Constance Daley's Blog, page 2
October 11, 2012
In Sex, Few Things Are Inherently Good or Bad
I've had a number of female friends over the years who, while discussing a particular sexual act, will say something along the lines of "I would never let my boyfriend/husband do that, it's so humiliating." I'm always left wondering why they don't take the next step and really evaluate the act in question. There doesn't have to be anything wrong with humiliation, just like there doesn't have to be anything wrong with submission, just like there doesn't have to be anything wrong with pretty much anything in the realm of your sex life. It's about how you feel about each of these things that matters.
Take me for example. I'd make a terrible submissive, but that doesn't meant there's anything wrong with the concept. It just doesn't work for me. I'm not a big fan of being humiliated either (though reading about it really works for me, so who knows), but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for some women. I've known women who get off on the idea of being humiliated, who enjoy the feeling of shame, and I think that's great. If shame works for you, I'm okay with that. If it doesn't work for you, but you're letting your lover shame you anyway, then that can be a problem.
This whole issue can get really interesting dependent upon the situation. Most women seem to agree that certain things are beneath them, and would never do them. For example, porn stars do ass to mouth, but that's something that most women probably wouldn't do (or at least wouldn't admit to). It's disgusting, they would say, and they may be right. But I had a friend who wouldn't give her boyfriend a blowjob because the thought of that was disgusting. Is she wrong? Nope, not necessarily. Like I said before, your sexuality is your own, and thus it is rarely wrong. The exception to that is if you have an aversion to something because someone else has taught you to and you blindly accepted it.
All I ask my readers is that they do their best to be honest with themselves. If they find themselves dismissing something with a simple word like "humiliating" or "disgusting," then evaluate how those words make them feel. You might be surprised to find that there's a little eroticism of the forbidden awaiting you behind such simple declarations.
Take me for example. I'd make a terrible submissive, but that doesn't meant there's anything wrong with the concept. It just doesn't work for me. I'm not a big fan of being humiliated either (though reading about it really works for me, so who knows), but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for some women. I've known women who get off on the idea of being humiliated, who enjoy the feeling of shame, and I think that's great. If shame works for you, I'm okay with that. If it doesn't work for you, but you're letting your lover shame you anyway, then that can be a problem.
This whole issue can get really interesting dependent upon the situation. Most women seem to agree that certain things are beneath them, and would never do them. For example, porn stars do ass to mouth, but that's something that most women probably wouldn't do (or at least wouldn't admit to). It's disgusting, they would say, and they may be right. But I had a friend who wouldn't give her boyfriend a blowjob because the thought of that was disgusting. Is she wrong? Nope, not necessarily. Like I said before, your sexuality is your own, and thus it is rarely wrong. The exception to that is if you have an aversion to something because someone else has taught you to and you blindly accepted it.
All I ask my readers is that they do their best to be honest with themselves. If they find themselves dismissing something with a simple word like "humiliating" or "disgusting," then evaluate how those words make them feel. You might be surprised to find that there's a little eroticism of the forbidden awaiting you behind such simple declarations.
October 9, 2012
On Writing Rhythm of the Night
I like vampires. I find vampires inherently sexy. But when it came time to write a vampire story, I was stumped. In fact, I struggled with it for days before I finally figured out what I wanted to do, mostly because I went about it the wrong way.
When I decided I wanted to write some erotic stories for Halloween (which is my favorite holiday, by the way), I knew that I had to include at least one vampire story and one werewolf story. There were two reasons for that. One, I think that it's hard to do Halloween without those things. Two, I'm hoping that those two archetypes sell. A girl has to be at least a little pragmatic. I sat down to write the vampire story first, even going so far as to open a file in Microsoft Word called Vampire. I then proceeded to stare at the blank screen and write nothing.
The problem was that I was trying to think of any interesting new twist on vampires, and I was failing miserably. Every time I came up with something, I'd remember another movie or book that already did it. Vampires are so common in literature and film that it seems almost every permutation on them has already been explored, and that left me in a bind. I try to write my stories around a hook, around a scenario that is interesting to the reader. But I couldn't find my hook.
