An enjoyable femdom romp in the style of classic British comedy

A review of 'The Paramount Rule' by Tanya Simmonds

The cover from the now-rare first edition

This amusing femdom novel is described by its author as a 'romp', and that's exactly what it is. There's a touch of classic British comedy to it, though it isn't exactly played for laughs. In Oakpark Grange school there's a dodgy institution trading on an undeserved reputation. There are dissolute aristocrats, and ladies of a certain age with refined manners but powerful sex drives. It has the acute social observation that made the Ealing comedies, and subsequently the Carry On films, so excruciating and at the same time enjoyable.

There is a definite retro feel to it, in the settings, the deferential power and social relationships it depicts, and most of all in the language. The male pupils of the school don't have “cocks”, they have “members” (always turgid or tumescent); they don't “come”, they “spend”. The story is set in the early 1950s, but it could just as easily be the 1920s. It's definitely in some mythologised past England, where everything stops for tea at four o'clock.

The retro quality is of course enhanced by the boarding school setting, which provides for arbitrary authoritarianism, rules and punishments, relationships between older women and young men, and lots of creeping about in the dark for illicit nocturnal rendezvous. Well, it worked for J K Rowling, didn't it?

The period feeling doesn't detract from the fun aspects of the book. There are four beautiful, cruel and passionate dommes, and lashings of lashings, with lots of different instruments. There is enforced cunnilingus in a special section of the punishment room, lesbian love between the teachers, and bondage with special equipment, including a penis pillory and an ingenious 'controller' which automatically masturbates the recalcitrant young men but delivers appropriately timed electric shocks to prevent them from coming. Now that's surely an anachronism whatever the time-period the book's setting – I didn't actually get one of those until last year.

There is plenty of straightforward sex too, between teacher and pupil and then between pupils once the school goes co-ed. In fact, the book is almost awash with semen – for a novel in which the focus is supposed to be orgasm denial, there are an awful lot of high-volume ejaculations. That's my main gripe with the book. Given the orgasm denial theme I was looking forward to a lot more teasing and frustrated male desire, which I find very sexy; but the horny, hot boys are rarely prevented from coming whenever they want to, even if they are often punished afterwards. Chastity devices do make a small appearance near the end, but I'd like to have seen more of them (apparently they are more prevalent in what is in effect the sequel, "Prisoners of the Governess".

Still, this is a minor quibble. Tanya Simmonds is a great femdom author, with a fine eye for telling detail, and the book deserves to be read by every devotee of the genre.