In an interview with the Independent on Sunday in late 2006, author Ian Rankin accused women, especially lesbians, of writing the most violent scenes in contemporary fiction. Despite the multitude of gents who construct scenes of unbridled butchery on their pages, Rankin insisted that most male crime writers would “flinch morally from over-describing an act of violence against a woman, a rape, murder or whatever.”

Yet I haven’t seen a lot of flinching in the works of men. I’ve read some detailed and often starkly beautiful depictions of violence in the works of Brett Easton Ellis, James Ellroy, Anthony Burgess, and even Rankin himself. Val McDermid, author of the popular “Wire In The Blood” series, listed Stuart MacBride, Allan Guthrie, Chris Simms, John Connor and John Connolly off the top of her head when confronted by Rankin’s theory that graphic violence in literature was the exclusive premise of women. It doesn’t seem the case that there are more women, lesbian or not, writing about the darker aspects of the human psyche – rather that it’s just expected of men, and the idea of such scenes emerging from the imaginations of women somehow disturbs us enough that we should notice them.

When a female commits a crime, fights a war, or reveals in any way that her mind is not the fallow, nurturing idyll we assumed it to be, then we are outraged. It just isn’t in the public perception that anyone but a man could even contemplate the factors surrounding an act of violence, let alone put them into words and publish them. “There’s a profound disassociation, it seems to me,” says McDermid, “as if somehow it’s wrong for us to be writing about violence against women, as though somehow we need permission to write about violence against woman.”

In BDSM role-play, male dominants don their leather waistcoats, slip executioners’ hoods over their faces, and merrily play the part of dangerous, predatory monsters without any questions asked. Whereas women aren’t taken nearly as seriously. The mainstream perception of the Dominatrix is that of a buxom female in a titillating catsuit, showing off her boobs and bum and indulging in a bit of gentle spanking whilst giggling inanely about naughtiness. Doms get to be sadists, while Dommes have to remain non-threatening, smutty, seaside postcards. I admit that I’ve been guilty of inadvertently reinforcing this stereotype as much as anyone, mostly for reasons of finance and personal insecurity: I couldn’t imagine turning up to a session without make up and heels; although I’ve enjoyed indulging in a bit of CBT and ballbusting, I often find myself editing this part out of my conversational patter for fear of being misconstrued as a man-hater; and, most of all, I admit to having used sexual allure to my own advantage on many occasions.

Yet I’m as twisted as anyone, male or female, and enjoy writing and behaving in a way that shouldn’t be censored by gender. And, like McDermid, I’m regularly confronted with other people’s horrified reactions when I do.

Male critics have often tried to dismiss women who are fascinated by the macabre. If a woman has short hair and wears flat shoes, the violence in her nature is dismissed as being some kind of angry lesbian thing. Well, as a female bisexual in lipstick and stilettos, I can confirm that it isn’t. It might be hard to believe, but even girly girls have the capacity for imagining, writing, or even committing violence, and being absolutely brilliant at it.

The way I feel about wonderfully-written violent prose, whether penned by boy or girl, can be summed up rather well in comparison to the gruesome yet exquisite items of medieval torture equipment that Val McDermid encountered when researching her novel “Mermaids Singing”:

“The thing that freaked me out,” she said, “was not the damage they could do but the fact that they were beautifully made. That is what made the hairs stand up on the back of my head – that people had taken the time to make these things beautiful.”

My sentiments exactly.