The key was when I talked the issue over with my spouse, who was kind enough to ask me what was hot about vampires in the first place. What was it about them that makes a girl wet? Suddenly the whole story came to me, mostly because it wasn't really a story. It was a vampire distilled down to what has always drawn me to them, breaking them down to the very essence of their erotic pull. I didn't need a story, I didn't need a hook. All I needed was my own fantasy of vampire sex, and that is what I shared with the world as Rhythm of the Night - A Tale of Vampire Seduction.
The funny thing is, now that I'm past the sex scene, I'm starting to get an idea for a story that fits those two characters. I'm just not sure if it's something I want to write or not. There's something perfect about leaving them as they are, in their one perfect moment. But sometimes a writer can't control herself, and has to move the characters on.Rhythm of the Night - A Tale Of Vampire Seduction
When I decided I wanted to write some erotic stories for Halloween (which is my favorite holiday, by the way), I knew that I had to include at least one vampire story and one werewolf story. There were two reasons for that. One, I think that it's hard to do Halloween without those things. Two, I'm hoping that those two archetypes sell. A girl has to be at least a little pragmatic. I sat down to write the vampire story first, even going so far as to open a file in Microsoft Word called Vampire. I then proceeded to stare at the blank screen and write nothing.
The problem was that I was trying to think of any interesting new twist on vampires, and I was failing miserably. Every time I came up with something, I'd remember another movie or book that already did it. Vampires are so common in literature and film that it seems almost every permutation on them has already been explored, and that left me in a bind. I try to write my stories around a hook, around a scenario that is interesting to the reader. But I couldn't find my hook.
The key was when I talked the issue over with my spouse, who was kind enough to ask me what was hot about vampires in the first place. What was it about them that makes a girl wet? Suddenly the whole story came to me, mostly because it wasn't really a story. It was a vampire distilled down to what has always drawn me to them, breaking them down to the very essence of their erotic pull. I didn't need a story, I didn't need a hook. All I needed was my own fantasy of vampire sex, and that is what I shared with the world as Rhythm of the Night - A Tale of Vampire Seduction.
The funny thing is, now that I'm past the sex scene, I'm starting to get an idea for a story that fits those two characters. I'm just not sure if it's something I want to write or not. There's something perfect about leaving them as they are, in their one perfect moment. But sometimes a writer can't control herself, and has to move the characters on.Rhythm of the Night - A Tale Of Vampire Seduction
October 4, 2012
Pillow Talk
For the most part, my characters don't have much to say while they're having sex. There are multiple reasons for this, and I'd like to share a few of them today.
To a certain extent, there are two major types of talk possible during sex. One is emotional talk, exploring your feelings with your partner. The other is dirty talk, and I think we all have a pretty good idea of what that is. The thing is, neither one of these really fits the type of stories I want to tell. I write mostly short erotica, and my characters are usually not seeking some type of spiritual connection when they fuck, so emotional talk is basically out the window. And I've always felt that dirty talk, unless done well and in the proper context, comes across as sounding like the "dialogue" in porn. Sure, there are characters who speak like that and I won't shy away from it in those situations, but I'm not going to include it just for the sake of including it.
I have always believed that words have power. I have believed that since long before I became a writer, and I believe it even more now. What I've discovered reading a lot of books over the years, particularly in regards to romance novels, is that dialogue is expected, but usually works against the writer. In short, most dialogue in books sucks (except for you, Nora Roberts, you write great dialogue). But since writers are expected to include it, they do, and their characters usually sound like idiots.
If you're a writer like me, and you struggle to write good dialogue, all I can say is don't push it too much. Sure, characters need to talk to advance the plot, and sometimes a little banter is good for the story (like in Put It In, Coach!, which is almost certainly my most dialogue heavy story, or No-Telling where Garrett's dialogue is key to setting up the twist). But for the most part, I'm okay with my characters talking very little. They aren't in the story to orate, they're in the story to fuck, and I hope that is what they are good at.
