Reddit reviews Beyond My Control

First, know that you are normal. As I discussed in this post today, one study in Canada suggests that almost half of all women may fantasize about dominating other people sexually.

>I want to consume as much as possible before I jump into anything.

Well, since you asked, my specialty just so happens to be in giving people way more reading material than they actually wanted...

• Start with Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are. It's written by a female sex researcher for women, though as a man, I still found it immensely helpful for understanding both my own and my wife's sexuality. Not about kink specifically, but all about self-discovery and self-acceptance, which sounds like what you're looking for right now.
  
• Next, Nancy Friday's Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age. I haven't actually read this one, but I have read her more well-known work, My Secret Garden. That was her original, ground-breaking study of women's sexual fantasies. However, I'm recommending Beyond My Control for you because it is more recent (2009) and deals extensively with female fantasies of domination, whereas most of the fantasies in Secret Garden revolve around female submission (a scandalous idea back when it was first published in 1973).
  
• Optional: Julia Heiman's Becoming Orgasmic. A fascinating read even if you already know how to orgasm. An excellent guide to self-exploration and a wonderful primer on female sexuality. The intended audience is women who have never achieved orgasm through masturbation or are trying to learn how to orgasm with their partner. I read it because I thought it would help me better understand my wife's sexuality and help me help her orgasm in my presence, but what I ended up learning from reading the book and talking to my wife is that she's currently not all that interested in orgasming in my presence...and that's OK. What I'm trying to say is I am not the intended audience but still found it immensely helpful. Nevertheless, it's an unconventional recommendation, so that's why I mark it as optional. But if you do decide to read it and think about gentle femdom while doing the suggested exercises, I think you will learn a lot about yourself.
  
• Optional: Easton & Hardy's The New Topping Book. I haven't read this one either, but I have read the submissive counterpart, The New Bottoming Book. It was a bit "old guard BDSM" for my tastes, if you know what I mean, but I list it here anyway because I see it recommended so often, which suggests it must be helpful to other people. The one thing the Bottoming Book did teach me is that one of the things I bring to the table as a submissive is responsiveness, so now I make it a point to moan like a whore whenever my wife is doing things to me. I can't speak to what the Topping Book may or may not teach you as a dom.
  
  Your post seems to imply that you are not currently in a relationship and want to focus on self-discovery before pursing one. Once you have come to a better understanding of what you want and are ready to pursue a relationship, I recommend the following two books:
  
  
• First, Emily Nagoski's A Scientific Guide to Successful Relationships. Read the whole thing, but know that Part 3 is the most helpful for learning how to communicate what you want with your future partner. The principles of staying over your own emotional center of gravity, self-assertion, and self-protection are worth their weight in gold.
  
• Next, Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages. It's not all about sex. This really surprised me, but Chapman's book improved my relationship with my wife and my sex life more than any of the other ones on this list. Some people are turned off by the author's Christian perspective, but his faith is not even made explicit until about halfway through the book, and there's a reason it has 12,674 reviews on Amazon (96% of them 4- or 5-star) and is still the #1 bestselling book on marriage on Amazon even though it was first published way back in 1992. Once you know what you want and how to communicate that to your future partner, you still need to know how to best communicate your love to that boy. It could be touch, it could be words of affirmation, it could be gifts, it could be quality time, and it could be acts of service or any mix of the above.