Audioerotic

I've been having a great time listening to erotic audiobooks lately. At first, I didn't like the idea. When I pick up a work of erotica, I often like to do it in bed because, well, I like the privacy in case I get really involved with the... story. While an audiobook would leave both hands free, I didn't think it would give me enough control. When I'm doing one-handed reading, I have to hunt for something that fits my specific kinks, and then I typically linger lovingly on the paragraph or two that really do it for me.

So, how did this change?

I've thought about (and written before) about reading erotica for non-one-handed purposes. And as I get more comfortable with my appreciation for the genre, I've found myself reading erotica at the breakfast table, or on my smart phone in various waiting rooms. This usually isn't about one-handed reading. It's about literary appreciation, the naughty thrill of accessing the forbidden in public, and the occasional delicious frustration when a story gets me really worked up in a way I can't satisfy in the current time and place.

From there, it was a short step to erotic audiobooks. If I liked reading erotica in a waiting room, why not listen to it in the car or while I'm at the gym?

Just writing that last sentence has me breathless, because it turns out that listening to erotica is way more awesome than I ever imagined it could be. There I am on the elliptical, looking completely innocent, while a voice purrs every filthy word into my ear. It's exciting even if I don't particularly like the story. If the story is well-written, it increases my appreciation a great deal. In audio, I find myself turned on by stories that definitely would not do it for me in print. I'm not in control of pace or content. Everything is a surprise. I can't flip forward to glimpse whether she's going to use a strap-on or just her fingers and tongue. Every turn is a delicious surprise.

If you haven't tried this, I would highly recommend it.

One ironic effect of immersing myself in the erotic is it's a little harder to get the sensation I remember from when I was young. Time was, I'd catch a little glimpse of the forbidden and be instantly panting, wet, and desperate. I still remember an erotic graphic novel I found in a Hong Kong laundromat. I glanced through it, but then felt too ashamed to steal it the way I wanted to. I didn't take it with me, but I'll never forget the fire that entered my body -- a sensation that didn't leave for hours, and that still comes back to me when I call up the memory of those images. These days, things rarely turn me on so thoroughly and achingly.

But I've been catching a glimpse of that lately when I take my erotic audiobook on the road. Not being able to act when I'm turned on has allowed several stories to build so much tension in me that I end my workout a quivering mass, hoping everyone thinks all that sweat is just from how hard I worked my cardio.

I started this trip with audio versions of Cleis anthologies. I've been having a great time, and can't wait to check out the rest of what's on offer.

The Aim of Porn

I recently realized something that might explain why it took me a long time to learn to appreciate male/male erotica. Though I read erotica much more than I watch porn, my first experiences of explicit portrayal of sex were through porn -- men introduced me to that, and erotica was something I found on my own. And most porn is produced with a male audience in mind.

A lot of men like watching lesbian porn, but it's pretty clear that the "lesbians" you typically see in such a production are chosen with straight men in mind. They usually look the way a man might want them to, and the things they do together are often designed to arouse men. (I'm not talking here about porn produced by and for actual lesbians).

However, gay male porn is again mostly produced with men in mind, so here again you'll see actors who look like and do things intended to appeal to a male audience.

I've seen a lot of arguments about male/female porn and the effects of its similar targeting toward a male audience, but that's a complicated issue that I don't want to get into here.

The point is that, in typical mainstream porn, whether you're watching straight, lesbian, or gay porn, you're probably watching something intended for male consumption. Recently, I realized that the male/male scenes I enjoy need a different angle. Basically, I want a female version of what's done for men in lesbian porn. I want the men I see together to have a look that would appeal to a female, and to do things to each other that a female wants to see. I've never encountered this in film porn, so I thought for a long time that I just didn't like male/male scenes.

The experience that changed my mind turned out to be a video game. I played Dragon Age 2 as a male character, and carried out a romance with another male character, pretty much on a whim. I was stunned by how hot that turned out to be for me. But when I thought about it more, it made more sense.

In lesbian porn aimed at males, you basically have straight-appearing females who happen to want to make out with each other. I think this helps men imagine those females would be open to them, say, joining in, which I think is a typical part of the fantasy. I had the same experience with the Dragon Age 2 characters. Both of the men read straight to me visually, which made it possible for me to fantasize about them without my sense of reality intruding. I bought their romance with each other a whole lot more than I buy most events in lesbian porn aimed at males but, hey, mainstream porn's never been known for its plot.