To a certain extent, there are two major types of talk possible during sex. One is emotional talk, exploring your feelings with your partner. The other is dirty talk, and I think we all have a pretty good idea of what that is. The thing is, neither one of these really fits the type of stories I want to tell. I write mostly short erotica, and my characters are usually not seeking some type of spiritual connection when they fuck, so emotional talk is basically out the window. And I've always felt that dirty talk, unless done well and in the proper context, comes across as sounding like the "dialogue" in porn. Sure, there are characters who speak like that and I won't shy away from it in those situations, but I'm not going to include it just for the sake of including it.
I have always believed that words have power. I have believed that since long before I became a writer, and I believe it even more now. What I've discovered reading a lot of books over the years, particularly in regards to romance novels, is that dialogue is expected, but usually works against the writer. In short, most dialogue in books sucks (except for you, Nora Roberts, you write great dialogue). But since writers are expected to include it, they do, and their characters usually sound like idiots.
If you're a writer like me, and you struggle to write good dialogue, all I can say is don't push it too much. Sure, characters need to talk to advance the plot, and sometimes a little banter is good for the story (like in Put It In, Coach!, which is almost certainly my most dialogue heavy story, or No-Telling where Garrett's dialogue is key to setting up the twist). But for the most part, I'm okay with my characters talking very little. They aren't in the story to orate, they're in the story to fuck, and I hope that is what they are good at.
September 26, 2012
To Butt Sex or Not to Butt Sex?
Just a forewarning, I will probably be using the term "butt sex" a lot in this blog post, mostly because I think it's awesome but unfortunately has no place in erotica. After all, it's a lot hotter for a man to say, "I'm going to fuck your ass," than "I'm going to have butt sex with you now," or even "I'm going to sex your butt." So this is one of the few times I get a chance to refer to the action as butt sex, and I'm not going to let that opportunity pass.
Butt sex has a weird place in our culture, in that it is one of the last taboos. Sixty years ago something like a blowjob was likely to be a man's primary fantasy, but now that those are commonplace it seems that anal is final frontier. Because of that, it seems to feature very heavily in a lot of erotica, and I'm still not exactly sure where to incorporate it and where not to.
For the most part, you can squeeze butt sex into pretty much any story with just a few minor tweaks (though there are exceptions). The question is whether you should, and I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that. You have two potential audiences to worry about, those who are instantly turned off by any backdoor action, and those who require it in their erotica. You don't want to alienate either audience, but ultimately you're going to have to. The question is, which one should I cater to?
So far, judging by my sales, anything that can be tagged on Amazon with "backdoor sex" seems to do pretty well, though not as well as "spanking," and nowhere near as well as "reluctant." This leads me to believe that as a writer, you're probably better off catering to the butt sex crowd than not. But being the type of writer I am (as explained in an earlier blog post), I'm not really catering to anyone yet.
I'll check back in on this subject a few months down the line, once I have more sales data to parse and maybe more stories featuring anal exploration to give myself a better idea of what people like. Readers, if you have a particular preference for more or less anal in your erotica, please let me know in the comments.
Butt sex has a weird place in our culture, in that it is one of the last taboos. Sixty years ago something like a blowjob was likely to be a man's primary fantasy, but now that those are commonplace it seems that anal is final frontier. Because of that, it seems to feature very heavily in a lot of erotica, and I'm still not exactly sure where to incorporate it and where not to.
For the most part, you can squeeze butt sex into pretty much any story with just a few minor tweaks (though there are exceptions). The question is whether you should, and I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that. You have two potential audiences to worry about, those who are instantly turned off by any backdoor action, and those who require it in their erotica. You don't want to alienate either audience, but ultimately you're going to have to. The question is, which one should I cater to?
So far, judging by my sales, anything that can be tagged on Amazon with "backdoor sex" seems to do pretty well, though not as well as "spanking," and nowhere near as well as "reluctant." This leads me to believe that as a writer, you're probably better off catering to the butt sex crowd than not. But being the type of writer I am (as explained in an earlier blog post), I'm not really catering to anyone yet.
