“Speak in many sorts of music” is a reference to Twelfth Night, 1.2.
“Speak to be understood” is a reference to Love’s Labor’s Lost, 5.2.
“Speak as liberal the north” is reference to Othello, 5.2.
“Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish . . . and mock our eyes with air” is a reference to Antony and Cleopatra, 4.14.
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without three amazing people: my brilliant editor, Cassie Jones, and my wonderful agents, David Kuhn and Becky Sweren. Cassie, thank you for taking a chance on me. I feel so blessed to have had the privilege of working with you. I hope this book will make you proud. I’m also grateful to Kara Zauberman, Kenny Hoffman, Sharyn Rosenblum, Emily Homonoff, Tavia Kowalchuk, Serena Wang, Greg Villepique, Fritz Metsch, Sunil Manchikanti, Michael Accordino, Andrew DiCecco, Beth Silfin, and the entire team at William Morrow.
Vauhini Vara helped me take a few steps closer to the writer I aspire to be. Thank you, Vauhini. This would have been a very different book without your wise, thoughtful feedback.
Thank you to the many friends who soothed my crippling insecurity and insatiable appetite for feedback over the last two years: Rachel Yong, Paz Pardo, Melissa Anelli, Aida Mbowa, Elisha Maldonado, Elyse Klein, Mike Wood, Guy Molnar, Kevin Farrell, Erin Ryan, Kelly McKenzie, Xiao Yingtai, Cathy Reisenwitz, Terry Kosdrosky, and Molly Katz. I especially want to thank Rahul Kanakia: a good man, generous friend, and fantastic author.
My career—and my life—would not be what it is today without the kindness of strangers. I will always be grateful to Amy O’Leary, Susan Dominus, Rebecca Mead, Suzy Spencer, and Toni Bentley, who had no reason to share their words of wisdom with me but did so anyway. I’m also grateful to Daniel Jones, who gave me my first break in the literary world when he chose my essay to run in the New York Times.
Robert Draper gave this book its title, but his influence on me (and my work) runs deeper than he knows. Thank you, Robert. It is not every person who, at the peak of an amazing career, reaches out to help people at the beginning of their own. Cathryn Jakobson Ramin has also been my friend, teacher, and mentor since before I had a single national article to my name. Thank you, Cathryn.
Patricia Parker and David Ivers are the reasons I fell in love with Shakespeare. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You both inspire me every day, and I am humbled to call you my friends. I hope you enjoyed my book.
My mother introduced me to two of the greatest joys in my life: Shakespeare and travel. Everything I am, and everything I’ve done, started with her. Thank you, Mom. I understand why you don’t like this book. I hope someday you’ll understand why I had to write it.
There is a long list of people who touched my life, and gave this story its heart, whom I cannot name here. You know who you are. Thank you for allowing me to share our stories. Thank you for the gardening lessons. Thank you for the adventures. Thank you for being my friends.
I love you, Peng, Erin, Ian, and Mark.
I love you, David.
Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
Abby, 76, 276
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, 80, 146
Abuse. See Child abuse; Spousal battery
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The (Twain), 34
Agbaria, Cyan
ending of friendship with, 279–82, 291–92
first meeting with, 253–55
friendship with, 249, 262–70
New York Times article and, 246–47
sharing of spanking fetish with, 256–61, 269–70, 276–79
Age of consent, in Spain, 52–53
Alcohol and consent, in BDSM, 301
Algeria, 278
al-Hassan, Zahra, 153–54
Al Jazeera English, 256–57
al-Jinn, Dik, 145
al-Khatib, Khalila, 146, 147–48, 150–55
al-Shadi, Najla, 154–59
al-Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris, 145
Ana, 49, 52, 66, 71, 75
Anal ginger play, 183–85
Anal sex, 81–83
“An open-arse, and thou a pop’rin pear!”, 82–83
Antarctica, 29
Antonio, 32, 144, 217
Antony and Cleopatra, 182, 184, 185–86, 192–93, 195–96, 250
Arabic language, 8, 142, 145
“Arabness” of Shakespeare, 145
Archidamus, 60
Ariel, 31, 32, 43–44
Aristophanes, 22–23, 162–63
Arizona State Shakespeare competition, 52
Arranged marriages, 151–52, 156
Ars Amatoria (Ovid), ix
Artichoke, 302–3
“A sad tale’s best for winter,” 51
As You Like It, 60, 154, 163, 292–93, 295–96, 306, 309–12
Audience, 101–2, 150, 218
Authorial intent, 190
Autolycus, 62
Banquo, 208, 217, 218–19
Banzai Pipeline, 86–87, 139
Baptista, 96, 112–13
Barcelona, 85, 90, 93–95
Battle of Actium, 186, 196
Bawdy slang, 83, 101, 150
BDSM, 9–10. See also Spankings
consent in, 76, 110, 301
details of fetish, 293–94
figging, 183–85
“headspace,” 121
linguistics of, 10
misconceptions about sex and, 76–77
“sub drop,” 83
use of term, 9, 141
Bed Bath & Beyond, 299
Berowne, 161, 163–65, 175, 181, 250, 270–71
Beth, 220–21
Bianca, 96
Bisexuality, evidence of Shakespeare’s, 216–17
Black Prince, The (Murdoch), 289
Blood play, 78–79
Bloom, Harold, 222
Bohemia, 51, 60–61
Bottom, Nick, 13, 23
Boundary setting, 76
Boy (Dahl), 36, 258
Brabantio, 252–53, 261–62
Branagh, Kenneth, 131, 132, 313
Brasenose College, Oxford, 246–47, 249
“Brat” (“bratting”), 94, 111
Breaks in verse form, 17
Bridges, Robert, 150
Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoevsky), 80
Bruises (bruising), 71–72, 78–79, 91, 231–32
Brutus, 203, 222
Burgess, Anthony, 145
Caesarion, 192
Caliban, 27–28, 31–33, 40–41, 43–45, 270
Canidia, or the Witches: A Rhapsody in Five Parts (Dixon), 99
Caning, 258–59
Capsaicin cream, 183
Cardenio, 271
Cassio, 252, 259–60, 262
Celia, 292–93, 295, 296
Censorship, in Oman, 4–5
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 83
Chekhov, Anton, 67
Child abuse, 231–32, 235–37
Childhood spankings, 36, 223–24, 225, 230–34, 238–42
Childhood trauma, 223–24, 225, 230–34, 238–42
China, 28, 176
Churchill, Winston, 238
C.J., 188–89, 191, 193–94, 196–99
Claudio, 250
Claudius, 123, 129, 158
Cleopatra, 99–100, 184–88, 192–93, 195–96, 201
Cloudbreak, 86, 119, 131
Cocaine, 49–51, 57–59
Colie, Rosalie, 186
Colonialism, 32–33, 145–46
Common iliac artery, 77–78
Communication and love, 89–90
Consent, 76, 110, 301
Conversation, literature as, 12
Cordelia, 228–30, 234–37, 243–44
Coriolanus, 291
Corporal punishment, 34–36. See also Spankings
Crider, Scott, 65
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), 163
Cunnilingus, 100–101
Cunt puns, 149–50
Cyan. See Agbaria, Cyan
Cymbeline, 272–75, 278–79, 282
Dahl, Roald, 36, 258
“Dance with you in Brabant,” 163–65
David
background of, 165, 186–202
Cyan and, 246–47, 256, 263–65, 291–92
divulging spanking fetish to, 175–76, 177–78, 223–25, 245–46, 247–48
