Latest Posts

erotic fiction

Growing More Adventurous (In My Writing)

by | June 23, 2013 | | 2 Comments

by Lucy Felthouse

The first ever erotic story I wrote was about a young man and his teacher. But that was because I’d been dared to write an erotic story, and the “darer” gave me names and a plot. So I don’t include that one because  the plot was from my friend’s imagination, not me.

After that, though, I wrote a story fully from my own head, which was about a couple that end up getting down to it on a balcony in the pouring rain. So, pretty vanilla by some standards, but still, outdoor sex! Following that, I penned military erotica, more outdoor erotica, rubenesque, classroom sex (between consenting adults), vampire sex and first-time lesbian sex. Which, thinking about it, isn’t too bad for a beginner. Looking at my past publications, alfresco sex and military sex is a recurring theme… I can’t think why šŸ˜‰

Now, though, I’ve definitely branched out. For a long time, I wouldn’t even attempt to write BDSM. There was no particular reason behind it, other than I didn’t fancy writing it. But I eventually caved in and answered a call for submissions for sex toy erotica, which also ended up including bondage and spanking. That seemed to open the floodgates. I’ve now had between ten and fifteen BDSM stories published, with lots more written, submitted, contracted and waiting for release dates. I’m not quite sure how it happened. It certainly hasn’t been a conscious decision (except when answering calls for submission, of course), but I find it much easier to write BDSM now, to the extent that I’m coming up with some seriously wild and wacky scenes (see one of my future releases!) that even make me wonder where it’s coming from as I’m writing.

I’m definitely glad I’ve branched out. My author tagline is “Erotic and Romantic Fiction… Whatever Your Fancy!” because there’s so much variety in my work. From straight, to lesbian, to gay. Vanilla to medium and hardcore kink, indoors, outdoors, military, at home, abroad, second chances, paranormal… the list goes on. I love that there are so many topics, likes, dislikes and kinks I can write about as I’ve gotten over my fear and always push myself to write something new, something that may involve lots of research, or even something I don’t agree with. There are quite a lot more things on my mental list that I want to cover, but hopefully I’ve got plenty of time yet.

*****

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over seventy
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include Best
Bondage Erotica 2012 and 2013, and Best Women’s Erotica 2013. Another string to
her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies.
She owns Erotica For All, and is book
editor for Cliterati. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join
her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

In Praise of the One-Handed Read

by | May 30, 2013 | | 6 Comments

By K D Grace

I’m a bit like a kid at Christmas when May rolls around. Whyā€™s
that, you ask. Itā€™s National Masturbation month, thatā€™s why! I can’t tell you
how happy it makes me to see something as healthy, life-affirming, and
down-right fun as masturbation get a little much-needed positive press. So I
decided that, as National Masturbation month draws to a close (not that the fun
is ending, just the month) that I’d write a few words in praise of the much-maligned
one-handed read.

Doesnā€™t it seem strange and more than a little sad that some of the worldā€™s
best, most celebrated writers find themselves on the not-so-coveted short-list
for the Bad Sex Awards? Is there some misguided, unwritten rule that states a
story is only ‘worthy’ if it doesnā€™t
make the reader squirm deliciously in her seat, if it doesnā€™t makes her need to engage one hand in areas far south of the
novel in her grip? And where the hell did we get the idea that just that one
act, in fact the most crucial act of the human condition, sex, should not be
treated with the same weight, or the same tongue-in cheek irreverence or the
same heart pounding delight or wonder or horror as any other part of the human
condition?


If a writer gets the sex right, I mean gets it really right, then what other
response should there be but for our bodies to tingle and our hands to stray?

Which leads me to another reason why a one-handed read should be praised and
sought after by readers and writers alike. A well-written one-handed read
engages the reader on a physical level that no other type of read can. A
one-handed read takes the reader a level deeper than the voyeuristic experience
that reading tends to be. A one-handed read allows and demands reader
participation in solidarity with the characters, and, indeed, with the writer.
The story suddenly becomes interactive in a literal sense. And even more than
that, the story suddenly becomes a sexy mƩnage between the reader, the
characters and the writer.