It's hard for me to fantasize about people I'm sure would not be interested in me, and when I watch gay porn and read the characters as really gay, I feel sort of shut out, or like I wouldn't have a chance, and my arousal doesn't really activate.

I've been experimenting with reading male/male erotica recently, and have found the principle to hold true. I appreciate reading about gay men in terms of story, but I only find it arousing if they seem bi or heteroflexible. This may not be the way it works for everyone, but for me male/male erotica arouses when it follows this pattern. (As an aside, I've long appreciated male/male erotica that doesn't arouse me, because it allows me to read for story and really appreciate the romance, rather than frantically flipping forward to find the next "good part.")

Art and Pornography

There was recently some discussion online about using "the wet test" when evaluating about erotica. I did a couple posts, one about reading erotica for reasons other than arousal, and one about writing erotica for reasons other than arousal.

I came across a great passage over the weekend that sums up my position, from Geoff Nicholson's book Sex Collectors:

Some people used to say that art was good because it was celebratory and porn was bad because it was masturbatory, but now we all say, what's so wrong with masturbation? Camille Paglia says, "What people call pornography is simply the moment when the physicality of the act becomes obtrusive to them." I say the difference between art and pornography is this: you can masturbate to art if you want, but you don't have to. It still has an appeal and a function even if it doesn't get you aroused. Whereas if a piece of pornography doesn't get you aroused, then it's a complete failure, and few things are worse than failed pornography.

I found this a useful distinction. I think what I was trying to get at with my earlier posts was that I see erotica as art. However, when I started to read it, I read it as porn -- I wanted to get off. I think its purpose is still confused, and writers and readers approach it as art or porn or both, not always being clear what they're going for.

Writing and the Wet Test

I blogged a few days back about reading and "the wet test," saying I read plenty of erotica that wouldn't necessarily make me come. I've been thinking about how this idea applies to writing.

There's plenty to say on this subject, but one point I'd make is that it's difficult to write erotica about subjects that really get me off. If just saying the words "nipple clamps" makes me want to come, I can grossly misjudge how hot my scenes are. When I'm blinded by lust, it's easy to go too fast. It's easy to imagine that what's going on in the reader's head is as vivid as what's going on in mine.

Some of my best scenes, on the other hand, have been about things that don't have so much inherent turn-on for me. My head is clear enough to pay attention to craft. I never submit a story until I'm turned on by the sex in it, but I think my writing is sometimes better when I have to work for it. There's a foreplay analogy in there, I think.

That said, hottest of all is when I can closely describe a sex act that really, really turns me on. But these stories are the hardest for me to write.

Why I Read Erotica That Doesn't Turn Me On

You read erotica because you want to get off, right? Right?

Not necessarily. To me, this is at the heart of the perennial question: Is erotica porn?

I watch porn when I want to get off. I do not think I have ever turned on porn just for fun, without a vibrator in my hand or a horny partner by my side. I do not expect that I ever will.

Erotica, on the other hand, is a more varied experience. I have some favorite stories. Sometimes, I go to them when I'm in the mood to come. When I'm reading a collection, sometimes there's a story that really gets me and I find myself moving my reading from the desk to the bed. But blogger Donna George Storey raises very valid questions about "the wet test" at the ERWA blog:

Over the years, I’ve noticed another aspect of the popular approach to reviewing erotica—the primacy of the “wet test,” or using personal arousal to evaluate the quality of a story. Go to any Amazon page for an erotic anthology, and you’ll see that a good portion of the reviewers makes a point to list their favorite stories. A few will also finger the stories they don’t like (pun intended). It’s almost as if someone passed out a template on “how to review erotica anthologies,” with a final exhortation: “Don’t forget to mention at least three stories that got you tingly/hard!”

She goes on to say:

It would be helpful to other readers and writers if reviewers gave more context for their opinions. Tell us why a story turns you on or intrigues you or disturbs you or lingers on after you put the book down. Treat erotica as a crafted tale as well as a masturbation aid.