I'll check back in on this subject a few months down the line, once I have more sales data to parse and maybe more stories featuring anal exploration to give myself a better idea of what people like. Readers, if you have a particular preference for more or less anal in your erotica, please let me know in the comments.
September 19, 2012
Revisiting Literary Lesbianism
I know I've talked about it before, but I'm fascinated by the performance of Pictures of Lillian on my sales charts, so I'm going to talk about it again. The thing is, Pictures of Lillian is not only NOT my bestselling story, it's pretty much the worst. Since my descriptions are intentionally vague so as not to spoil whatever plot twist the story might contain, the reader can only get a basic idea of what the story will be about. Pictures of Lillian is my only story with a lesbian bent, my only story that a reader has tagged with the word lesbian on Amazon.
The question is, why isn't it selling? The answer is, I have no idea. I understand that the market for lesbian erotica might be limited to begin with, that there are probably a great many women who have no interest in reading it. But that just begs the question as to why so few women seem to be interested in the genre? When every possible fetish imaginable has a sizable reading demographic, why does something as relatively prosaic as lesbianism have such limited appeal.
I wonder sometimes if the problem is that it is too accessible. For the most part I deal with situations and types of sex that most women can't really have, whether because the actual experience would be too much for them or because even arranging such a scenario is difficult. After all, we can all read about our husbands watching us have sex with another man, but actually making it happen could lead to a trip to a divorce lawyer. Lesbianism doesn't have this issue. First, it was readily available for most of our lives. There was nothing stopping us from making out with a girl. Second, even if you're married chances are bringing up making out with another girl to your husband isn't going to send him running for a lawyer. It'll probably send him running for the video camera.
Ultimately there's no way to know why some things sell and some things don't. I still plan to write another lesbian story at some point, just in case the real problem with Pictures of Lillian is something else entirely. Maybe people think the scenario is lame. Maybe people never noticed it. But I always enjoy a little speculating, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
The question is, why isn't it selling? The answer is, I have no idea. I understand that the market for lesbian erotica might be limited to begin with, that there are probably a great many women who have no interest in reading it. But that just begs the question as to why so few women seem to be interested in the genre? When every possible fetish imaginable has a sizable reading demographic, why does something as relatively prosaic as lesbianism have such limited appeal.
I wonder sometimes if the problem is that it is too accessible. For the most part I deal with situations and types of sex that most women can't really have, whether because the actual experience would be too much for them or because even arranging such a scenario is difficult. After all, we can all read about our husbands watching us have sex with another man, but actually making it happen could lead to a trip to a divorce lawyer. Lesbianism doesn't have this issue. First, it was readily available for most of our lives. There was nothing stopping us from making out with a girl. Second, even if you're married chances are bringing up making out with another girl to your husband isn't going to send him running for a lawyer. It'll probably send him running for the video camera.
Ultimately there's no way to know why some things sell and some things don't. I still plan to write another lesbian story at some point, just in case the real problem with Pictures of Lillian is something else entirely. Maybe people think the scenario is lame. Maybe people never noticed it. But I always enjoy a little speculating, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
September 18, 2012
Coercion
Of all my stories currently available on Amazon, No-Telling is probably the most objectionable to the largest number of people. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I'm not going to discount the fact that the level of coercion is very high in this story. I'm also not going to lie, I find coercion sexy, but only when the coercion leads to pleasure.
In a society where many women still have their sexuality stifled, they can allow themselves to be talked into something they want to do anyway. By offering lip service to denial, they don't gain the negative reputation from their actions because they had to be talked into it. I find the fact that society functions in this way distressing, but I also write for women as we are, not as we should be. Which brings me back to coercion in my stories.
For the women who need some type of permission to explore their fantasies, having the character be coerced allows them to inhabit the character more fully. Freeing the character from culpability allows the writer to push boundaries that could not be explored otherwise. Most women would not be comfortable with the character in No-Telling if she initiated the actions, but because she is just as forced as her lover, there is no blame. So it's okay when she gets turned on by things that are beyond the pale of normal society.