I’ve always felt that just because a writer strives to give the reader a
well-rounded literary experience with a story that’s gripping (no pun intended),
pacey, thought-provoking and satisfying on some level; just because a writer
tries to offer the reader a well-written, stonking good story doesn’t mean that
 stonking good story can’t involve a little one-handed pleasure mixed in. Why
the hell shouldn’t it?

Okay, maybe itā€™s that feeling of exposure; maybe itā€™s that
fear of being caught in the act, so to speak, that frightens writers away from
making the sex hot and squirmy. But itā€™s a lesson straight from the pages of
creative writing 101 that the place we most fear, the place we feel the most
vulnerable is the place where the most powerful writing happens. Embrace the
wank!

Those of us who love to read love a story we can be pulled
into. I love a good adrenalin rush, a good heart stopper, a good brain teaser,
a good tear jerker, a good happy ending, so why wouldn’t I like a good wank all
in the spirit of a sexy story? Why do we think that good writing is negated if
our stories make people want to go rub one out?

I’ve been involved in the world of erotica for enough years now to have seen
the quality of writing go through the roof, enough years to have been gripped
by heart-stopping, tear jerking, brain-teasing stories that STILL have
fabulous, seamlessly-written, deliciously sensual one-handed scenes. Why can’t
a good book be both a page turner and a one-handed read? We now connect with
story on so many more levels than ever before. We read eBooks, we listen to
audio books, we curl up with a good old fashion trade paper-back and a glass of
wine. But really, was there ever a time when reading a good book wasn’t
intended to be a sensual experience, wasn’t meant to make us FEEL things in our
body that we wouldnā€™t otherwise feel, wasn’t meant to scratch an itch that
nothing else could quite scratch? So why, oh why, should we exclude that best
of, most intimate of — that even better than a nice glass of wine sensual
experience of the one-handed read?

Oh no doubt thereā€™ll always be a need for sexy snippets just
long enough and hot enough to get the rocks off, and I like those just fine
too. But why should one-handed reads be reserved for just such works? Why
shouldnā€™t the sex scenes in any type of novel or story be well-written enough,
steamy enough, raunchy enough to send one hand straying? It seems to me that if
a sex scene is well written, then we should at least feel something down in the
genital direction. Iā€™m not saying that everything written about sex should be a
turn-on, but I am saying it should affect us in some way because sex affects
us. It affects us powerfully, uncomfortably, sometimes disturbingly, and it
often affects us the most because we donā€™t want it to and we donā€™t understand
why it does, nor do we understand its power over us. But it most definitely
DOES have power over us. Itā€™s supposed to have, so to try to write sex that
excludes and banishes the one-handed read seems absurd.

Without getting all mystical and goose-pimply and bringing
on the sex magic; doing my best to keep it real and genuine, I have to ask;
when is there a time that a writer doesnā€™t want a reader to feel her work, to experience her story as so much more than words on a page? Why
should our sexual responses not be fully included in the experience of story?
So Iā€™ll say it again: letā€™s hear it for the one-handed read!

Happy Masturbation Month! I wish you all gripping, touching,
deliciously squirmy reading. And writing!

Self-Publishing And Promotions – An Experiment

by | February 28, 2013 | | 6 Comments

Elizabeth Black writes erotica, erotic romance, and horror, and she lives on the Massachusetts coast. See her bio at the end of this article.

—–

It seems everyone is self-publishing these days. More authors are jumping on the self-publishing bandwagon when they read about success stories like J. A. Konrath and Amanda Hocking. Why pay a publisher most of your earnings when that publisher (especially if it is tiny and for the most part operates out of someone’s kitchen) does little of the work? Authors who are published by large publishers these days must do most of their own promotions. Some authors must distribute their ARCs to professional reviewers on their own because their publishers don’t send books out for review. It’s even tougher to find readers to review your works on reader blogs. So lots of people self-publish, hoping to repeat the successes of Konrath and Hocking.

Not all of them succeed. In fact, cases like Konrath and Hocking are rare. From what I understand, most self-published authors barely sell fifty copies of their books in the book’s lifetime. You don’t hear much about that.

