Pat Powers's Blog: Pat Powers Goes BEYOND Outer Subspace!, page 9
June 30, 2019
Story Ideas Are Everywhere
Here's another great story idea from a photo.
NSFW Image
"As she sat on the park bench with her lover, she fantasized about being his slavegirl for real, in public, and the force of her fantasies were so strong that for a moment they bridged the temporal gap between her world and Collar World, and for a few minutes a naked slavegirl knelt beside her bench, and another naked slavegirl shopped for her Master in a shop that faded into nothingness as it approached the street."
Story ideas are easy. Figuring out which ones are worth writing up is hard. And nascent ideas like this, they sometimes are converted into scenes in longer works. This is one of the chief pleasures of writing, of looking at the world as a source of inspiration rather than just a series of occurrences.
And you know what ELSE is everywhere?
NSFW Image
"As she sat on the park bench with her lover, she fantasized about being his slavegirl for real, in public, and the force of her fantasies were so strong that for a moment they bridged the temporal gap between her world and Collar World, and for a few minutes a naked slavegirl knelt beside her bench, and another naked slavegirl shopped for her Master in a shop that faded into nothingness as it approached the street."
Story ideas are easy. Figuring out which ones are worth writing up is hard. And nascent ideas like this, they sometimes are converted into scenes in longer works. This is one of the chief pleasures of writing, of looking at the world as a source of inspiration rather than just a series of occurrences.
And you know what ELSE is everywhere?
June 29, 2019
Getting Inspired, The Fun Way
I never know where the inspiration for an erotic short will come from. But often, it's an evocative photo that pushes it well beyond just an image of a specific person, place or event. It's a photo that somehow implies relationships between the people pictured, or a world beyond the scene pictured.
Many porn images and in particular kinky porn images do that to some extent or another, evoking another, sexier world than most of us live in. Here are a couple of examples. (Note: the images I am linking to are NSFW images that contain naked women. Do not click on them if such images offend you. I would say they are on the arty end of the scale rather than the porny end -- no sex acts are portrayed -- but whether or not you click on them is your choice.):
Inspiration 1 -- Warning NSFW
“She crouched on the bed, legs spread wide, naked, alert to the least signal from the one who held her leash. How odd that her gender studies degree from Bryn Mawr had led her exactly, precisely, to this moment, this situation. She was furious and ashamed that she was in this situation, but she couldn't stop it, couldn't say the safeword that would end it.”
It's mostly the expression on the woman's face that does it here. She has a wry, rueful expression, as if she is thinkng about how she got in that situation. So my mind easily generates a story about how it happened. Might be a good story idea, might not, but definitely worth considering.
Inspiration 2 -- Warning NSFW
This is a photo that has a great story in it. I don't know where it came from or who took it, but it's wonderful work. It shows two women, one standing, one kneeling. The standing woman is wearing a dress that goes down to her ankles. She's standing next to a trellis of some sort, hanging onto it with one hand as if for balance. One leg is slightly extended and she's wearing ballet slippers. Her foot is raised and resting on the tip of her toes, in the position ballet dancers call "en pointe." She's looking off to her left, outside the frame of the image. Her hair is swept up, her expression is calculating and thoughtful, perhaps a bit of lust or avarice in there, too -- some kind of desire, in any event. And definitely some apprehension, too.
Behind her some tree limbs partially obscure some lighted orange globes, along with some geometrical webbing of some sort. In front of one of the globes four butterflies are suspended in the air, wings fully extended, looking kind of artificial.
It's all very proper, the sort of thing that could hang in a ballet school hallway without raising an eyebrow -- except for the other woman, of course. She is stark naked except for a large string of beads around her neck. She kneels to the standing woman's right, and she's looking off to the left as well, probably at the same thing the standing woman is looking at. Her expression is a welcoming smile. And she's holding her hands behind her back as if bound, which in conjunction with the kneeling emphasizes her large breasts even more.
Furthermore, she has nice curvy hips and a nice round butt which is emphasized by the way her butt sticks out as she kneels, undoubtedly more than it needs to.
What are these two looking at? We don't know, but we can guess, and what we'd guess is, a man. A man they both find intriguing and attractive. And their bodies both express their attraction in different ways. The standing woman is calculating, apprehensive, yet that en pointe foot suggests she's ready to pivot to her left at any moment. Or to the right.
The kneeling woman is much more open in her response, the welcoming smile and outthrust butt say it all. She wants a piece of whatever or whoever she's looking at to the left, and she wants that piece inside her body.
Also of considerable interest is the relationship between the two women. Their physical closeness implies personal closeness as well. Mistress and slavegirl might be a good guess. Friends whose lives have diverged greatly, but who remain friends is another one. Also, they might both be one and the same woman, the kneeling woman a visual expression of her libido as she looks at the man, the standing woman an expression of her conscious mind with its calculation.
There are other interesting questions, too. Like, the background suggests a party of some sort. But at what sort of party do you bring a naked slavegirl? (Answer: a FUN party!) Or maybe it's a theatrical production and they're onstage. What sort of production? Well, one that involves nudity, that's for sure. Rules a lot of stuff right out, though as I recall the BBC did some nekkid Shakespeare.
There's also something a little racial going on. The kneeling woman has broad cheeks and a snub nose, she doesn't look all that Caucasian. The standing woman looks very Caucasian. Is this supposed to be the American South slavery, stylized? Or is it Slavery involving the Middle East or Asia? It's hard to say, once again, there's nothing that really spells it out for me.
I found this piece of artwork on the virtual wall of a virtual tavern in Second Life Gor, years ago. I have no idea where it originates. I did some research but it came up blank. There is a name underneath the image, ANGELa Blank, and there is a German photogrpaher named Angela Blank, but I can't link the two.
