If you’ve come to my site for a quick wank, you’ve come to the wrong place. Let me assure you that for sheer sexual stimulus, nothing works like porn. So get over whatever hesitation you’ve got about it and get your ass over to xhamster. You’re bound to find a clip that will do the trick.
If you’ve come to my site looking for emotional comfort, for a place to dream about love that ends well, that lasts eternally, that soothes away the rough edges of a jaded, cold, soulless world, you’ve also come to the wrong place. What you want is erotic romance. There are some excellent writers within the genre who provide not only wonderfully kinky sex, well written sex scenes and that lovely satisfying ending that soothes all the heartache and drama that went before – forgives it all in the end with a passionate kiss and a promise of forever. And it comes in whatever sexually oriented flavour and whatever historical setting you require it.
I’m not denigrating either porn or romance. But I don’t write either. If you come looking for those things here, you will leave unsatisfied.
I write erotic fiction. For me, erotic fiction is a literary genre that explores the human experience through the lens of desire. If you think that is too small a statement, consider that Buddhism is a whole religion founded on the premise that desire is the root of all human misery.
Hemingway (I despise him as a human being, worship him as a writer) put his protagonists in war, pitted them against raw nature, buried them under sisyphusian odds in order to take them to that place where they stood vulnerable and naked, stressed beyond armor, bared to the world on the wheel of life.
He should have written erotic fiction. If he hadn’t been such a product of his times, such a terminal Judeo-Christian and such a sexist pig, he would have realized that humans deliver themselves up to that place of vulnerability and nakeness often, and sometimes quite willingly, when they allow themselves to pursue or act upon their erotic desires.
There is a point at which most people, surrendered to the freight train of desire, show themselves for exactly who they are. They lie, for the writer, like a corpse on a mortuary table, ripe for dissection and autopsy. The strands of all that constitute their understanding of themselves and the world around them and limitations of body and mind are there to see and be enumerated, exposed beneath the pulled back skin of our everyday carapace, our civility, the roles we play and the masks we wear – all gone. They come burdened with the weight of their history, their culture, their spiritualities, their experiences and understandings of nurture and cruelty, of right and wrong, of physical and moral peril, of the uses of power… They bring their prides and vanities, wounds and hungers, and offer them up on that altar – a white-sheeted bed.
Every good erotic fiction writer KNOWS this. It’s why this genre has such potential and is so existentially rich.
And why, you might ask, is this not ‘literary fiction’? Because literary fiction does not specifically use the lens of erotic desire to examine these human complexities. And when it has attempted to, it has generally done a very poor job of it. There is a very palpable fear, among literary writers to arouse their readers. They somehow think that to do so is improper, unseemly, beneath their dignity. I disagree. I feel that it allows me to take the reader’s body and intellect, together along for the ride. I believe this makes the experience of the examination more concrete. More visceral. More personal.
So, if all we can offer is a trigger for a quick wank, or an escape from the bitter reality that the course of love seldom runs true, then as writers we are turning our backs on an opportunity to explore so much more about ourselves.
If when you read my work it turns you on, then what I want you to know is that I didn’t use tricks to get you there. I wasn’t an accomplished courtesan with good fellatio skills. I got you there because it got me there and because you were willing to go. Your arousal is authentic – real – not elicited for profit, not coaxed as a service. You took the gift I offered – to look inside yourself – and it aroused you.
Similarly, if I offer you a happy ending, it is not because I thought it would make you feel better, or comfort your bruised heart. I didn’t lie to you that things would be okay to make you stop crying. I offered you what I genuinely thought was a plausible end to the story, taking the course of events and the characters involved into account. I genuinely believe this is where, realistically, these characters could end up.
This is what I believe erotic fiction should be. It should be a deep and moving experience to read it. It should perhaps arouse, disgust, frighten, warm you – sometimes all those things. And if it doesn’t, you as a reader, are getting less than you deserve.
Just YES. YES. YES. YES.
Most writers are not artists. Most writers lack passion. Most writers who write erotica write it because it comes pre-sold to the reader. — You gave the link to xhamster. You know that this is the reason most readers pick up erotica, and the reason some very, very bad writers — who preen themselves in public like Nabokovs and Nins — resort to it.
So this is your genre. It would be great if I’m wrong, but I believe the reason you’re the artist is that you can see these things with an anxious desire that, put into words, might be *this* is *radical*. *This* is *revolutionary*. *This* is not a fucking *blog post.*
And others — even your fans — can’t.
Oh, how could I not respond to this post as well?
I just have to bow in homage to your clear definition and strong emotional statement of what you write and what you do. And I love the term “erotic fiction” for it does so fit.
I’m afraid I’m personally omnivorous in my reading, though (I want a better word than “omnivorous,” but the right one isn’t coming to mind). Also, in my writing. Sometimes I aspire to erotic fiction. Sometimes I write erotic romance. Sometimes I write porn. I really don’t think I’m giving my readers something less. Each has its place and its value.