As an experiment, I self-published two erotic fairy tales, “Trouble In Thigh High Boots” (erotic Puss In Boots) and “Climbing Her Tower” (erotic Rapunzel). Like so many small press authors, I was tired of working my ass off promoting and writing and taking home only about 40% of my book’s worth. I wanted the 70% I could get from Amazon, especially since I did most of the work myself anyway. Far too many small publishers are really self-published authors operating a start-up out of their kitchen. They add a dozen or so authors (often new authors) to their catalogue to give the appearance of professionalism. These are people with little to no publishing and/or marketing experience. These publishers provide editing and cover art – and that’s about it. Since I did most of the work including promo as opposed to most of my publishers promoting author’s works, I wanted to see if I could make a go of self-publishing.

It’s much harder than most people think. Granted, I’ve been self-published for only four months. It’s too soon to say whether or not I have been successful.

I choose to avoid Kindle Select. I wanted my books to be available on as many distributor sites as possible, so I opted for Kindle Direct, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony, Apple, and a few others. I never made it to AllRomanceEbooks although I should list the books there. I’m still figuring out Calibre. Now that I’m considering Kindle Select for a three month trial run, I’ll forgo ARe for the moment. I’ve also chosen only ebooks for the moment, since I can’t afford to release print books.

One big problem many writers face is that their books are lost in a sea of millions of books, especially on Amazon. This is especially true of self-published writers. How do you get noticed? That’s where creative promotions come in. The Holy Grail is to find readers rather than promoting to other writers. Here is some of what I’ve tried so far:

Professional editing and cover art: I hired a cover artist and an editor. That was the first thing I did. They put me back several hundred dollars for both books, but the expense was worth it. My books are professionally edited – something all self-published writers should strive for. One valid complaint of some self-published works is that they are full of errors and are presented in an unprofessional manner. My covers are beautiful and easy to read. I’ve seen some self-published authors and even small presses skimp on the covers. There’s more to making an effective cover than choosing free or low cost stock photos and slapping some text on them.

Professional and Reader Reviews: Some small presses don’t even send out books for review. I sent my ARCs to review sites and individual reviewers myself. Good reviews drive books further up in the ranks, but they can be hard to come by. Amazon recently removed what it considered questionable reviews from author’s books, including perfectly legitimate four and five star reviews. Hit-and-run one-star reviews that serve no purpose other than to attack the writer remained, driving the overall rating of the books down. Reviews can be gamed. Sock puppets were a big problem. Like so many writers, I was disturbed to learn some best-selling authors (most notably self-published wĆ¼nderkind John Locke) had paid online services several hundred dollars to write positive reviews of their books to artificially boost sales.

Social Media Sites: Facebook and Twitter are mixed bags. Facebook’s new algorithm allows for only less than 100 of your friends to see your posts at a time, therefore you lose a great many potential readers. You must be careful promoting on multiple groups because Facebook may ban you temporarily or permanently for spamming. Even seeking friends who are possible readers is risky, since there is a new item below friend requests asking if you know the person outside Facebook. Ignore that feature. If you click on “no”, that person’s account may be penalized for up to a month. Ā Despite all that, Facebook is one of my favorite places to be, especially when it comes to networking with other writers and publishers, and finding submission calls. I do see results from my promoting on various reader groups, so Facebook is worthwhile. I’ve heard from writers who get plenty of mileage on Twitter, but I’m not as active on Twitter as I am on Facebook.

Reader Forums: Forums such as Kindle Boards and Goodreads are great places to find readers. The problem is writers are discouraged on most reader forums from plugging their own works. If they plug, they are sometimes flamed and attacked. I’ve run into many writers who have had bad experiences with Goodreads. According to Hocking and Konrath, rather than endlessly advertise your books, you must engage readers. I agree with that. So go into these forums with the intention of talking about your favorite books. Join in the crowd. Get to know people. A big problem with this approach is that it takes an incredible amount of time and it’s not guaranteed to get anyone interested in your books. Time that could be spent writing is spent hanging out in reader forums hoping to get lucky. I used to post on Kindle Boards but I’ve since slowed down. I’ve never had much luck with Goodreads.

Live Chats: I highly recommend live reader chats if you can find them. My favorite live chat is the Night Owl Romance Live Chat. I’m a member of an online writer’s organization that meets with readers on Night Owl every two months or so. Plus I have set up my own individual chats on Night Owl. These chats are scheduled a year in advance so if you’re interested in participating, keep an eye on the forum towards the end of the year to sign up.

