About five times a year, I receive either comments or emails asking me why I don’t write erotic fiction on a slew of topics: “why don’t you write about wife-swapping, cougars, cock and ball torture, shoe fetishism, choking, violet wands, water-sports…?”
While I realize that most of the world has come to view erotic fiction writing (indeed most forms of genre writing) as a consumable product, like ice cream or vodka coolers, it is entirely natural to then be frustrated when one is not offered a standardized array of ‘flavors’ to choose from. And, indeed, if you do a quick google search, you will find sites that offer literally thousands of stories, classified by kink or sexual act, or orientation. I completely understand why you might want to have that same ‘demand and supply’ consumer-relationship with my writing.
But that is not the relationship I am interested in having with you.
In the same way that it is entirely possible for you to screw the top on your shampoo nice and tight and use the bottle as a dildo, it is important to note in the end, that it’s not manufactured as a dildo, nor did it set out to be a dildo; it’s a bottle of shampoo. And while it might work well for you as a dildo, if the bottle leaks and you end up with a vagina full of detergent, you really can’t complain to Head and Shoulders.
I want to be entirely clear about this: I write erotic fiction, not pornography. I am not a textual sex-worker. I don’t write stories with a view to sexually servicing you. I do not set out to help you gratify your immediate sexual desires. I do not write with the aim of facilitating your masturbatory practices. Some of my stories may work that way for you, but that is not what they were created to do so, much like the shampoo bottle, if it isn’t quite the perfect dildo shape, you’re shit out of luck.
I write about what interests me erotically. I choose themes that I feel will most efficiently facilitate an examination the greater human condition through an erotic lens. I’m deeply uninterested in many of the pornographized categories of acts or memes which serve to draw a line between the erotic and the everyday world. Categories are useful for finding things quickly, but they also serve to set things apart. I’m interested in just the opposite – in looking at places where those boundaries leak and fail, where human eroticism bleeds into the non-sexual parts of our personas, our lives and our society.
If I have any specific aim as regards my readers, it is to write things that encourage my readers to think about how their erotic desires constitute and shape and twist the very complex individuals they are.It would be very surprising if all the readers who arrive at this site (or even a majority of them) were always in complete agreement with me as to the themes that might best accomplish this goal. It’s always going to be a hit and miss thing.
I do not ask you for money to read my work on this site. In all the time I have had this site (over a decade now) I have never monetized it in any way: no google ads, no banner advertising, no links to commercial sites. While I could have easily coded it in such a way as to at least cover my server costs, I have consciously chosen to keep the site rigorously non-commercial in order to ensure that our relationship can never be conceived of as commoditized or transactional. You are free to read and leave. You are also free to read and discuss your reactions in the comments area. You are free to express your disgust, your disappointment, your frustration at feeling you’ve wasted your time.
What you are not free to do is mistake my writing for a dildo and then complain that it’s not the right shape.
So you don’t want to have sex with me?
No, but don’t let that hurt your feelings. I don’t want to have sex with most people.
I understand what you are conveying in this post but I can honestly say I have never wanted you to write for a certain niche/fetish, I’ve always appreciated your honesty as a writer and just wanted to read what you have to say. It’s always interesting and creative to me. I like that.
Originality is sexy.
Hey there, Isla. Yes, I know this and, I know that the majority of regular readers don’t feel that way. If they did, they’d eventually stop coming here. But it was just that time of year, to write a post, clarifying what the site is for.
Fair enough 🙂
Very clear… I have just discovered your little corner of the web, and thoroughly enjoying my visit.
Bravo!
Amazing woman… still smiling big over that last line! You are always refreshing. 😉
~ Vista
Your eyes, ears, voice are a literate treasure trove. You need no virtual argument. Literature and the literary spirit speak with nuance, imagination, curiosity, experience. You raise the level for writers with less insight or willingness to explore the riches of our sensual lives. Bravo. And thanks.
You are just too damn flattering.. I don’t know what to say.
