Belittled

My review of Belittled, a size fantasy novel by Taedis. Links to the book at the bottom.

An intense misadventure that relentlessly pushes the protagonist and the reader to new depths of desperation and degradation. Taedis gives us an immersive F/m spin on a shrunken man discovering his submissive side. I cannot recommend this book enough to femdom enthusiasts of any size.

While I suspect Part One was written to be a complete story, I read both parts in immediate sequence and found the transition organic and the characters consistent. Rather than diverging into lengthy character development before getting to the sexytimes, Taedis plunges us into the action from the outset and lets the characters reveal themselves through their words and deeds to Henry, our first-person narrator. This is key to the success of the story, which works via suspense. How much does Henry really know about his girlfriend Janet, his abductor Zoe, or even himself?

This is, of course, a primary theme of all size fiction: Who do we become when we encounter size difference? Are we genuinely altered, or are we just more deeply exposed? The contrast between Henry’s experiences in the shrunken custody of his girlfriend Janet and that of the sadistic Zoe are terrible and wonderful to read. Never has a size exploration of consent been more harrowing.

What makes the contrast between Janet and Zoe even more sophisticated is that Taedis brings a familiarity with BDSM to processing Henry’s experiences. Henry & Janet already have an established dom/sub relationship prior to his accidental shrinking, but even though they have previously switched it up, being physically larger than Janet has made Henry’s submissive experiences unfulfilling. When he is only four inches tall, however, both Henry and Janet discover new, er, dimensions to their roleplay. Similarly, Zoe is a professional domme, but she is also a genuine sadist and her interactions with shrunken Henry are consumed entirely by her personal agenda.

This was very affecting to me, someone with no personal real-life experience with BDSM. I used to think dom/sub relationships simply permitted the opportunity to roleplay non-consensual encounters under controlled conditions. I thought that when they were “in scene,” BDSM participants were imagining rape. What happens between Henry and Janet is far more complex and caring than that, however, and their history of dom/sub practice makes their (importantly, unsought) size encounter much more moving. I have thoughtful and talented size creators like Taedis to thank for demonstrating the emotional depth and fine gradations of consent that can make dom/sub encounters meaningful.

Henry’s time in Zoe’s clutches is more of the classic shrunken-man-in-peril story, but Zoe is anything but facile or cartoonish. She is the most fiendish example of how great cruelty requires deep empathy. The only implausibility I could possibly lay at Taedis’s feet is the elaborate programs that both Zoe and Janet put Henry through despite only recently having been introduced to the concept of a four-inch-tall man. As someone who has been dreaming about that concept for decades, I am quick to forgive.

This is size femdom at its sharpest.