Contests: Giving away a book for free is a great way to get noticed. I’ve found initially I’ve given away more books than I’ve sold. It takes time but there is a payoff. Everyone loves free stuff, and people will come out in droves for a chance to win a free book. Just be careful of the collectors – those who are in it only for the freebies. These people have no intension of actually reading the book or buying your other books. They collect free stuff for the sake of having it. Hosting contests on your blog or Facebook page, for instance, is a great way to lure lurkers out of the shadows. Ask a contest question that requires more than a “yes” or “no” answer so you get some personal information about your contest entries. Then, engage them briefly. A little attention goes a long way. Plus you may make some friends doing this.

Loop Chats on Yahoo Groups: Yahoo groups are a mixed bag in similar ways that Facebook and Twitter are mixed bags. A big problem is that most groups are promo dumping sites readers don’t visit. So it’s all an echo chamber of writers promoting to each other. Yes, writers read but the purpose of posting to Yahoo
groups is to promote your books to readers who aren’t necessarily authors. I participate in live loop chats on the Love Romances Cafe Yahoo group several times per year. An advantage of loop chats over live chats is that readers don’t have to be present during your chat to benefit from it. There is an archive of your posts so readers who drop by hours later have written material they may view at their leisure. This includes blurbs, excerpts, and buy links. You can’t post long excerpts in live online chats. You’ll end up with a case of TL;DR.

Blog Hops: I’ve had great results from blog hops. A blog hop is where a number of blogs with a common theme are linked on one web site, most often to celebrate a holiday. For instance, there are Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Halloween blog hops. I’ve done both romance and horror blog hops. You register your blog on the blog hop page and have a post prepared for the day(s) of the blog hop. Some requires a contest giveaway of a book or other swag. Want to try a blog hop and you write romance? Sign up for the July 4th romance blog hop at The Blog Hop Spot: http://thebloghopspot.com/sign-up-here/

Blog Tours: There are companies that will set up blog tours for you, but I’ve found it easier to simply set up my own. I contacted writer blogs and reader blogs, and asked if I could put up a guest post. Everyone I contacted said “yes”. It helped that I already knew most of the people from Facebook. I often swap with them – I’ll host them on my own blog. I set up a three week blog tour, running Mondays through Thursdays.
Blog tours are a great way of getting exposure to a wide variety of people in a short period of time. If this sounds too overwhelming for you to do on your own, there are plenty of companies online that will do it for you, for a fee.

Radio Shows: I’ve co-hosted romance and horror radio shows on Blog Talk Radio with Marsha Casper Cook. Radio is a great format for you, your interests, and books in general. Plus it’s interesting to put a voice to a name. Radio shows make you seem more real and human.

Special Sales And Free Books: One way to attract attention is to lower your book’s price to $0.99 for several days as a promotion. An even better way to attract attention is to make your book free for a few days. Think of it this way. Your free book is downloaded on Amazon by 1,000 people. 100 out of those people actually read it. 20 of those people chat up the book with other readers because they liked it. Then those people buy and read the book, and pass on their own views of it to their friends. A snowball effect occurs.

These are the two books I have self-published.

TROUBLE IN THIGH HIGH BOOTS
Erotic Puss In Boots
Amazon US

Tita is a Puss In Boots with a little something extra. Being a magical creature, she shifts from a kitty into the form of an alluring, ginger-haired woman when the situation demands it. And what a situation she finds herself in! Her new master Dylan is a poor man who needs a boost in the world. Sly Tita uses her seductive wiles to pass him off to the villagers and the king as the Marquis of Carabas in order to help both of them gain their fortunes. Her plan is not without its problems. Dylan’s malicious brother, Zane, lusts after Tita, and he wants her all to himself, but she refuses to succumb to his treachery. Being a cat first and foremost, she purrs in the arms of her many lovers but her heart belongs to only one man – the king. She hopes that in ensuring Dylan his lofty place in the world the king finds a place in his heart for her. Her life becomes an erotic adventure in reaching her goals.