No need. The line between talent and the pedestrian is simply too clear. What sets you further apart is that voice, talent and insight cohabit. It is such an important aspect of all our lives. Sensuality in all its wisdom and folly deserves a proper storyteller. You do that for your readers. Gratitude and good humor are deserved rewards!
You are very kind to say so. I know I often fall short, but I do keep trying.
If you fail any better, we’ll have to start worshipping brilliance. x
A relationship “not commoditized or transactional” is just that. It lasts over time because it resonates for seekers of that buggery notion of “meaning” in life. The pearl in one of so many empty oysters.
Bravissima! Bless you for saying this.
This extends to all facets of writing, not just the divide between sensual and pornographic, especially in a genre-driven world, a world in which the customer is *always* right, and because of that the customer, nee reader, expects a customized commodity. One that fulfills a fantasy, is true to a template, and brooks no deviation from normative expectations.
Yes, Nya. So well put.
So much this!! For myself, I don’t write for readers, I write for myself. If someone like it, fantastic. If they hate it…that is their choice, it doesn’t change how I see the piece. Readers come into the author’s world, not vice versa.
While I think it is a little bit less clear-cut, I do think you are fundamentally right. The author ‘proposes’ the game – determines which game is going to be played. Of course, the reader can play along, or not. And different readers play in different ways. But if I say ‘this is a baseball game’ and a reader wants to believe it’s soccer… then no one is having a good experience.
Ah, the illicit provocation that’s always a suprise. It’s beautiful, reflecting you, and don’t you change for any of us, Muse.
As you mentioned, your regular readers know what to expect, usually…You take us well beyond the shampoo bottle, getting to the grime and dirt of the human consciousness. The things we often want washed away, the struggles within us torment us but we need that inner conflict don’t we? I will comment on one thing that I do not like about your work in general, as a ready it often leaves me frustrated, I always want so much more from your delicious pen!
And I always want more of your regard. 😀
Even with the bad grammar and lack of proof reading?
even!
Good on you for not having the urge to comply. It’s an act of the indolent, someone who by no effort of their own wants something in great supply that meets their need. It’s the bastard child of the consumerism and the result of the ‘customer is always right’ mentality.
That’s the nicest way I can put it. The mean way, is that the email was most likely written by a male, who lost in their own ego assumes you should comply because demand expects it.
Fuck him. Fuck those like him. Write whatever the fuck you want and make no apologies for it. That he had the nerve to screw up the courage and crawl out from under his rock to send you that email, suggests a great societal problem at hand.
I don’t think it took him any courage at all. I think he reflects the majority of consumers of erotic fiction and what they have come to expect of ‘fiction products’ – he’s asking why I don’t offer the flavour he wants. When the relationship between a reader and a writer becomes one of pure transactionality, it’s hardly surprising, is it?
At the very least, at least for me, you always give a view in which it is clear also the reader can not be in doubt as to your view or the point you wish to make. All to often today people are quick to put down those with a differing view rather than to respect that view or for those that wish and are able to, articulate in a no derogatory way an alternative view point.
I for one will continue to read the stories you publish however what has changed is I will now read with interest your posts on other subjects for no other reason to read a well write, articulate pice which I can at least finish knowing the writers view point.
From one writer to another, Touché. The most erotic writing I have read in a long time. WIWIWYG
I have been reading your work for all of the ten years,
I like what you write.
I love that it is what you like.
I feel I know you.
Would you like to meet up for a coffee, now that you are in the UK,
it could be the start of another story?
The Curious Gentleman
Thank you for the invite. Unfortunately, I’m about to leave again, very shortly! 🙁
This comment may be a little late but I just wanna say that I totally agree and support you on your approach to writing whatever you want 🙂 keep awesome!
Just a general comment from me, just read several of your stories and must say you have wonderful insight into the human mind and a great insight into the male psyche, great work, and thank you for sharing!
My comments often fail to send, server error 🙁
Well said- I felt slightly irritated by the original comment and your above post is eloquent, point made carefully but strongly.
Having only recently found your site, I return to sample more stories, rationing them to prolong the pleasure
I’ve been writing erotica for five years or so, never published, or shared with anyone, just for my own pleasure. One day…somewhere they will appear.
