Six months ago, I put an anthology together called A Slip of the Lip for ERWA. I received a lot of great entries and I think we managed to put a very nice e-book together from the submissions.
I’d like to try to do another one of those, but this time I’d like to invite people to submit longer stories that feature the rather strange fetish of Tentacle Sex. I don’t see a way of limiting stories to consensual ones. In fact, part of the attraction for those of us who enjoy the murky world of this particular fetish is that it often has a non-consensual aspect to it. For this reason, it’s not viable to do this through ERWA as it transgresses one of their central rules.
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Drawn in 1820, Hokusai’s ‘Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife’ is one of the earliest pieces of this type of pornography. During the Yukio-e period in Japan, explicit images were common and woodblock prints featuring humans in congress with animals of all kinds were often produced. However, as Japan moved into the modern age, pictures depicting erect penises were banned. Artists got around the ban by depicting women being penetrated by tentacles, robotic appendages, etc. It was the birth of tentacle erotica as we know it today.
What interests me, sociologically, about tentacle erotica is that it is still serving that same purpose of allowing us to metaphorically indulge in aspects of sexuality which society still considers taboo. First and foremost among these, for me at least, is the involuntary congress with the strange. But the spectre of being pleasured against one’s will, the possibility of multiple synchronous penetrations, the fetishizaton of fluids, the organic bondage aspect and, for some, the impregnation possibilities are all things which fire the imagination.
The biggest problem with a lot of the tentacle erotica writing I’ve come across is that it is not terribly well written. What I’d like to propose is to put together an e-book of well-written stories. They can be consensual or non-consensual, hyper-realism or total fantasy / sci-fi, but they have to show a high level of writing craft and stories which attempt a new take on the genre will be most welcomed.
I honestly have no idea whether I can actually ‘sell’ an anothology of this type, and so I can’t promise money. However, the last ERWA anthology did receive over 20,000 downloads, so you definitely will be read. If I do manage to place it with a publisher, I will distribute the proceeds equally between the writers. Should I manage to find an illustrator, they would also be entitled to a share of the proceeds commensurate with their work on the project.
Deadline for submission: April 1, 2010
Mode of submission: Word document or plain text emailed to adrasteiapornea@googlemail.com with Tentacle Dreams in the subject heading.
Submission guidelines:
The central eroticism of the piece MUST be tentacle-based. Seafood, plantlife, aliens, mutant humans are all fine. Any sexual orientation is fine.
Lengthwise, 2,000 to 8,000 word stories, please. I will consider shorter pieces or poetry, but they have a much lower chance of being accepted. Excerpts will not be accepted.
Be as wild and thoroughly kinky as you like. Be inventive and outrageous! This is high fantasy! But characters’ reactions should be believable. And there’s the rub. How do you convince readers to suspend disbelief about something so incredible? That’s your challenge.
The only content limitation is no under age characters in sexual situations. Non-consensual is fine, as is a certain level of violence. But I do reserve the right to exclude a piece that I feel reaches a level of violence where it overshadows the eroticism. And yes, that would be an entirely subjective call.
Your submission should be thoroughly proofread for spelling and grammar. Also, please be artful in your sentence construction and avoid repetitions as much as possible. Good writing craft is what will elevate this anthology above the bulk of pulp erotica written within this genre.
If you have any questions, please feel free to address them to me at adrasteiapornea@googlemail.com.
I am also very, very interested in finding an illustrator, or illustrators for this e-book. Should you be interested, please contact me at the above email address.
What a great idea!!!
:'( I’m not a writer or ilustrator, but I will be am enthusiastic reader!!! 🙂
XOOX
May I give it a whirl?
Fascinating. That certainly makes one of your stories make more sense to me (the one with the sushi waitress?) At the time i was trying to figure out where you got the inspiration 🙂 Tentacle sex. GOD I LOVE THIS BLOG.
(scurries away to research)
Fabulous basis for an anthology. Once again, I am schooled, I’ve never heard of tentacle sex until now.
Hi, heard of your endevour via Monocle (and thru following his most recent tale – “Perimeter Violation”.
I’ve been into what I later learnt was known as the Tentacle genre since my teens, but its a bit of a loose label, which dosn’t quite define my interests.
I may well try my hand at this. Ive been writing the odd little story over the years, in part to develop my “visions”, and its all grown into one uber-blob of a self-contained fantasy world. A big part of these inolve … errr… interaction, (willing and unwilling)between mutated/altered human forms and creatures, very influenced by marine life, but by no means confined to it.
To anyone else wanting to bring something new, checkout (if I’m allowed to mention it here?) “Alice in Rubberland/Fetish Dreams” by “Rob”.
RG
In keeping with your exhortations on commenting, even or especially on the flaws, it is, I think, Hokusai.
jw
PS -Rare spelling lapses are just about the only flaws that I ever see in your writing.
ack! Yup, you’d be dead on correct. Thank you!
I’m game.
I’ve never written anything for a submission before but hey it’s a new year. It’s time for new things, new challenges, time to actually change where I end up by next year this time. How can I can expect a change if the what, where, when and how’s stay the same? Kind of like expecting to get to California while heading east on I-80; not going to happen, no matter how long or fast you drive, you’ll still end up in New Jersey.
I’ve had a few ideas on this topic flicking around in my subconscious for some time now, time to write them down.
moils
Oh, this is too delicious to pass up!
Thanks, RG!
What an interesting idea, I may very well have to give this a shot. It has stirred some ideas, but since this is a whole new genre, I will have to get smarter. Thanks
I might try, though I’m a little scared of what will come out…
Isn’t that the best sort of writing adventure though? *evil gurgling laugh*
I am about to do a wee review on something that coincides well with this theme I shall point a few writers your way in the next few weeks 😉
Hello RG
You must have guessed that I could not pass this opportunity up? Literary Hentai YUM!
One question, the submission date has no significance, right?
My sincere regards
Smotp
PS are you back in the East or still in the UK
Hello there! Lovely to see you, Smotp!
I’m back east and, hehe, the submission date has whatever significance you’d like to ascribe to it, but it’s definitely firm. 😛
Re publisher – have you thought of eXcessica?
http://www.excessica.com
This sounds really cool.
I wondered if you could recommend some examples of tentacle smut?
Is it the same genre that depicts female arousal through *wet* imagery?
Well, I have a piece of my own, although I don’t think it is very representative of the genre: Visitors from Japan.
For some stories and visual inspiration, you could not do better than to visit Marjorie Greene’s Site
Also, Raziel Moore has written some outstanding tentacle type stuff: He has a number of stories at http://eroticwriter.wordpress.com/?s=tentacle
thanks! i was always interested in this genre but my searches ended in weird fruitless places. will check them out!