CLIMBING HER TOWER
Erotic Rapunzel
Amazon US

Rapunzel has never known life outside her tower. She has never felt the company of a human being other than Mother, and she has never been in close contact with a man – until Prince Richard of Norwich climbs into her tower one dark night and sweeps her off her feet. Prince Richard introduces Rapunzel to erotic pleasures beyond her wildest dreams, and she wants more! In order to make her both his wife and his sex slave, Prince Richard needs to spirit her away from that tower, but Mother stands in his way. Prince Richard and Rapunzel begin a tantalizing and dangerous adventure in order to be together as one. And “let down your hair” takes on an entirely new meaning in their fevered embraces.

ABOUT ELIZABETH BLACK

Elizabeth Black writes erotica, erotic romance, speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror. She also enjoys writing erotic retellings of classic fairy tales. Born and bred in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Her erotic fiction has been published by Xcite Books (U. K.), Circlet Press, Ravenous Romance, Scarlet Magazine (U. K.), and other publishers. Her horror fiction has appeared in “Kizuna: Fiction For Japan”, “Stupefying Stories”, “Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad”, and “Mirages: Tales From Authors Of The Macabre”. An accomplished essayist, she was the sex columnist for the pop culture e-zine nuts4chic (also U. K.) until it folded in 2008. Her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in Good Vibrations Magazine, Alternet, CarnalNation, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Sexis Magazine, On The Issues, Sexy Mama Magazine, and Circlet blog. She also writes sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies.

In addition to writing, she has also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and make-up artist (including prosthetics) for movies, television, stage, and concerts. She worked as a gaffer for “Die Hard With A Vengeance” and “12 Monkeys”. She did make-up, including prosthetics, for “Homicide: Life On The Street”. She is especially proud of the gunshot wound to the head she had created with makeup for that particular episode. She also worked as a prosthetic makeup artist specializing in cyanotic blue, bruises, and buckets of blood for a test of Maryland’s fire departments at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport plane crash simulation test. Yes, her jobs are fun. šŸ˜‰

She lives in Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four cats. The ocean calls her every day, and she always listens. She has yet to run into Cthulhu.

Visit her web site at http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/

Her Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Follow her at Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack

The Allure of Sex at Work

by | February 23, 2013 | | 3 Comments

By Lucy Felthouse


When Tiffany Reisz decided to make her joke about an
office-supply erotica anthology into reality, I was very excited. I, like many
writers and creative types, adore stationery. I love to go into Staples and
Ryman (UK stationery chain) and wander around, looking at things, even if I
have no intention of buying anything! Also, back when I was at college, many,
many years ago (*feels very old*) I actually used to work in a one of the shops
belonging to aforementioned UK stationery chain, when it was still called
Partners. It was just a weekend and day-off-college job to earn me some cash
which I was supposed to spend on my education, but inevitably spent on booze,
clothes and, of course, stationery! So, okay, I did kind of spend it on my
education, then šŸ˜‰ I enjoyed the job, and many years later it provided the
inspiration for my story in Felt Tips, A
Stroke of Peach.


And now Iā€™m getting to the bit about the allure of sex at
work! Back then, I sadly did not have sex on the premises of the stationery
shop. Thinking about it, Iā€™ve never done the deed of the premises of any of the
places Iā€™ve worked, and I work from home now, so that opportunity has been
lost. Damn. Anyhow, the allure has always been something Iā€™ve been aware of,
and it is a very popular fantasy amongst males and females alike, so when I
thought about my potential Felt Tips story, I was leaning towards the topic of
sex at work very quickly. But I wanted to do something a little different from
sex in the office, and thatā€™s when I decided to pull on my experience of
working in the stationery store.

Just like any other kind of workplace, having sex there
would be risky, forbidden and guaranteed to get you fired. And therein lies the
allureā€”whether or not someone will actually take that risk, if itā€™s something
that floats their boat, theyā€™ll think about it, fantasise about it. Their boss,
a colleague, someone else altogether… everybody loves a little bit of the
forbidden, donā€™t they?

So if this is something that appeals to you but you donā€™t
want to run the risk, then why not grab your copy of Felt Tips quick-smart and
check out A Stroke of Peach? You can
live vicariously through the characters, and as far as I know, you canā€™t get
sacked for doing that!