Your writing is so intelligent and thought provoking, the backstories rendering them far higher than the McD happy meals served elsewhere.
x Andrew
I do hope you’ll share your stories with readers. You know… the writing is never really finished until you do. 😛
I’ve tried three times to read this comment without crying, and I simply can’t.
The earliest story I remember actually writing was for our school paper in second grade. As I got older, I stopped writing, but I’ve always had stories running in my head. It was like my body was put on autopilot while all these ideas ran rampant in my skull, beating to get out. After I graduated college, the stories began bleeding out of my brain into margins and bits of scrap paper, just to be thrown away. Eventually, the writing accumulated into notebooks of blurbs and outlines and pages of dialogue.
I love romance and reading erotica is a not-so-guilty pleasure. I’ve always been fascinated by the way that human beings connect with each other. Sex is especially poignant. Porn lacks the emotional connection that can be found in erotica, and unfortunately, most of what’s written online is based off of porn and lacks that *spark* of human realness. Romance gets closer than smut, but it isn’t usually isn’t raw enough for my taste. RG, your stories are lovely and a delight to read.
There were a few of your stories in particular that really made my fingers itch (to write). ‘Mine’ made me want to write something emotional and smutty and raw. ‘The Other Side’ made my skin prickle. Recursion and karma are things that enjoy reading and writing about, but it’s so hard to get it to work right. ‘Bequeathed’ made me want to dive into my WIP second draft and put more effort into description. I’m trying to figure out how to strike that balance between lovely world-creating description and cutting out all the extra words that take away from it.I can only imagine how much work and emotion a single one of those online short stories took.
Needless to say, after that emotional roller coaster of reading, when I read the above comment, it broke me. I bawled for a while. There’s so much work that’ve I’ve got sitting around that hasn’t gone past the first draft. Last Nano, I finished a full first draft of a story I’ve been sitting on for a while. It’s progress, but it’s still not ready to be seen.
<3 I don't know if you're still reading comments in 2019, but thank you for the inspiration. <3
I need to go write something a bit more substantial than an online blog review or else I think my head might explode.
I started reading your stories long back.. nearly 8 years i guess. Got here through a google search.. “erotica and supernatural” think the first one i read was river mother then meek shall inherit the earth and objects of pleasure. I was just blown away by the imagination.. and the writing. Erotica ive read before were almost just scripts for your usual porno movie. The fact that you avoided these all too cliched and overworked terrain was what attracted me most to your work.
Id like to call it dark and intelligent erotica. You introduce so many cultures countries, varied characters, people who are wired differently from your usual “joe the plumber” or sexy nurse(not that they don’t serve a purpose when you are in the mood for them).
Back then was a time i was still coming to terms with my sexuality, i was barely out of my teens, in a culture where even discussing sexuality& sexual desire are taboo.. much less talking about fantasies and any needs, above getting fucked in 3 positions makes you eccentric.
There was a time when i was depressed and i was disgusted by my fantasies felt there was something wrong with me really for the way i felt and thought.
I read your erotica and it made me feel more comfortable with my mind and my thoughts. About some of the darkness inside me.
I was emboldened by your boldness to put all of this out there. To write and let someone read what you wrote takes incredible courage. Its like letting people into your mind, letting them walk around there like tourists in a museum, listen to them looking at your deepest wants, thoughts and insecurities.. because every character is a product of your mind and you feel responsible for them, you need guts to take the crticism.
I love your work, for the way it has made me feel, for making me think.
I may not be literary enough to criticize your stories constructively, but i read them all lovingly. And i want to thank you for putting such excellent work out here in the open when people with much less talent, insight and imagination are minting money out of their art (not that there’s anything wrong with earning money from your hard work).
I know I’m not good with writing but this is a long overdue love letter.
THank you so much
I totally respect your right, your need, your justification in writing what you want when you want.
That doesn’t stop me from wishing you wrote more, more of whatever you want, because I haven’t found anything else out there as haunting, raw and well written. While we wait, I hope your life is what you want it to be.
“themes that I feel will most efficiently facilitate an examination the greater human condition through an erotic lens.”