But I would like to see a greater role and market (for lack of a better term) for erotic fiction. It’s the ‘food group’ so horribly underrepresented.
Ack, I hope I did not imply that I had a problem with either porn or with erotic romance. I don’t. The offer fundamentally different things. What I object to is writers who purport to offer erotic fiction and give porn. It’s different. I have definitely written what I would consider porn. And to be honest, Beautiful Losers is very close to erotic romance, as long as you don’t expect a happily ever after ending, because it definitely isn’t going to have one. It can’t. And perhaps what I need to do is separate out all those different types of fiction and make it clear what they are, so I do not disappoint readers.
I loved reading this..your words,”..I got you there because it got me there and because you were willing to go,” say everything in this piece. And it is true. Quite often, we do arouse ourselves first when we sit down to write. And if our own words create this arousal within ourselves then it becomes very easy to make the reader come along for the ride as well and share the same emotion and sentiment. And by arousal, I don’t just mean being able to get your rocks off. It means a genuine, intellectual grasp and to feel the sensation of the story, the erotic energy which gets released via the reading experience. I think you pay very close attention to this. It shows…Good for you!
Wow. Thank you. I try to, mostly. Although I have written my share of happy and unadulterated porn. That was fun. But it didn’t promise to be more.
Yes, I know that feeling..ha…I bet your moments of writing pure porn were probably at the start of your career. I guess that’s where I am stuck at the present moment. Perhaps I too shall reach the level of competence some days…..I hope! Did any of your porn ever become published?
Yes, it did.The Central Registry: It’s in Violet Blue’s ‘Girls On Top’ anthology. But there’s a podcast version of it if you’re interested here http://remittancegirl.com/podcasts/
RG,
Yet another fine explanation, as a thirsty reader all I can say is…
“More RG, more.”
Thank you,
-TFP
Don’t you think at some point I should just shut up and write some fucking fiction? hehe.
*Smiles*
“Do it!”
Wow…this is a treasure trove…thank you..thank you..thank you….And I love your voice too…And there had better be more!! You are so good! Thank you!
“There is a very palpable fear, among literary writers to arouse their readers. They somehow think that to do so is improper, unseemly, beneath their dignity. I disagree. I feel that it allows me to take the reader’s body and intellect, together along for the ride. I believe this makes the experience of the examination more concrete. More visceral. More personal.”
This is very true. Great horror novels try to inspire dread and discomfort in readers; great war novelists (like Hemingway) usually make readers feel the despair, or sometimes the excitement, of war and battle. So why is trying to make readers aroused any less dignified?
I’m with Catherine on this. Although I do find your erotic fiction extremely arousing. 🙂
Good! That makes me very happy. I certainly don’t write it to be unarousing 😛
Heh. What I write – far too slowly – is quite definitely “Erotic Romance” by your definition, which I wouldn’t quibble with at all. Good post, clear definitions, and thanks for the links… 😉
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with erotic romance. It is both arousing and deeply emotionally satisfying when it is written well.
I think one thing that differentiates really strong fiction is that the writer doesn’t blink at the moment of (self) revelation; the characters move into that uncomfortable place where they are most human. This is made even harder in erotica because so many of us are stymied by our own conventions; for a writer to be willing do dig into their own base nature enough to write the truth is a challenge.
When you dig into the deep, it can be not just arousing, but soul-satisfying, too.
Hi Nan, And I know it can be satisfying as a reader, too. Because I’ve read work like that and it’s exactly that type of work – where it gets too personal, too ambiguous – where, as a reader, it’s a bit too sticky and dark and you almost want to pull back – that’s when I have a really great reading experience. It makes me ask new questions of myself.
As always, precisely focused and just as precisely written. You never disappoint the mind/heart … whether you’re shooting straight with the facts or even more sharply with the imagination. You shine in the dark of delight.
Great article! I’d like to reference it in an interview I’ve been asked to do. Hehe! Saves me a lot of work! Thanks.
Oh, please, by all means. Be my guest.
I merely wanted to say thankyou. I’m new here and just starting to explore your site, and I already have a definition which helps me tremendously. I’ve written porn and romance, tragedy and humor: both the lighter side of life as well as the dark, simply because both exist and need to be explored. As you pointed out with this article, we are never so naked and vulnerable, as when we give in to our desires, and allow others power over us that we wish to cede to them to fulfill our needs. And of course, when we strip the masks and armor, we risk the pain that often comes from that. My erotica is often dark, filled with disappointments and unfulfilled potential, because that is a part of life, as surely as the happily ever afters. Because of this, those stories have disappointed as often as they’ve elated. Terming it simply erotica, I have had no workable definition for some of my themes until just now. Again, a most heart felt thankyou, and be assured, I will return with frequency.