Happy Reading! x

*****

Shoshanna Evers, Kelly Jamieson, Karen Stivali, Karen Booth, and forty other authors share their office-supply-inspired fantasies in Felt Tips, an eclectic anthology of erotic literature. This collection is edited by bestselling author Tiffany Reisz, who contributes ā€œTeacherā€™s Pet,ā€ a brand-new Original Sinners short story. All proceeds from the sale of Felt Tips will be donated to an organization that helps struggling schools supply their classrooms.

More info, excerpt and buy links.

*****

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over seventy
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include Best
Bondage Erotica 2012 and 2013, and Best Women’s Erotica 2013. Another string to
her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies.
She owns Erotica For All, and is book
editor for Cliterati. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join
her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

We Deviants. We Happy Deviants

by | November 14, 2012 | | 19 Comments

In the past month, the subject of how to discuss what we write has come up an uncanny number of times, from diverse quarters.  I have a friend who writes erotic fiction, but never admits to it, because his wife doesn’t like it.  Another fellow writer says that he is uncomfortable about admitting what he writes, because he has children and (this must be an American thing) worries that people will somehow feels he’s an unreliable father if he writes erotica. I know many erotica writers who use a pen name because they fear an admission of what they write will imperil their careers.

When people, in everyday sorts of interchanges, ask me what I do, I say I teach and I write. They’re never all that interested in what I teach; they ask me what I write, and I tell them. Since the success of Fifty Shades of Grey, the next inevitable question is: oh, so you write stuff like Fifty Shades of Grey? No, not really, I say.

Their reaction – the knowing smirk, the sly wink and, occasionally, some far too TMI confession – constantly reminds me that what we do is still considered deviant and transgressive.

In the world of academia, it’s even more interesting. As a graduate student, you spend a considerable amount of time going to seminars, interacting with other graduate students, and the question of your research comes up all the time. In the last 2 months, I have had to sit in a group and fess up to exactly what I write and what I’m researching over and over. From time to time, I will encounter a genuinely thoughtful response: wow, what a compelling area of study! Good luck with it!

But more often than not, after the initial, very studied attempt to appear unfazed, I am met with the same ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ follow-up that I receive from non-academics. Frankly, it depresses me. I suspect, being an intellectual snob, I expected something more intelligent from my colleagues.

Eroticism is a dangerous subject; so dangerous, in fact, that our society consistently prefers to deal with it at arm’s length by mythologizing it or turning its subjects into caricatures.  Either that, or they try to reduce it to anthropological study. Eroticism is not sexuality, although it is often expressed through sexuality.  It has more in common with religious ecstasy than it does with procreation.  It is so mysterious to us, that we try and explain erotic attraction by aligning it with animal mating displays and successful reproductive strategies in the wild: i.e. men are attracted to red lipstick on women in the same way apes are attracted to females in estrus with inflamed backsides, or, masochists like to be whipped because it produces endorphins that get them high.

Let me put an end to this nonsense: male baboons don’t have fur fetishes and masochists are not drug addicts.

Eroticism is the story of our negotiation between self and other on a very deep, very visceral level.  We are born alone, die alone, and yet, in extremely special circumstances, we sense that there is a way to escape the gravity well of our hermetically sealed existences.  And very much like ecstatic religious experiences, profound erotic experiences offer us, if only for fleeting moments, that sense of there being something more. This is why, I think, so many of the French theorists, reflecting on eroticism, felt it was existentially connected to death – not death as a negative, but death as the greatest of all transformative experiences.  What makes eroticism more interesting, to me, is that you can live to talk about it.

And that’s the challenge for erotic writers. It is easy to describe a sex act, easy to list the attributes of a person you want to fuck, easy to trot out the slang, the jargon, the tropes, the memes we have all come to recognize as signifiers for activities that lead to orgasm or ejaculation. This is the use of cliche in as much as we wave textual imagery in front of our reader that we know will predictably trigger the reader’s arousal:  “He pounded into her tight, wet pussy.”

But that is mistaking pleasure for eroticism. Pleasure is part of eroticism, to be sure, but not its entirety.

The erotic experience, at its zenith (which may be at orgasm, or may be at some other point) renders us almost without language. To attempt to approach it, in writing, will never be entirely successful.  Authors will often, at the height of an erotic moment, slew sideways into romantic love, as if that will do duty to fill the vacuum of language that the erotic experience leaves us with. I’ve certainly been guilty of this.

