A little while ago, I posted about Echonews’ ludicrously naive and judgemental review of “Whip Smart”. The book itself is the memoir of academic and former Dominatrix Melissa Febos, and she examines addiction, the psychology of kink, and her realisation that – at times – playing out a domination fantasy that was not her own in the name of empowerment was actually more humiliating for her than for the client. However, Echonews somehow missed the complexities of Febos’ experiences and observations, instead retreating back into the reviewer’s own traditional preconceptions of right and wrong, purity and perversion:

“You feel the dirty black tentacles of depravity seeping into her mind and body,” said the reviewer. “Many times I felt I had to put this book down and walk away to avoid contamination myself.”

Anyway, I’ve discovered an amazing NPR interview with Melissa Febos which has turned out to be more enlightened and enlightening than many of the morally squeamish reactions from elsewhere. The audio is 35 minutes long. Click here to download the file as an mp3, here to listen now, or here to read the text transcript of the interview.