Human sexuality is a tangled knot, and the knot unravels in different ways for each of us. To a certain extent, once we reach a certain age it is monumentally difficult to change the way we view sex. For some women, brought up in certain ways, it will never be okay in their own minds for them to be turned on by certain things. This actually applies to many women to at least a certain extent (myself included, there are still things in the bedroom that are much more erotic if I'm playing the submissive, allowing it to be done to me instead of asking for it to be done). There are no easy answers or solutions to any of this.
In a society where many women still have their sexuality stifled, they can allow themselves to be talked into something they want to do anyway. By offering lip service to denial, they don't gain the negative reputation from their actions because they had to be talked into it. I find the fact that society functions in this way distressing, but I also write for women as we are, not as we should be. Which brings me back to coercion in my stories.
For the women who need some type of permission to explore their fantasies, having the character be coerced allows them to inhabit the character more fully. Freeing the character from culpability allows the writer to push boundaries that could not be explored otherwise. Most women would not be comfortable with the character in No-Telling if she initiated the actions, but because she is just as forced as her lover, there is no blame. So it's okay when she gets turned on by things that are beyond the pale of normal society.
Human sexuality is a tangled knot, and the knot unravels in different ways for each of us. To a certain extent, once we reach a certain age it is monumentally difficult to change the way we view sex. For some women, brought up in certain ways, it will never be okay in their own minds for them to be turned on by certain things. This actually applies to many women to at least a certain extent (myself included, there are still things in the bedroom that are much more erotic if I'm playing the submissive, allowing it to be done to me instead of asking for it to be done). There are no easy answers or solutions to any of this.
September 17, 2012
Writing Pictures of Lillian
Men love lesbians. All women know this. Society has taught us that lesbianism is hot. To a certain extent society is right, but it is never as simple as society makes it. What makes lesbianism hot isn't that there are two women involved (yes, I know men will disagree with that sentence), but the idea that it is different. Different is sexy.
When setting out to write a lesbian story, I considered the idea of writing about a married lesbian couple. That seemed so forward-thinking and in keeping with our times. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize that it didn't work. It's hard to write erotica about long time married couples having normal sex on a Thursday night, and the same applies to lesbians. To make it work, at least for me, I needed it to be forbidden fruit. So I scrapped the idea of a married couple and went back to the most tried and true lesbian cliche of all. I went for experimentation.
As I started to write the story, I realized that experimentation was more important than I realized. Erotica is about discovery; if the story involves a character doing only things she has done before, it's not very exciting. The character needs to learn about themselves, needs to try things for the first time, for it to be interesting. There's a lot of erotica out there about firsts. First time anal. First time lesbian. First time cuckold. The reason for this is simple. The first time is where we learn about ourselves, where we challenge ourselves. Who wants to read a story called "Her Twelfth Anal," or "Sleeping With My Husband's Brother for the Fifth Consecutive Sunday."
There's another reason novelty matters for the character. Unless you're just starting reading these stories, it's hard for even the most lascivious imagination to conjure new scenarios and sex acts for every story. After all, there are only so many things you can stick in so many places, and only so many people/supernatural beings/furries you can have do it. Because of this, very little is still novel for the reader. Experiencing the newness from the character's point of view allows the reader to share in that feeling, and it's a great feeling. There's nothing like that new car smell or that feeling of being fucked hard for the first time.
So I knew I wanted to do a lesbian story, and I knew it had to be a first time lesbian story. The question was, what was the justification. In my stories I want the characters to behave at least somewhat believably, which means that our heroine has to have a good reason for what she does. The last few years it seems like all my longtime friends are getting divorces, and almost always for the same reason. Their sex life is stale, or it wasn't very good to begin with and they thought they could live with that but discovered they really can't. So that was in the mix, and then I imagined a woman who still loves her husband, but whose marriage is flat. How could she rekindle that? Of course I could have just had her bring a friend home, but the character I had in my head wasn't ready to go that far, at least not yet. I had to have her undergo a progression, and that progression couldn't involve the husband being there.