I don’t have an answer. But what I have learned is that eroticism is best understood as the journey to a fleeting and liminal state rather than the destination. There is no end-game to eroticism. It is about our yearning, not really our getting. We reach, we think we’ve grasped that elusive prize, only to find out that what we’re holding either is too slippery to keep, or is not the prize we were after.

Like pathos, like nostalgia, like joy, terror or sadness, eroticism is a way-station, not a terminus.  However, unlike those other human experiences, our culture has not found ways to explore its depths or heights comfortably or unflinchingly. We turn its subjects into objects and depersonalize them because the spectacle of the real experience is thriling, utterly intimate, and overwhelming. 

But our challenge, as writers of the erotic, is to take that on. Not to flinch, not to look away, not to cheat by reducing the acts or the characters we write to caricatures or myths, or take refuge in the more socially acceptable sanctuary of romantic love.  And that’s why, unless our culture changes radically, we will always be transgressors in the literary world when we pursue the task of writing the erotic.

Small Flashlight, Big Darkness?

by | October 30, 2012 | | 4 Comments

By KD Grace

Todayā€™s post is a hard one for me to settle into because it
could so easily devolve into navel gazing, and one of the promises I made to
myself and to my readers back when I wrote my very first ever blog post was
that I would keep the navel gazing to a minimum. There must be a gazillion
writer and write-hopefuls blogging, and each one is convinced that their
journey to writing success is totally unique and must be shared. Well maybe not
each one, maybe Iā€™m only speaking for myself, in which case, I blush heartily
and apologise.

My point is that all of the energy, angst, fear, adrenaline,
exploration of dark places, exploration of forbidden places that used to go
into the pages and pages of that gargantuan navel-gaze that was my journal now
go through that strange internal filtering process that takes all my many
neuroses and insecurities, all my deep-seated fears, all my misplaced teenage
angst and magically transforms them into story.

That was sort of my little secret — that I alone, in all
the world, suffered uniquely and exquisitely for my art. I took all the flawed
and wounded parts of myself, parts I wasnā€™t comfortable facing, examined them
reflected through the medium of story and found a place where I could view them
and not run away screaming.

Where is all this borderline navel-gazing leading? There was
a BBC article about ten days ago asking the question, is creativity ā€˜closely
entwined with mental illness?ā€™ I shared it on Facebook and Twitter to find
that lots of other writers had shared it as well and the general response was
simply that it sounded about right. There were some very moving conversations
that came out of those sharings of that article along with the realization — something
Iā€™ve long suspected — that I am not all alone out there in my vibrant unique
neurotic bubble. And really, it comes as no surprise that one has to be at
least a little neurotic to be ballsy enough to try to bring, in one form or
another, what lives in our imagination into the real world and to attempt to put
it out there for everyone to see.

As the article was shared around and the responses mounted,
I found myself thinking of C.G. Jungā€™s archetype of the Wounded Healer. The
healer can only ever heal in others what she herself is suffering from. Empathy
goes much deeper than sympathy. The human capacity for story is as old as we
are. Before the written word, story was the community archive. It was our
memory of who we are, our history, our continuity, our triumphs, trials,
sufferings, joys, all memorised, filed away, and kept safely in the mind of the
story teller. That had to do something to your head, knowing that you were the
keeper of the story of your people! How could storytellers be anything other
than neurotic?

Itā€™s a lot more personal now that we have the written word.
No one has to dedicate their lives to memorising the story of their people. Now
we tell our own story, the story of the internal battles that wound us, the
story of those wounds transformed. We all tell our stories in our own personal
code. What may well start out as a navel gaze into the deep dark wilderness of
Self can be transformed into powerful, vibrant story, and weā€™re healed! At
least temporarily, or at least weā€™re comforted. And hopefully so are those with
whom we share our stories. When I journalled my navel-gazes, I wasnā€™t
interested in anyone else seeing what was on those pages. It was a one-sided
attempt at a neurotic house-cleaning. Sharing the story is a part of the
healing; sharing the story is a part of the journey. The Storyteller had no
purpose if she didnā€™t share the story with her people.