I understand. When i entered this website i didn’t like it but now i do; some of your stories made me think and rethink some aspects of my own behaviour, both sexual and non sexual.
I remain an admirer of your work.
Thank you love! I need not say more.
I’m new to internet erotica and to your site and found myself here after writing some things of a similar nature, and deleting them.
It’s really easy to look at erotica as cheap and shameful. I myself really enjoy writing in this way and don’t want to delete it or hide it any longer. I’ve got to say that this post, particularly when you so eloquently talk about the relationship between ones sexuality with the rest of what makes up an individual, has really put a few things into perspective for me.
I find your writing so interesting and the way you use words is thoroughly enjoyable on a creative level, as well as in context with your subject matter. In short… wow. I am in total awe and admiration of you to the point where it borders on being a little pathetic. Teach me senpai indeed.
Just wanted to pass on my compliments and thank you for defining this kind of writing as something other than a once over for the bored and horny. It really can be done tastefully and beautifully, for better reasons that getting other people off.
The reason I love your work (aside from how well it’s written) is that it’s so much more than smut. The subjects you choose are fascinating, and often unexplored in terms of sensuality. Your work is so much more than something to get off to, it makes me think, and I know that if you were manufacturing something for a specific audience/purpose instead of what takes your interest, then it would lose that spark.
For me, many of the pieces on here which have affected me the most have been the least explicit (the one I can’t stop coming back to is Pattern Passion). It takes my breath away how you can describe the subtleties in which seemingly irrelevant actions can bring out pain, or desire.
I know I’m going on a bit, and honestly I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but I really appreciate what you do, and I think your attitude/pesrpective on these topics create works which are truly special. It is my dream to be able to elicit emotions and reactions like your work does.
Sincerely,
a huge fan.
Hello ,
Wow! You really got me thinking! And that’s tough to do.
Thank you for writing such a comprehensive blog on this topic.
Ingenious metaphor and well-written as always but what really stuck out to me was your opinions on categories. You said that as a writer you like to focus on where human boundaries leak and fail; I think that paragraph really well sums up what makes your writing so original and seperate from others and should be quoted to other writers instead of the horribly cheesy quotes that run rampant on Pinterest. Anyways, thanks for posting; even your “clarification” posts are well worth reading.
Keep it up. Your writing is possibly the best I’ve ever read.
First, thank you for creating the work and curating this site.
Second, I rarely contribute to a conversation. When I feel what I would say has already been covered. However, in your case I make the exception as you specifically requested that folks leave comments.
I just found your work and read a few pieces. I attempted to read the Pride but it seems it’s no longer on the site…so I didn’t actually read it yet.
I remember a description of Edgar Allen Poe’s writing from English class that included this:
“ every word he uses is critical to the intent of his work.”
I think this description is valid for your work but I’d rather binge read your website than his anthology…
I stumbled on your blog/writing by a fortuitous wander down a rabbit hole (I was was searching for the kink that gives the greatest pleasure to me alone). Superior erotic fiction allows the reader to explore the sensations of the sex play from EVERY point of view — an RPG where each facet of your personality the one who need control as they always have the complete best interest of you at their core; the one who crave the embrace of surrender; the one who has to be coaxed into those things which are good for you, whose pleasure is in the hard earned results after committed energy; and even the strangers — all the roles you try on to see if they fit, the what-ifs of different choices, a happy accident, a different circumstances, and rework/remember all the times it was great. Everyone, particularly women, can have their best orgasms alone in their heads tapping into their best selves without negative commentary while pleasuring all desires, everything that that multiplies the sensations, the interludes between each following sensation, and eventually build to the final release. It’s quite theraputic and insightful about as pleasurable. This story played like that in my head adding that bit of randomness to color the experience. Excellent erotic fiction as this is allows you to be whomever is your most turned/on-tuned in self with the only consequences of additional self-knowledge and self-discovery harming no-one .
The above was written to a story that turned up as a review of sorts. I’d argue that all good fiction is transgressive. You experience things, emotions, and situations often new to your experience and as a result of this perceive yourself better.