feel for Will in being happy for the boyfriends as their relationship gets more serious--I've been there. It's rare to see that aspect of poly handled with this level of care, frankness, and complexity--this is not a concern that gets relieved with one sappy conversation, it's a thread throughout the books that turns up in different ways as the different relationships between the men shift, and it's just one of many things that makes these fictional relationships feel so real.
Also, Will may be inexperienced in some things, but he knows how to research! I have always been fond of research--for me, BDSM was first a thought experiment, explored through fic and conversation and nonfiction and later through in-person workshops/demos and good old fashioned experimentation. I tried dating the way Will does in one of the middle books, and though my relationship map looked different than his, I still had valuable experiences in heartbreak, trust, confidence, and eagerness to provide a space of safety for the less experienced. Those relationships inflect Will's self-image, his understanding of his desires and needs, his confidence and trust in himself, and his ability to ask for what he needs from his partners. I'm still on that path--aren't we all?--and each step of it is precious, painful, and lovely. Watching Will navigate growing up and into himself is, in so many ways, similar to looking back on myself. He handles some things with grace, others less so, and those human moments of failure, pettiness, doubt, awkwardness all make him feel real in a way I for one don't always see, especially in romance stories. The narrative doesn't let any of the characters off the hook for their behavior, but shows them in process of learning and growing in a way that both holds them accountable and forgives them for their faults and missteps. More on this later.
If Will is the spectre of my younger self of 6 or 7 years ago, Hugh and Truman reflect the parts of me that are just getting OLD, in a good way. Truman's body image issues especially ping me in a way. Though his partners love him the way he is, Hugh's failure to address Truman's self-consciousness head-on was actually one of the hardest things for me to forgive Hugh for--partly because I've certainly been on both sides of this dynamic and I know I haven't always handled it well, either. I love that these books depict the kind of sex that takes into account aging (if able) bodies. On a related note, one of the side books, Practice Makes Perfect (which is my least favorite of the books in terms of characterization, but still a decent romance story), is a het story that includes a dominant man who uses a wheelchair, and an inexperienced submissive woman who is ablebodied. The way that book explores sex between those characters--particularly the awkwardness of both characters' conversation in general, and their mutual attraction as well--gives so much in terms of a frank, sweet discussions of adaptive sex practices and communication around sexual needs and explorations.
Back to Hugh! Another thing I resonated with was Hugh's feeling resigned to being alone, only having to reevaluate when life changes. Hitting thirty without a stable life partner prospect and after having lived through some difficult events at a young-ish age was A Thing for me (mine got sorted out very shortly, as did Hugh's, but the question of wrenching oneself out of one's well-worn track and embracing emotional vulnerability when one has been getting along just fine dealing with one's traumas on one's own, more or less, I am deeply grateful to this book for giving me that).
Relationships demand more than simple functioning coping mechanisms, and I really appreciate the way these books focus on dealing with this. Hugh's descent into depression in book three and his triggered cancer fears in "Extremes" both hit home for me, as did Molly's anger at Will in Breaking Down. These are characters who have lived through very intense traumas and come through in the best ways they can. What we have in these books is not the immediate aftermath of trauma, but the distant reckonings when one's coping mechanisms no longer work. These are the messiest points in each of the characters' relationships, when the emotional conflict is hardest to resolve and the characters' interactions get more upsetting to read, from all sides. I think that the exploration of the effects trauma can have on building a normal, quotidian, ongoing life is extremely valuable, moreso in a series that so centers intimacy, sex, BDSM, and emotional health. For me, there's something healing in attaching to characters who can fuck up so intensely with one another, in some cases in ways that some people would find unforgivable (I'm thinking particularly of the consent issues in "Extremes", but there are multiple examples throughout the series). However, watching characters grapple with these problems, face them, call one another out, and find trust and healing again is a profound shift in perspective from relationships as requiring absolute constant perfection. Strong, good relationships can also come with the best that messy, fallible, messed up people can manage in a given moment. This is especially apparent with Molly and Will's clashing needs during Breaking Down, following her assault and Will's inability to follow the way she wants to move forward from it. It's dark and powerful and walks a difficult line. There's also a beautiful vein of support for characters choosing to end relationships that aren't what they need, or are no longer working for them. Seeing characters grieve these relationships while still finding happiness, support, solace in other relationships is powerful. Moreso when the breaking-up partners aren't demonized by anyone in the story--it's just the way things need to be.
I find a lot of value in the emotionally difficult parts of this series, but let's face it--they're also ridiculously hot books, full of warmth and love and lots of positive depictions of people being as emotionally healthy as possible (and working around their various and sometimes competing emotional needs with the kind of emotional intelligence I can only aspire to) and I think the sex scenes alone are worth the price of admission. I really think if these were books that focused primarily on emotional trauma, I would have a hard time with them. I think the way that the characters, through everyday moments and intense sex scenes alike, build one another's trust and knowledge of each other, gives the books room to explore those deeper and darker issues and moments of difficulty without feeling like hurt/comfort. I like that Hugh's central kink is, basically, getting inside someone (Will)'s head, and even with his high degree of observational skill and understanding of Will's emotional state, he doesn't always get it right. Ditto his relationship with Truman, which is scarier and harder for him still. I love that communication threads throughout every interaction these characters have, that attraction is so thoroughly discussed AND acted upon (and that the characters have enough humor to laugh at themselves/ each other with great fondness). The emotional integrity of the characterizations, the deep understanding they come to in sex and kink, the way they approach new experiences with curiosity, vulnerability, and brimming with joy and self-discovery, feeds my kinky little heart. When these stories go dark, they really go there, but wow the porn is hot and real.
The joy and delight in exploring kink, the contrast of the reserve both Will and Hugh feel in the first book against their open love for one another in later books, even the approach to sexual and kink exploration inherent in the series' name, is such a relief. It's hard to find books that reflect my relatively delighted approach to BDSM, to masochism, and these sometimes come close (though Will and Hugh carry a more persistent d/s dynamic/consistent roles than I do in my personal relationships). Masochism, pain processing for its own sake, snark and humor and mutual egging each other on, the way Truman enters their sexual relationship as a voyeur whose interest slowly expands through curiosity and appreciation rather than need the way Will came to BDSM… even the beach house books, which center different characters and give us further glimpses into other approaches to kink, show such a delightful array of desires, interests, needs, and experimental approaches. Nick and Bernie's almost antagonistic deep d/s contrasts so vibrantly with Will's comfortable masochism and curious, fraught forays into total power exchange in later books. Allowing zir characters not only to change but to shift in a deep sense in terms of their desires and needs sexually and even socially, while retaining their fault lines, is one of Ripper's strengths as a series author.
Okay I could ramble on forever about these characters. Who has read these books??? Come talk to me about them!
no subject
Date: 2017-08-11 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-11 02:55 am (UTC)Oh, also, I started the SMU series backwards: with the latest book first. *Hands*
no subject
Date: 2017-08-12 01:03 am (UTC)