Luckily we live in a day and age where someone can be there without being there, and I knew the perfect way for her to titillate her husband without setting out to step outside her own comfort zone. Once I knew that she was going to use pictures, the old song Pictures of Lily popped into my head, and a slight change to the name of the song gave me a title and a character name. The rest was simple.
When setting out to write a lesbian story, I considered the idea of writing about a married lesbian couple. That seemed so forward-thinking and in keeping with our times. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize that it didn't work. It's hard to write erotica about long time married couples having normal sex on a Thursday night, and the same applies to lesbians. To make it work, at least for me, I needed it to be forbidden fruit. So I scrapped the idea of a married couple and went back to the most tried and true lesbian cliche of all. I went for experimentation.
As I started to write the story, I realized that experimentation was more important than I realized. Erotica is about discovery; if the story involves a character doing only things she has done before, it's not very exciting. The character needs to learn about themselves, needs to try things for the first time, for it to be interesting. There's a lot of erotica out there about firsts. First time anal. First time lesbian. First time cuckold. The reason for this is simple. The first time is where we learn about ourselves, where we challenge ourselves. Who wants to read a story called "Her Twelfth Anal," or "Sleeping With My Husband's Brother for the Fifth Consecutive Sunday."
There's another reason novelty matters for the character. Unless you're just starting reading these stories, it's hard for even the most lascivious imagination to conjure new scenarios and sex acts for every story. After all, there are only so many things you can stick in so many places, and only so many people/supernatural beings/furries you can have do it. Because of this, very little is still novel for the reader. Experiencing the newness from the character's point of view allows the reader to share in that feeling, and it's a great feeling. There's nothing like that new car smell or that feeling of being fucked hard for the first time.
So I knew I wanted to do a lesbian story, and I knew it had to be a first time lesbian story. The question was, what was the justification. In my stories I want the characters to behave at least somewhat believably, which means that our heroine has to have a good reason for what she does. The last few years it seems like all my longtime friends are getting divorces, and almost always for the same reason. Their sex life is stale, or it wasn't very good to begin with and they thought they could live with that but discovered they really can't. So that was in the mix, and then I imagined a woman who still loves her husband, but whose marriage is flat. How could she rekindle that? Of course I could have just had her bring a friend home, but the character I had in my head wasn't ready to go that far, at least not yet. I had to have her undergo a progression, and that progression couldn't involve the husband being there.
Luckily we live in a day and age where someone can be there without being there, and I knew the perfect way for her to titillate her husband without setting out to step outside her own comfort zone. Once I knew that she was going to use pictures, the old song Pictures of Lily popped into my head, and a slight change to the name of the song gave me a title and a character name. The rest was simple.
September 16, 2012
Birth Control Should be OTC
I'm amazed that at this point birth control isn't available over the counter. Considering what is in those little pills, it should not be particularly expensive to sell them at the drugstore for a very reasonable cost, and increasing their availability to young women is a fantastic idea. A woman shouldn't have to go see the gyno for something as simple as buying a few pills.
There might be some objections to this because of potential side effects, but a quick look at them yields nothing to be particularly frightened about. And considering acetaminophen is available OTC, and it has some of the worst potential side effects from overdose, I don't find the side effect argument particularly compelling.
The only other argument I can think of is that ready availability of birth control will cause more teens to have sex. All I can say is that teens are going to have sex anyway. Condoms are already available. At least birth control can be used preemptively so you don't have to worry that you forgot to bring your protection with you to a party. Plus, you won't get too drunk to remember to put the pill on.
There might be some objections to this because of potential side effects, but a quick look at them yields nothing to be particularly frightened about. And considering acetaminophen is available OTC, and it has some of the worst potential side effects from overdose, I don't find the side effect argument particularly compelling.
The only other argument I can think of is that ready availability of birth control will cause more teens to have sex. All I can say is that teens are going to have sex anyway. Condoms are already available. At least birth control can be used preemptively so you don't have to worry that you forgot to bring your protection with you to a party. Plus, you won't get too drunk to remember to put the pill on.