As a neurotic living among other neurotics, I doubt that
thereā€™s anything weā€™re more neurotic about as a people than sexuality. I donā€™t
think itā€™s any real surprise that thereā€™s suddenly a huge market for erotica.
Last night I sat on a panel of erotica authors, editors and publishers at the
Guildford Book Fair ā€“ something that would have never happened before Fifty
Shades of Grey, and even at 9:00 in the evening, we played to a full house.
Each of us had a story of how we came to write erotica. We shared our stories
with a roomful of people, who then took those stories away with them to
possibly be shared with others. The archetype of the storyteller is alive and
well. And I believe writers live out the archetype of the wounded healer on a
daily basis.

Most of the time I write my stories because itā€™s just too
much fun not to. Thatā€™s the truth of it. I seldom consciously dig deep to find
those wounded, neurotic places. Really, who would want to do that deliberately?
But the wounded places find me, and they end up finding their way into the
story. And what surfaces is never quite what I expected, always more somehow,
even if started out to be nothing more than a little mƩnage in a veg patch.

Constants and Changes – by Craig Sorensen

by | February 15, 2012 | | 7 Comments

There are those who donā€™t like change. A consistent life, in the office at 8, out at 5. Lunch at Mr Vā€™s on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Friday night, leave the office half an hour early. Anticipation, he drives home a bit above the speed limit. He manages not to get a ticket.

Again.

A favorite meal, smiles across the candle-lit dinner table. A familiar face. Has she changed? Yes, of course. Thirty-seven years will do that. But changes so slow that only the Kodachrome photos on one side of the room from the many vacations to the Oregon Coast ā€“ every year during the first week in June, because it is off season and the room costs less ā€“ only those photos admit the aging process.

That steak was perfect, so was the baked potato, and he takes her hand in that familiar way, and leads her into the gently lit bedroom. Her modesty is as unchanging as her smile and her turquoise eyes, but she allows the bit of light he needs to unbutton her blouse, peel it over one shoulder, then the other. He kisses her soft and long, and unsnaps her bra. She acts surprised as it pops open, and they laugh.

They enter the bed, from the same side, and he disappears under the blanket. Her hips jerk when he opens them and presses his tongue deep into her. He knows every trigger, plays every note to perfection like a musician with his favorite song; itā€™s the one piece he plays every time he practices. Two orgasms shudder from her, and heā€™s so hard the tip of his rod pokes his abdomen. She feels so warm and soft as he slowly enters her, and posts up on his strong arms, and luxuriates in her body. She rolls like waves on the beach, bends his rod just the way he likes, circles his tight sac with her middle finger and he nearly comes too fast; she lets him off the hook. He wags his finger in front of her face, and she bites it.

They collapse together, encircle each otherā€™s bodies tightly with intertwined arms. They move in a perfect rhythm and the old box spring sings in perfect time. They canā€™t last long like this. Not with the feel and smell of sweat eroding carefully applied perfume and cologne. No.

A great yell, a chorus, rings out from them. They kiss deeply through the orgasm.

Just once a week. Pretty much the same every time.

Exhausted, they begin to doze in the nude, the only night of the week that they do so. And tomorrow he will wake to eggs, bacon and toast, to greet the weekend.

ā€œI love you.ā€

ā€œI love you too.ā€

*****

Sometimes, erotica is all about the pivot points, and rightly so. Sexuality is a great changer. But one of the most memorable depictions of sexuality I recall from a young age was when a friend and I were sleeping outside one summer night, talking about sex, as we often did. For some reason, we talked about the very religious couple next door, and he described how he figured it happened between them. It was mundane, and plain, just as he intended it. Somehow, this always struck me as sexy.

My little vignette above is a bit of an homage to my old childhood friendā€™s supposition about the sex life of the middle aged couple next door. Maybe some of the best stories are about change, about pivot points, but that doesnā€™t mean consistency canā€™t be sexy.

Maybe it is the whirlwind that has been my life in the past two months that has driven me to write about a couple who finds passion amidst their very consistent lives together.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad you came along.

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

Categories

Babysitting the Baumgartners - The Movie
From Adam & Eve - Based on the Book by New York Times Bestselling Authors Selena Kitt

Categories

Archives

Pin It on Pinterest