I get a lot of people sending me stories and asking me to read them and give them feedback. This is something I used to do frequently when I was an active member on the ERWA storytime list. It’s been more than a year since I’ve really participated and, although I do miss the give and take of the list, I also know I’ve grown into a far quirkier writer as I’ve gotten older.
I’ve come to recognize a real schism in how ‘erotica’ as a genre is defined. A great many people feel that any kind of explicitly written sex that has the capacity to arouse the reader is erotica. In fact, many erotica writers feel that it is their central purpose to arouse their readers sexually and that, if they don’t do this, then it isn’t erotica.
Also, there seems to be a growing sense that ‘pornography’ must, by definition, be visual – either still photography or video. I would personally classify a lot of ‘erotica’ as pornography. If a story’s sole purpose is to incite the reader to arousal and masturbation, and if the plot is mostly structured around the sex act, then it is pornography. If your characters have no physical or mental flaws, if their main aim is to have wild sex and mind-blowing orgasms, and if this is not set in the greater context of the other things happening in their lives, then it’s porn as far as I’m concerned. And before anyone gets their panties in a twist, I’m not using this word as an insult. Writing good, effective and arousing porn IS an art form. However, if this is what you write, please don’t send it to me and ask me to read it and give you feedback. I’m simply not a receptive audience for what you write. Stories involving perfectly attractive people, having wonderful, consensual, happy sex simply don’t turn me on.
There, I said it. And it sounds like I’m tactfully breaking up with someone, doesn’t it? “It’s not you, honey. It’s me.”
I’ll accept that a fairly large contingent of erotica writers might well come back at me and say that my definition of erotica is flawed. And that, in fact, I don’t write ‘erotica’ at all – that what I write is fiction that has explicit sex in it. I think this would be a fair accusation if it weren’t for the fact that most of my plots do revolve around the sexuality of at least one of the characters. I tend, on a fairly regular basis, to explore the characters THROUGH their sexuality. And, I do write the sexually explicit parts of the story in a way that, I hope, arouses.
But if all I do is arouse my reader, then I feel like I’ve failed. I’m hoping to give my readers a more complicated set of feelings to walk away with. Arousal, for sure. But also angst, and fear, and shame, and guilt, and sometimes even redemption. Sometimes even love. I think when you are looking for a good ‘critical friend’ (someone to critique your work in a way that is productive and supportive and enriching), you need to select a writer who can also be a target audience reader. If you write wild, kinky, but essentially unproblematic sex stories, then you need to find someone who can really appreciate and respond to that.
If you’re sending me a story to read, please make sure it has enough angst, shame, guilt or pathos to turn me on. Make sure your characters sound like real people, who have a little body fat or some stretch marks or perhaps a pimple or two on their ass. Just the wild sex alone doesn’t do it for me. I can’t be a good critic of what doesn’t interest me or turn me on.