September 15, 2012
My Favorite Writer
I studied the Classics at university. I share that in my biography on my webpage and author page on Amazon because I think it's important to know about me. I understand that many people consider the Classics a dull course of study, but they couldn't be more wrong. Sex is everywhere in the Classics. Sex is everywhere in human culture throughout all of history.
I have read of many erotica writers coming to the field from reading the Marquis de Sade, or Pauline Reage, or even Anne Rice. It seems that most smut writers come to the field through other smut writers, through writers of fiction. This was not the case for me. And I didn't come to it through the Classics either. Well, not exactly at least.
My favorite writer, and my personal hero, is Camille Paglia. I admire her for a number of reasons, foremost amongst them that she is not an ideologue. She does not allow politics or culture to force beliefs on her. She evaluates everything in the context of her own belief system and proceeds from there. Reading her books is a fascinating process of discovery because you can never anticipate her opinion on any given subject, but you know it will be intellectually and personally honest.
But the main thing I love about Paglia, the thing that endears her to me so much, is that she has always believed that there is nothing inherently wrong with being sexualized. I don't mean being sexy, I mean being sexualized. She has traced the history of the sexualization of females throughout history and reached the conclusion that there is no inherent disgrace in it.
Growing up, I always wanted to be sexy, even if it was only my own concept of sexy. But the media has waged a war against being sexy. We are taught that fashion magazines are destroying young women by giving them a false image of beauty, that a proper goal for a woman is have a career. We are taught by society that a woman baring her midriff at the mall looks like a slut, and that there is such a thing as a skirt being too short. There isn't. Some women look perfectly fine in the shortest skirt you can imagine, and some do not. Instead of worrying about what others are wearing, we should be worrying about ourselves.
Reading Camille Paglia taught me that nothing a woman wears changes who she is, that clothes can be an expressive commodity. Despite all protestations to the contrary, women in this day and age dress to impress other women, not men. They do this because other women will think badly of them if they don't. Women are oppressing women.
If you go to my website, you will find pictures of me that are probably best described as cheesecake. Some women, upon seeing them, might think badly of me. They might not like me parading my body around. I don't care what these women think. I like my body. I like my looks. I have no problem sharing them with the world. For some reason there are likely those who think it is appropriate for a woman to share her deepest fantasies with the world through writing, but not okay to show a little cleavage. I find that ridiculous. I embrace the idea of sexual personae as Paglia wrote of it, and I like being able to be all of those personae in one. I can be a tramp. I can be a mother. I can be anything and everything.
That is an incredibly valuable lesson to learn.
I have read of many erotica writers coming to the field from reading the Marquis de Sade, or Pauline Reage, or even Anne Rice. It seems that most smut writers come to the field through other smut writers, through writers of fiction. This was not the case for me. And I didn't come to it through the Classics either. Well, not exactly at least.
My favorite writer, and my personal hero, is Camille Paglia. I admire her for a number of reasons, foremost amongst them that she is not an ideologue. She does not allow politics or culture to force beliefs on her. She evaluates everything in the context of her own belief system and proceeds from there. Reading her books is a fascinating process of discovery because you can never anticipate her opinion on any given subject, but you know it will be intellectually and personally honest.
But the main thing I love about Paglia, the thing that endears her to me so much, is that she has always believed that there is nothing inherently wrong with being sexualized. I don't mean being sexy, I mean being sexualized. She has traced the history of the sexualization of females throughout history and reached the conclusion that there is no inherent disgrace in it.
Growing up, I always wanted to be sexy, even if it was only my own concept of sexy. But the media has waged a war against being sexy. We are taught that fashion magazines are destroying young women by giving them a false image of beauty, that a proper goal for a woman is have a career. We are taught by society that a woman baring her midriff at the mall looks like a slut, and that there is such a thing as a skirt being too short. There isn't. Some women look perfectly fine in the shortest skirt you can imagine, and some do not. Instead of worrying about what others are wearing, we should be worrying about ourselves.
Reading Camille Paglia taught me that nothing a woman wears changes who she is, that clothes can be an expressive commodity. Despite all protestations to the contrary, women in this day and age dress to impress other women, not men. They do this because other women will think badly of them if they don't. Women are oppressing women.