fancy date with, 171–74
first meeting and crush on, 162, 165–71
long-distance relationship with, 206–7, 210–11
marriage proposal of, 222
marriage to, 311
sex life with, 174–75, 247–48, 251, 269–70, 307–11
sexual purgatory with, 182–85
spankings and spanking seminars, 177–80, 183, 297–307, 308–9
Stanford acceptance post of, 55–56, 166–69
Davies, John, 98
Dead Poets Society (movie), 34
de Grazia, Margreta, 208–9
Demetrius, 6–7, 12–22, 286
Desdemona, 153–54, 252–53, 259–60, 261–62
Details of fetish, 293–94
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), 79
Dickinson, Emily, 115
“Dildoes,” 51
Disguises
in Love’s Labor’s Lost, 174
in Twelfth Night, 140, 143–44, 148, 149
in As You Like It, 154, 293, 295, 296, 310
Dixon, Robert, 99
“Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?”, 13, 16–17
“Dom drop,” 83
Domestic violence
in Oman, 156–57
in Spain, 109–11
Dom Face, 125–26
Donne, John, 216
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 8–9, 80, 163
“Double, double, toil and trouble,” 217
Doubles, in Macbeth, 207, 209, 217–19
Duke Frederick, 292–93
Dumaine, 161
Dworkin, Andrea, 95
Dylan, 117–18, 130–39, 175
Edwin, 217, 219, 221
Elizabeth I of England, 215
El Salvador, 136–37
“Embassy of Death, The” (Knight), 123
Emilia, 159, 252, 253, 260, 262, 266–67, 270
Eminem (Marshall Mathers III), 62, 260
Endorphins, 77, 83, 312
Epstein, Norrie, 260
Equivocation, 218
Eros, 22
Eryximachus, 22
Evans, Bertrand, 295
Fabregas, Ana Maria, 110
Falstaff, 154, 250
Fantasies, 17–18, 36, 41, 71–72, 94, 184
Faris al-Shidyaq, Ahmad, 145
Fay, Michael, 214
Fear, 77, 237
Felicity (TV show), 48–49
Female sexual satisfaction, 101
Fetishes (fetishism), 9–10, 71. See also Spankings
origins of, 24, 238
Figging, 183–85
Fiji, 86
Fletcher, John, 98–99
Foreplay, 76, 183
Forest of Arden, 293, 295
Forgiveness, 121, 243–44
Fortune-tellers, 209–13
Franco, Francisco, 109
Frasier (TV show), 39
Freud, Sigmund, 201
Friar Lawrence, 78, 90, 91, 270, 271
Friends (TV show), 39
Fulvia, 185
Gaitskill, Mary, 40
Ganymede, 293, 295, 296, 306, 310
Garber, Marjorie, 218
Gender
in Plato’s Symposium, 22–23
in Shakespeare’s plays, 153, 154
Gender stereotypes, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 15
Geneva, 90–92
Gertrude, 123, 127, 199
Gimmelwald, 85–88
Goneril, 228–30, 234–37, 242–43
Grand Canyon, 53
Green Notebook, 37–38
Guildenstern, 124
Gurr, Andrew, 60
Gyllenhaal, Maggie, 39–40
Haines, Charles, 261
Hamlet, 23, 98, 122–24, 126–30, 135, 138–39, 150, 152, 157, 159, 199–200, 218, 286
“Hamlet: My Greatest Creation” (Holland), 21
Hathaway, Anne, 216
“Headspace,” 121
Heartbeat, 7, 170
Helena, 6–7, 11–22, 269–72, 273, 282–88
Henry V, 131, 132
Henry VI, Part 2, 207
Henry VI, Part 3, 94
Henry VIII, 57
Hermia, 6, 12–13, 18
Hermione, 51, 56–57, 64–66
Hippolyta, 13
History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides), 124–26
Holland, Norman, 21
Home Depot, 35
Homosexuality, 214–17
in Shakespeare’s England, 215–17
in Singapore, 214–15, 217, 219, 221
Honduras, 134–35
Horatio, 218
House (game), 35
Iachimo, 272–73
Iago, 199, 252–53, 259–60, 265, 272
Iambic pentameter, 7, 16–17, 170
Id, 39
“If love be rough with you, be rough with love,” 77
“If this be magic let it be an art,” 65–66
Imogen, 272–75, 282, 297
Infidelity, 133–34, 211
in Cymbeline, 272–73
in Othello, 259–60, 266, 273
Intercultural marriage, in Othello, 147, 152
Iraq war, 146
Irregular iambic pentameter, 17, 19
Islam, 3–4
Ivers, David, 27–28
James I of England, 215–16
John, 48–64, 77–92, 102–12
anal sex with, 81–83