This makes a lot of sense to me because if I evaluated erotica based on the wet test, I would have to discard entire anthologies (full of writing by authors I love). A long time ago, when I first discovered erotica, I was so turned on by seeing words like "cock" and "cunt" on a printed page that I was aroused by everything, no matter what it was about. But very quickly, I zeroed in on what really gets me off. I have a few very specific fetishes -- and I mean that in the technical sense of the word, as in there are things that are required if I am going to reach orgasm. To make matters worse, I favor nonconsensual stories if I want them as a masturbation aid -- which are banned by most publishers of erotica. This shunts me over to decidedly less well-crafted but admittedly effective free stuff a lot of the time (though there are some really well-written nonconsensual stories, too, such as Remittance Girl's incredible novella Gaijin).

If I read erotica only to get off, I wouldn't read most professionally published erotica at all.

That said, here's a list of collections I've recently read and enjoyed: D.L. King's Carnal Machines, Rachel Kramer Bussel's Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Debra Hyde's Back Door Lover: Erotic Tales of Anal Sex, Alessia Brio's Coming Together: By Hand, Tabitha Dulla and Cecilia Tan's Like Heaven and Hell. The vast majority of the stories in those collections would never make me come, but I still liked reading them.

I'm going to talk a little about why.

First, sex fascinates me. Sex is characterization in a very pure form. I like to read descriptions of how people fuck. I like to know what they do and what they focus on.

Sex and the feelings around it are a significant part of human experience. Now that I am used to reading erotica, I am profoundly annoyed by how frequently mainstream stories ought to be talking about sex but are instead dancing around it. Erotica pulls off the covers and gives access to the whole person -- parts of the psyche that are all too frequently ignored in other literature.

Erotica gives a window into perspectives that I would never otherwise get. While I always considered myself liberal, and identify as bisexual, it was reading and writing LGBT erotica that really committed me to equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation. It's probably a post in itself to explain that, but I think erotica turned it from a political issue into a human one.

Erotica gives me a sense of camaraderie that's really important to me. The bravery of other writers has set me free. I remember reading a story on Oysters & Chocolate about a pantyhose fetish (Hose in the Cold - From My Skin to His by Tao Mitts). In this story, the narrator is ambivalent about her friend's pantyhose fetish. The writing sometimes takes on a sensual tone, and sometimes a revolted one. I definitely did not come from reading it, but I was fascinated psychologically. The story gave me a lot of insight into how fetishes look from the outside (and, being a person with some heavy fetishes of my own, I found this significant and, despite the disgust, reassuring somehow).

There's also just a lot of damn good writing. I go on and on about Remittance Girl, but I would proclaim her artistry and craft to my last breath. But let's be fair. Let's take a story that would never get me off (since many of Remittance Girl's do): I am left pretty cold by femdom. But when I read Kathleen Bradean's "Lair of the Red Countess," a femdom story in Carnal Machines, I actually jumped up, grabbed a pen, and started writing exclamation points next to my favorite bits. I'm going to string a few together:

"Who are you?" the woman asked. That time, her low voice caressed the nape of Archie's neck like incense smoke wreathing a sinner's prayer.

...

"So it is torture!"
"Something far worse. Something almost unbearable." She bent close to his ear and spoke as if relishing the word rolling over her tongue. "Pleasure."

...

"There is a small matter to settle before you leave, Mr. Fraser. You have needlessly wasted my time. I demand..." Her hand made a gesture as if she expected it to snatch the word she sought from the cloying air of the room. "Satisfaction."

Each of these parts stunned me with their beautiful turns of phrase. Bradean's story created a powerful sense of atmosphere that was hot as hell -- even if I didn't want to masturbate.

Here's a comparison: I don't need to actually fall in love with the male lead of a traditional romance in order to appreciate the story. I just need to buy that the female lead is in love with him. Bradean's story totally sold me on the countess being the hottest thing the male lead had ever encountered. I appreciated that.

There's a lot I love about where the genre is going. I like the trend of steampunk erotica, for example. I read non-erotic steampunk stories, too, and sometimes I like to read erotic ones.

I couldn't agree more with Storey's suggestions for alternative ways to evaluate erotic stories. I weep to think of all I would miss if I applied only the wet test.