There are weirder choices of works to adapt than Exit to Eden, I suppose. After all, in 1994, Anne Rice was a hot property. It’s the same year that the movie adaptation of Interview With the Vampire came out, remember. Exit to Eden was nowhere near as popular as Interview With the Vampire. Still, it had the Anne Rice name on it, and she was probably going to turn a profit even with something as counterintuitive as this. I mean, I’m not surprised that it flopped, but I’m sure someone was.

The book was released by Anne Rice in 1985 under the name of Anne Rampling. It is the story of Lisa Kelly and Elliot Slater. Lisa is The Perfectionist, founder and manager of Eden, a BDSM resort owned by The Club. It is she who is in charge of training the new batch of “slaves,” people who sign up to stints of total submission. She is drawn to Elliot, who is there in an attempt to escape himself. He is bi but leans strongly toward men, and he’s been trained in submission but apparently cannot truly submit until Lisa teaches him. Then, they run off to New Orleans and end up in a conventional relationship, because of course.

So naturally, this became a buddy cop movie starring Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O’Donnell. The exclusivity of Eden vanishes for this story. Lisa, now for some reason with the last name of Emerson, is Dana Delaney. Elliot is Paul Mercurio. Shortly before going to Eden, he takes a picture of a mysterious jewel thief, Omar (Stuart Wilson), of whom there are no other pictures. He and his assistant, Nina (Iman), sign up for a vacation at Eden to track him down. Aykroyd and O’Donnell are Fred Lavery and Sheila Kingston, police officers who are trying to track Omar down. He poses as a handyman; she poses as a vacationer.

There’s no way the jurisdictional stuff works here, of course; Fred and Sheila might well catch Omar, but it wouldn’t hold up in court. The whole point is that the island they’re on is outside conventional law. That’s how they get away with the nonsense of the story; I’m pretty sure there’s no way the assorted “slave” contracts would be legal in most jurisdictions, given it’s explicit that they’re signing away their consent. Elliot doesn’t get to not be in the mood or not want a specific action or to be involved with a specific person. Which frankly is the ickiest part of the book; regardless of your kinks, it remains true that you don’t get to force people. And merely agreeing to be submissive is not agreeing to everything.

In a way, the movie compounds the icky factor by requiring two detectives who aren’t into BDSM to go to the resort. Fred’s posing as a handyman doesn’t even make it better, because it just emphasizes that Eden wouldn’t work without a lot of random people working as support; the slaves couldn’t do it all unless there were a heck of a lot more slaves. There’s a joke that Sheila asks a submissive to paint her house—which he eventually does—but look into exactly how many “cast members” a Disney resort has, many of whom are unseen. Sure, Eden wouldn’t need the number of mechanics Disney does, but then, Disney doesn’t need people sterilizing adult toys all the time.

So sure, it’s a fantasy. In a way, its heteronormative ending is proof of that; the fantasy ends, and Lisa and Elliot marry and live happily ever after. (This is a spoiler, I grant you, but since the main reason to read the book is for the erotica, and sick fascination is the reason to watch the movie, I’m not worried about it.) Because they fantasize about it, but it isn’t actually what they want from life. Lisa and Elliot aren’t going to have a dungeon in their house in the suburbs, because this isn’t their planned life. They have to live in reality, right?

It’s not as steamy, but a much better BDSM story is Secretary. It allows the characters to have a happily ever after that improves them but doesn’t involve leaving their kinks behind. This story is two people who are fully normal, even aspirational, aside from their desires; Secretary is two people who are deeply screwed up and find love anyway. And their getting better doesn’t involve not being kinky anymore, either, because their kink isn’t a way they’re broken. It’s a way they connect and are able to be happy. So yeah, watch that instead.

Next month, we’ll be celebrating Pride with the full-on gonzo madness of Suddenly, Last Summer. Hope that’s enough to stir your appetite. Meanwhile, you can help me afford to spend actual money, a common need for this column, on the things I’m writing about by supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!