breakup with, 137–39, 140–41
cocaine dealing, 49–51, 57–59, 63
Dylan and, 118, 130–39
first meeting of, 48–49
Gimmelwald trip, 85–88
lies of, 113–14, 118–21, 175
revealing MS to, 63–64, 66
safe word, 80–81, 104
spankings, 61–62, 66–68, 70–76, 78–79, 83, 87–88, 93–95, 102–7, 121–22, 124–26
Jolie, Angelina, 213
Juliet, 74–75, 77, 84, 89–90
Julius Caesar, 192, 203, 222
Jupiter, 275, 278–79
Kate/Katherine, in Taming of the Shrew, 96–98, 100–101, 107, 112–13, 271
Katharine, in Love’s Labor’s Lost, 161, 174
Kelley, 301
Khulusi, Safa Abdul-Aziz, 145
Kinesis, 63
King Duncan, 209, 218
King Lear, 100, 228–30, 234–37, 242–44
Kink. See also Spankings
“brat” (“bratting”), 94, 111
as collaborative, 105
“headspace,” 121
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 16, 21
misconceptions about sex and, 76–77
origins of, 34, 225, 231, 238, 242
in popular culture, 38–40
in Shakespeare, 99–100
trust fall, 63, 114
use of term, 10
Kipling, Rudyard, 28
Knight, G. Wilson, 123
Kyle, 165, 175–76
Kylie, 49, 52, 66, 71, 75
Laertes, 128
La Libertad, 137
Lapet, 98–99
Legend of Zelda, The (video game), 37
Leontes, 51, 54, 65–66
Lies (lying), 113–14, 118–21
Livers, 249–51, 263–64
Logan, 220
Lone/lonely, 291–92
Longaville, 161
Lorenzo, 92
“Love, fair looks, and true obedience,” 97
Love and communication, 89–90
“Love at first sight,” 162–63, 310
“Love is blind,” 155–57<
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Love marriages, 150–52
Love’s Labor’s Lost, 161, 163–65, 174–75, 250
Luce, 75, 120
Lucentio, 96, 98
Lust, 62, 77
in Romeo and Juliet, 74–75, 89
Lysander, 12–13
Macbeth, 205–13, 217–19, 222–23, 225–26
Macduff, 210, 218, 225
Madrid train bombings of 2004, 80
Malvolio, 144, 149
Maps (mapmaking), 8, 185
Mardian, 184
Maria, 142, 161
Marcus, 183
Mark Antony, 185–86, 192–93, 195–96, 201
Marlowe, Christopher, 98, 163
Marriages, arranged vs. love, 150–52, 156
Masks, 174–75
Masochism (masochists), 10, 18, 79, 80, 98–100, 232, 260, 292
Masturbation, 37, 77, 79, 183–84, 276
Measure for Measure, 100
Meibom, Johann Heinrich, 99
Merchant of Venice, The, 92, 156, 217
Mercutio, 77, 82–83
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 250
Middleton, Thomas, 98–99
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, 1, 6, 11–22, 98
Miranda, 31–33
Miscegenation, in Othello, 252–53
Misconceptions about kink, 76–77
Misogyny, in The Taming of the Shrew, 112–13
Molestation, 227–28, 239
Montaigne, Michel de, 161–62
Mother, 28–31
childhood spankings, 230–34
college admissions and, 54–55
conditional love of, 200
generosity and encouragement of, 28, 33–34
love of travel of, 28–29
MS diagnosis and, 41–42, 46
Much Ado About Nothing, 250
Multiple sclerosis (MS), 42–43, 46–47, 48, 56–57, 64, 66, 191, 193
Murdoch, Iris, 289
Mutran, Khalil, 145
Nashawi, Nasib, 145
Neeson, Liam, 304
Nelson, T. G. A., 261
New Yorker, 262
New York Times, 246–48, 265, 302
Nice Valour, The, 98–99
Nikolai, 206, 213–15, 219, 221
North Dakota Child Protection Services, 188, 191
Notebook, The (movie), 162
Notes from the Underground (Dostoevsky), 8–9
Nothing, 126, 128, 129–30
Numbness, 50, 102
“Nunnery,” 127
“O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!”, 127–28
Oberon, 12–13
O.C., The (TV show), 155, 213
Oedipus complex, 193, 195, 201
Oedipus Rex, 201
“Of Cannibals” (Montaigne), 161–62
Of the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs (Meibom), 99
Olivia, 142, 144, 149
Oman, 3–8, 10–11, 141–59
Omani Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, 4
“Open-arse,” 82–83
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