VIP Interview with Tanya Simmonds – An Erotic Author!

The Adultsmart blog proudly introduces Tanya Simmonds, a celebrated erotica author specializing in FemDom. In 2004, former criminal defence lawyer Tanya wrote her first erotic piece after booking a male stripper. She went on to become a number one bestselling author on Amazon.

VIP Interview with Tanya Simmonds – An Erotic Author!

Welcome Tanya. So two occupations that are really polar opposites. First off what sparked your interest in criminal law? It was a brave decision to turn your back on a ‘stable’ and ‘lucrative’ career in law.

Put simply – I hated the job. Parental pressure originally drove it, so I couldn’t discover my own identity. Daily exposure to life’s darkest sides and a rule-heavy environment with narrow reality views shaped my experience. It was stifling, but I was planning on my ‘jail break’ from day one. I lived very frugally, invested wisely, and after twenty-five years, I escaped with enough money to live off the interest, better than I even had. Freedom is priceless. 

What was the catalyst for you to do this? You got right into it and wrote a novel a year. This would have required some dedication to your work. Where did you find the perseverance as writing can be exhausting and challenging?

I always dreamed of being a novelist and now had the time to chase it. However, I needed a resume. Initially unknown, I later discovered BDSM, especially maledom, as the easiest genre to publish.  My experience had taught me that men dominating women was anything but a fantasy. Then I noticed the flipside of the coin – femdom. At face value, it was absurd and almost cartoon-like, and that made me feel more comfortable. The only problem was – I didn’t know anything about it.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Ironically, the reason I never suffered from writer’s block is because I didn’t know what I was doing (lol). Two years after posting my first erotic story, the BDSM community approached me for more stories. They were more than happy to disclose their innermost fetish fantasies to me, and while it was all a bit jaw-dropping, they gave a template to work with. I also derived ideas from femdom artwork and imagery online. My task was to weave it into a story line with a common theme.

Your novels are quite unique in that they are BDSM FemDom dealing specifically with orgasm denial. Your bio mentions the masturbation ban by the Pentecostal cult on your partner as inspiration for your subject choice. Can you tell us a bit more about this?

The more I looked into it, the more I became aware that this had to be the hook. Femdom is fantasy. Masturbation prohibition isn’t. With this concept on board, I felt more confident that I could inject elements of reality and believability into the narratives.

History and some religious communities and penal systems still enforce masturbation bans today. From the church-ruled Middle Ages, to the governess culture of the Victorian era, to modern religious cults (especially Pentecostal, Mormon, and Jehovah’s Witness sects) and the US penal system; this demonstrably-lethal and sadistic monster is still alive and well in the 21^st Century.

This seemed to be the theme of many of your books. What was it like to write erotica on a subject that you opposed?

Indeed, I oppose it. It’s an arbitrary form of torture that carries numerous identified health hazards, both mental and physical. It also demonstrates the most extreme examples of totalitarianism (the denial of an individual’s right to body and thought) for which there is no place in a supposedly-civilised democracy.

My novels graphically illustrate it, demonizing enforcers with traits like hypocrisy, neurosis, and sociopathy. The femdom enthusiast will lap up the scenes with eager passion, but between the lines, I am also having my say. One can’t destroy a monster without first showing it.

The following books of a series were written by you – The Paramount Rule – Book 1 The Gaol: The Paramount Rule – Book II Reformation: The Paramount Rule – Book III, Under the Paramount Rule: Tales of Oakpark Grange ending with the book ‘The Penitentiary’ Which was your favorite and why?

‘The Penitentiary’ is most definitely my favorite of the five novels. It was originally written and published in 2012, toward the end of my journey into BDSM literature. The first two, ‘The Paramount Rule – Book 1’ and ‘The Gaol: The Paramount Rule – Book II’ were very much ‘fan-driven’. By the time I got to ‘Reformation: The Paramount Rule – Book III’, I felt ready to put my own stamp on the series. Nothing like ‘Paramount Rule III’ exists anywhere else. Creativity peaks with shock twists and diverse personalities, leading to femdom’s most controversial ending.

With ‘The Penitentiary’, I was closer to writing the type of book I truly wanted to write than ever before. It’s story-rich with unexpected elements for a femdom novel. Set in the modern era, I used a more contemporary writing style than in the Paramount Rule series, and wrote it as an-almost mainstream novel. In addition to some extremely graphic sex scenes, it also includes strong character development, unremitting drama, action sequences, cliffhangers, and ends with two of the most jaw-dropping twists I ever wrote. It’s what I would describe as a ‘femdom thriller’, and plays out somewhat like a movie-of-the-week.

In many of your novels there is an integration of fact and fiction that has been twisted to fit the fictional femdom tyranny. Things like the penis guillotine, the nullifier, and incarcerated ban on masturbation. Did you do much research on these things?

Yes, I did, and it still horrifies me. Whilst I don’t know of any such thing as ‘penis guillotine’ to have actually existed, I did discover a few terrors that seemed to be heading in that direction. In the Victorian era, boys wore inner-spiked penis rings to prevent nighttime erections. In Somalia, families routinely perform clitoridectomy on young girls to prevent sexual pleasure and ensure chastity.

Religious dogmas on sexuality and masturbation traumatize many, leading to teen suicides, driven by fear-inducing myths for control.

The US penal system employs an anti-masturbation rule in most prisons today. The idea underpinning it is to prevent prisoners from ‘getting it out’ and masturbating in front of female officers as a means of intimidation. That’s fair enough. The problem is in the wording of the rule itself. It simply stipulates ‘masturbation’ and makes no reference to specific circumstance. A vindictive corrections officer can report an inmate if she catches him masturbating discreetly under the sheets with the lights out as a result of this lack of specification.

Solitary confinement for up to two months increases aggression in inmates, risking officers’ lives. In the UK and Europe, this would be a human rights violation, breaching rules against cruel punishment.

The paperback book business has taken a knock over the years with online and a couple of your publishers went bust. How has that impacted upon your career? It has been said recently that ‘The Penitentiary’ is going to be your last novel. Why?

After my UK publisher for The Paramount Rule Trilogy went bankrupt, a US publisher made me turn it into stand-alones. Post-release, many erotica publishers sought me out.

These titles (The Paramount Rule, Prisoners of the Governess, Reformation, Reformation: Stronghold, Under the Paramount Rule, and The Penitentiary) were ultimately released through four publishers between the US and the UK. But, alas, it was not to last. The last publisher folded in early 2016, and the publishing rights returned to me.

In 2017, I polished and self-published The Paramount Rule Trilogy on Amazon, launching a marketing campaign. I then faced the challenge of finding promotion companies willing to work with these titles.

All of them stipulate ‘NO EROTICA’. In addition, Amazon suppresses them from public visibility so they are very difficult to discover by chance. Amazon have also recently started banning books of this nature outright. It’s only a matter of time before I receive an email from them, telling me my books have been removed from sale.

I have a plot in mind for ‘Penitentiary 2’ and I’ve had a few requests for it. But what could I possibly do with it? It would be an enormous amount of work, not to mention the expense of cover design and initial promotion (albeit with only four promotion companies that will touch them.) With so much against me, I cannot conceive of where I could go with it now.

What is next for Tanya Simmonds?

Other than being at a loose end, I do enjoy life. I travel a lot, so it’s a lot like a living vacation. 

For anyone who might be interested, ‘The Paramount Rule – Book I’ is currently FREE on Amazon Kindle: