Submission is an American erotic thriller mini-series created by Jacky St. James and Paul Fishbein, starring Ashlynn Yennie, Justin Berti, Victoria Levine, and Raylin Joy. It premiered on Showtime on 12 May 2016 and follows Ashley Pendleton from a bad relationship into BDSM after an erotic novel lights the fuse. For adult viewers still angry at how Fifty Shades of Grey sold abuse as romance, the show’s creators openly pitched a more nuanced—if still glossy—power-exchange fantasy about “imperfect people in BDSM relationships,” trust, and saying what you want in bed.
Synopsis
Ashley (Ashlynn Yennie), recently free of a miserable relationship, stumbles into kink when she discovers SLAVE, an erotic novel by the mysterious Nolan Keats. Curiosity becomes practice when she meets people already inside the scene: Elliott, a BDSM practitioner who works with Dylan and eventually initiates Ashley; Jules, a friend who offers housing and carries secrets of her own; Dylan Quinn, Jules’s roommate, into kinky sex and recruiting women for Elliott; and Raif, a coffee-bar owner with mutual attraction to Ashley. Parallel plots track Jules’s affair with boss Scarlet (unknown to Scarlet’s husband Tomas) and, later, a faithful polygamous arrangement among Jules, Scarlet, and Tomas. The series frames discovery not as a single red-room contract but as social networks, jealousy, curiosity, and the messy ethics of real desire under a softcore thriller shell.
Main Cast
- Ashlynn Yennie — Ashley Pendleton
- Justin Berti — Elliott
- Victoria Levine — Jules
- Raylin Joy — Dylan Quinn
- Kevin Nelson — Raif
- Nika Khitrova — Scarlet
- Brent Harvey — Tomas
Recurring Players
- Richie Calhoun — Jonathan
- Sara Luvv — Maura
- Valerie Baber — Kimberly
- Boston Blake — Anthony
- Vicki Chase — Susannah
- Karla Kush — Chelsea (book-club member organized by Dylan)
- Spike Mayer — Vincent (Ashley’s ex)
- Melissa Schumacher — Tina
The cast mix of mainstream and adult-industry performers is itself a statement about late-night cable erotica in the mid-2010s: bodies and faces already fluent in sexual performance, now asked to sell negotiation and “healthy” kink rhetoric between plot turns.
Development: Explicitly Against Fifty Shades
Co-creator Jacky St. James said she was unhappy with how BDSM appeared in Fifty Shades of Grey, which she argued “passed off an abusive relationship as an honest interpretation of the BDSM lifestyle.” She wanted a more nuanced portrait. In a GQ interview she summarized the series as “imperfect people in BDSM relationships.” Lead Ashlynn Yennie echoed the critique: Fifty Shades was “not a correct portrayal of the type of sex that people practice,” making kink seem reserved for the “messed up or dark.” Yennie hoped Submission could “shatter that glass ceiling of false belief” and show “what it truly means to trust, communicate, and finally feel free to talk about what you want and don’t want sexually in a consensual and healthy way.” The trailer dropped 29 April 2016, two weeks before premiere—marketing the show as post-Fifty Shades corrective as much as pure titillation.
Ratings
The debut was soft: 0.01 share and about 55,000 viewers. Episode two nearly doubled to 106,000 viewers and 0.02 share. Week three climbed to 0.03 share and 119,000 viewers. The finale landed at 0.02 share and 116,000 viewers. Growth after a weak open mattered for cable erotica: the audience that found the show stayed through the mini-series arc even if absolute numbers never rivaled prime-time tentpoles.
Critical Reception
Uproxx praised the series for “trying to change the way we look at late-night erotica.” SheKnows argued that while the Fifty Shades film “failed to arouse interest for many,” Submission was “taking viewers deep into the world of BDSM—and it doesn’t seem to be afraid to go there.” That framing—fearlessness plus anti-abuse branding—is the show’s public identity. For BDSM-literate viewers, it remains cable softcore with better consent talk than Christian Grey’s contracts: still fantasy, still thriller plotting, but consciously sold against the decade’s most famous toxic-power-exchange brand.
