Originality is Overrated

I've worried about repetition, or things growing stale, in a lot of ways. As a writer, I don't want to be seen as writing the same kind of story all the time. As a partner, I don't want to use the same turn-ons and techniques every time. And sometimes I worry about whether I'm stunting myself horribly by using the same go-to masturbation fantasies for, like, my entire life.

Here are some reassuring words from Geoff Nicholson's Sex Collectors:

A moment's consideration suggests that a sex life consisting of never-repeated wonders would be as bizarre as it would be exasperating, to say nothing of impossible. The whole point of sex, surely, is that it's all about repetition. We know what we like, what gives us pleasure, and so we repeat those things. There'll be variations and novelties, there'll be inventiveness within the form, there'll probably be a few surprises, but the idea that every sex act might be some previously unexperienced and then unrepeatable form of escstasy is just plain silly. If it's any good, why wouldn't you want to repeat it?

It's a good point, and well worth remembering. Let's not underestimate the classics, or forget the pleasure they hold.

Music Mondays: "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls

"When I think about you, I touch myself."
--Divinyls



This one is such a classic, I can't believe I haven't thought to post it before. I used to hang out with this gorgeous blonde who loved to bring down the house at the karaoke bar by performing this song. Imitate her with caution -- the technique was quite effective.

Erotica in the Open

J. Blackmore asks on her blog whether erotica writers have become a community of people writing for each other, somehow losing touch with the mainstream world:

I'm not sure if, in a post-Fifty Shades world, we can afford to be that insular. That book is decidedly not OK with the BDSM sexuality of its, uh, hero, and yet it's being held up as a stunning success in the markets of kinky and erotic fiction. This makes me think that a lot of people are not finding us, don't know what other stuff is out there, or how to find it. That makes me incredibly sad.

The frenzy over Fifty Shades is bewildering to me. As people have commented before, Fifty Shades is not the first erotic book aimed at women to sell a boatload of copies (see, for example, Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, and, um, the entire Harlequin catalog). To some degree, I think this is a media event -- people at various media outlets feel they have to follow each other writing articles about the inexplicable success of this sex book (sarcasm here), and that feeds more articles and more sales. Why this book? Who knows? -- it happens that way sometimes.

But is erotica insular? I do think things that are specifically erotica concentrate in small press editions, dark corners of bookstores, and e-book publishers who of necessity market to the tech-savvy. A big thing Fifty Shades has going for it is massive publisher support, cross-platform availability, displays in stores including the supermarket, and so on.

If Fifty Shades encourages more mainstream publishers to get into more erotica, that'll be good, I think. It might pull the erotica section out of those dark corners.

I think there's also a packaging issue going on -- Fifty Shades doesn't have a red cover on it, or a picture of a shirtless man, and I think some of the shock is that the book sells anyway. But this is part of a larger trend that's already been happening. Harlequin has its Luna line, which is fantasy romance. A lot of fantasy books for a lot of years have been full of explicit, erotic scenes, BDSM included (see, for example, Jacqueline Carey or Terry Goodkind). I respect Fifty Shades' sales, but it doesn't really seem unique to me. Sexy books have been selling well for quite some time, I think it's just that a lot of the world didn't realize what was going on.

I'm holding out hope that this will increase people's willingness to go looking for the erotica tag, rather than sticking to books that have a lot of sex but are being marketed primarily as something else (say, fantasy).

Who's Reading All This Erotica, Anyway?

People so frequently seem uncomfortable with the idea that someone is reading erotica, and I've seen lots of disingenuous attempts to identify who is doing all these reading. Most recently, this has come up in relation to Fifty Shades of Grey, with all kinds of weird speculation about "mommy porn." But it's an old conversation, it's often about shifting shame onto some group that the speaker doesn't belong to, and it usually sounds pretty silly. Here's a great example from Geoff Nicholson's book Sex Collectors.

[Gershon] Legman tells us in The Horn Book that collectors of erotica are either the "inexperienced young" in search of information and education or the "old and impotent...searching in books or pictures for the reviving of their drooping sexuality." "Few collectors exist between these limits," he says, and he reckons the young are in the majority. This seems so transparently untrue and such a downright weird thing to say that you have to wonder what his agenda is. When he starts talking about "these children, with their hopeless pornographic pamphlets, grotesquely illustrated as often as not with smeary photographs of old time pimps and whores in pointy shoes and torn stockings," his scholarly credibility seems to be sprinting rapidly toward the exit.

The quoted language sounds patently absurd, and you have to wonder where these assertions are coming from. I suspect a lot of the "mommy porn" speculation is going to sound just as absurd in a few years.

People read erotica. Which people? Plenty of people.

(And for those following along at home, I've indeed quoted several times recently from Sex Collectors. It's a really interesting book, and I'm likely to do it some more. It's on the Kindle if you want to check it out for yourself.)

Wicked Fairy Tales releases today!

Today, Forbidden Fiction releases its Wicked Fairy Tales collection. If I know the Forbidden Fiction authors, this will be an amazingly twisted dark carnival of fresh perspectives on classic tales.

If you missed my story, The Three Wives of Bluebeard, you can pick it up now as part of this collection. In addition to my story, you'll see stories by the likes of Nobilis Reed, Elizabeth Schechter, and Kailin Morgan. Take a look here!

Hey, Hey, Pompeii

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Fancy Man on BDSM

I read a lovely description of a BDSM relationship the other night in Fancy Man and the Lipstick Lesbian, the latest book out by Thirteen:

It's not just about merging personalities, it's making sure the top cares and is inventive, is masterful, not just brutal. Likewise, the bottom has to be honest and open to new experiences, submissive but not passive. It's a very delicate balancing act, especially when it involves love and sex.

Thirteen has rapidly become one of my favorite authors, particularly for the sensitive, nuanced portrayal of BDSM featured in the Fancy Man series. Lipstick Lesbian is the third in the series, but each one so far has been a meditation on a fresh angle of what exactly it is that goes on between a dominant and a submissive. How are they filling each other's fantasies? Meeting each other's needs?

Fancy Man, the central character of the series, is absolutely compelling -- a creative, powerful dom who goes far beyond all the cliches.

I highly recommend every book in the series, especially for those interested in the psychology of BDSM.

(Note: Forbidden Fiction publishes Fancy Man, as well as some of my books, but I purchased Fancy Man entirely on my own, mentioned the book of my free will, and recommend it from the bottom of my heart.)