Despite Norman’s correlation of testosterone with dominance, if you look around the S/M community, you will see that male privilege and “male” hormones have mostly created men who want to grovel and submit to a strong, dangerous, powerful, free, and beautiful woman—not a bunch of Conanesque barbarian slave trainers. And recent studies suggest that it is the presence of estrogen, rather than testosterone, which makes both men and women aggressive. The whole attempt to blame social sex roles on “male” and “female” hormones is absurd anyway; we all need both sets of chemicals for our bodies to work properly. On some level, Norman seems to recognize that it just won’t wash to try to equate being a top with maleness and being a bottom with femaleness because he includes several scenarios in this book in which the man adopts a submissive role.

I just can’t see Norman as a thorough-going misogynist, despite his condemnation of crudely stereotyped “Women’s Libbers.” He obviously loves women a great deal. I can’t imagine him actively working to deny us equal opportunity. His work is fiction; it’s about fantasy, and not the allocation of salaries or education. As erotica, it’s very effective. And this book is a potent source of sexual enhancement for couples who respond to Norman’s particular type of fantasy matrix. Imaginative Sex could, however, be used by readers of any sexual orientation or gender. Norman is very good at pinpointing archetypal situations that are ideal for building the tension and polarization crucial to a good scene. It’s fairly easy to adapt these scenarios to any S/M or D/S relationship. Both male and female submissives react to being pounced on, kidnapped, and “raped” (i.e., ravished in a thoroughly satisfying manner). A male slave being teased by a Mistress or a Master reveals his “true nature” just as a Kajira does—by becoming aroused when the habiliments of a slave are placed upon him, and he is “forced” to perform menial tasks and sexual service.