If you go to my website, you will find pictures of me that are probably best described as cheesecake. Some women, upon seeing them, might think badly of me. They might not like me parading my body around. I don't care what these women think. I like my body. I like my looks. I have no problem sharing them with the world. For some reason there are likely those who think it is appropriate for a woman to share her deepest fantasies with the world through writing, but not okay to show a little cleavage. I find that ridiculous. I embrace the idea of sexual personae as Paglia wrote of it, and I like being able to be all of those personae in one. I can be a tramp. I can be a mother. I can be anything and everything.
That is an incredibly valuable lesson to learn.
September 14, 2012
Selling My Fantasies
When I set out to write erotica, I had two choices. I could write what I wanted and hope that I was a good enough writer that I would eventually attract an audience, or I would write to a specific fetish and hope to make money that way. Looking over the available erotica it is obvious that most writers opt for number two. There are large amounts of writers who focus on only one fetish, and they are selling you your own fantasies filtered through their imagination. If you're really into gangbangs, this can be great for you because it's easy to find hundreds of gangbangs stories. But I opted for the first choice.
So unlike many erotica writers, I'm not selling you your fantasies. I'm selling you mine. This is the way it always used to be. When I bought a collection of erotic shorts, I never knew what I was getting. I put my trust in the authors (and even more so in the editor) that even if they're particular fantasy wasn't my own, they would write it in such a way that I could still join in. Nowadays that's a lot harder to do, because ebooks have made it so simple to target every specific fetish.
This puts me in an odd position because I feel like the margin for error is much smaller for me than for other writers. If you are really into the idea of having sex with Bigfoot, then I'm guessing you'll cut the author a lot of slack regarding characters, plot, and description because you're getting to read about having sex with Bigfoot. I don't have that luxury. I have to write in such a way that my fantasy can become your fantasy for the few minutes we spend together.
That's the bad thing about writing the way I do. The good thing is that I get to write what I want, and that I get a chance to share myself with others. I get a chance to validate my fantasies in the minds of others. I get to know that, if I do a good enough job, I am helping someone get off on the exact things that I get off on. But the best thing is that I get a chance to broaden people's sexual horizons.
I fear in this day and age that it is too simple to have a very specialized sexuality. With the internet it is possible for a person to never range outside their existing proclivities. I think that's a bad thing. I think challenging ourselves and our sexuality is a healthy way to learn about ourselves and our partners. I'm hoping that people who read my stories learn a little bit about themselves while reading them, just as I learn a lot about myself by writing them.
So unlike many erotica writers, I'm not selling you your fantasies. I'm selling you mine. This is the way it always used to be. When I bought a collection of erotic shorts, I never knew what I was getting. I put my trust in the authors (and even more so in the editor) that even if they're particular fantasy wasn't my own, they would write it in such a way that I could still join in. Nowadays that's a lot harder to do, because ebooks have made it so simple to target every specific fetish.
This puts me in an odd position because I feel like the margin for error is much smaller for me than for other writers. If you are really into the idea of having sex with Bigfoot, then I'm guessing you'll cut the author a lot of slack regarding characters, plot, and description because you're getting to read about having sex with Bigfoot. I don't have that luxury. I have to write in such a way that my fantasy can become your fantasy for the few minutes we spend together.
That's the bad thing about writing the way I do. The good thing is that I get to write what I want, and that I get a chance to share myself with others. I get a chance to validate my fantasies in the minds of others. I get to know that, if I do a good enough job, I am helping someone get off on the exact things that I get off on. But the best thing is that I get a chance to broaden people's sexual horizons.
I fear in this day and age that it is too simple to have a very specialized sexuality. With the internet it is possible for a person to never range outside their existing proclivities. I think that's a bad thing. I think challenging ourselves and our sexuality is a healthy way to learn about ourselves and our partners. I'm hoping that people who read my stories learn a little bit about themselves while reading them, just as I learn a lot about myself by writing them.