There may be a prosaic answer to these questions, I don't know. But I do know that answering the questions leads to some interesting story ideas. What do you think? I'm not sure which story I want to write, if any. Could I write a story worthy of this image? I'm not sure.
Might be fun to try, though.
(I found this piece of artwork on the virtual wall of a virtual tavern in Second Life Gor, years ago. I have no idea where it originates. I did some research but it came up blank. There is a name underneath the image, ANGELa Blank, and there is a German photographer named Angela Blank, but I can't link the two. Doesn't matter – the mystery only makes the image more intriguing.)
Many porn images and in particular kinky porn images do that to some extent or another, evoking another, sexier world than most of us live in. Here are a couple of examples. (Note: the images I am linking to are NSFW images that contain naked women. Do not click on them if such images offend you. I would say they are on the arty end of the scale rather than the porny end -- no sex acts are portrayed -- but whether or not you click on them is your choice.):
Inspiration 1 -- Warning NSFW
“She crouched on the bed, legs spread wide, naked, alert to the least signal from the one who held her leash. How odd that her gender studies degree from Bryn Mawr had led her exactly, precisely, to this moment, this situation. She was furious and ashamed that she was in this situation, but she couldn't stop it, couldn't say the safeword that would end it.”
It's mostly the expression on the woman's face that does it here. She has a wry, rueful expression, as if she is thinkng about how she got in that situation. So my mind easily generates a story about how it happened. Might be a good story idea, might not, but definitely worth considering.
Inspiration 2 -- Warning NSFW
This is a photo that has a great story in it. I don't know where it came from or who took it, but it's wonderful work. It shows two women, one standing, one kneeling. The standing woman is wearing a dress that goes down to her ankles. She's standing next to a trellis of some sort, hanging onto it with one hand as if for balance. One leg is slightly extended and she's wearing ballet slippers. Her foot is raised and resting on the tip of her toes, in the position ballet dancers call "en pointe." She's looking off to her left, outside the frame of the image. Her hair is swept up, her expression is calculating and thoughtful, perhaps a bit of lust or avarice in there, too -- some kind of desire, in any event. And definitely some apprehension, too.
Behind her some tree limbs partially obscure some lighted orange globes, along with some geometrical webbing of some sort. In front of one of the globes four butterflies are suspended in the air, wings fully extended, looking kind of artificial.
It's all very proper, the sort of thing that could hang in a ballet school hallway without raising an eyebrow -- except for the other woman, of course. She is stark naked except for a large string of beads around her neck. She kneels to the standing woman's right, and she's looking off to the left as well, probably at the same thing the standing woman is looking at. Her expression is a welcoming smile. And she's holding her hands behind her back as if bound, which in conjunction with the kneeling emphasizes her large breasts even more.
Furthermore, she has nice curvy hips and a nice round butt which is emphasized by the way her butt sticks out as she kneels, undoubtedly more than it needs to.
What are these two looking at? We don't know, but we can guess, and what we'd guess is, a man. A man they both find intriguing and attractive. And their bodies both express their attraction in different ways. The standing woman is calculating, apprehensive, yet that en pointe foot suggests she's ready to pivot to her left at any moment. Or to the right.
The kneeling woman is much more open in her response, the welcoming smile and outthrust butt say it all. She wants a piece of whatever or whoever she's looking at to the left, and she wants that piece inside her body.
Also of considerable interest is the relationship between the two women. Their physical closeness implies personal closeness as well. Mistress and slavegirl might be a good guess. Friends whose lives have diverged greatly, but who remain friends is another one. Also, they might both be one and the same woman, the kneeling woman a visual expression of her libido as she looks at the man, the standing woman an expression of her conscious mind with its calculation.
There are other interesting questions, too. Like, the background suggests a party of some sort. But at what sort of party do you bring a naked slavegirl? (Answer: a FUN party!) Or maybe it's a theatrical production and they're onstage. What sort of production? Well, one that involves nudity, that's for sure. Rules a lot of stuff right out, though as I recall the BBC did some nekkid Shakespeare.
There's also something a little racial going on. The kneeling woman has broad cheeks and a snub nose, she doesn't look all that Caucasian. The standing woman looks very Caucasian. Is this supposed to be the American South slavery, stylized? Or is it Slavery involving the Middle East or Asia? It's hard to say, once again, there's nothing that really spells it out for me.
I found this piece of artwork on the virtual wall of a virtual tavern in Second Life Gor, years ago. I have no idea where it originates. I did some research but it came up blank. There is a name underneath the image, ANGELa Blank, and there is a German photogrpaher named Angela Blank, but I can't link the two.
There may be a prosaic answer to these questions, I don't know. But I do know that answering the questions leads to some interesting story ideas. What do you think? I'm not sure which story I want to write, if any. Could I write a story worthy of this image? I'm not sure.
Might be fun to try, though.
(I found this piece of artwork on the virtual wall of a virtual tavern in Second Life Gor, years ago. I have no idea where it originates. I did some research but it came up blank. There is a name underneath the image, ANGELa Blank, and there is a German photographer named Angela Blank, but I can't link the two. Doesn't matter – the mystery only makes the image more intriguing.)
June 26, 2019
The Visitor From Incel World: Questions for Beta Readers
I've had The Visitor from Incel World posted to Wattpad for about a week and I've had almost 50 reads. Yay!
And 0 feedback from beta readers. Boo!
In thinking about why this might be so, it occurred to me that it would be intelligent of me to have some specific questions for beta readers to answer. So I made up a list of eight questions. Well, each question has sub-questions, but I don't expect every beta reader to answer every question, they're mostly just to jog readers' memories and to let them know what information I'll find useful, and change the story for.
Here are those questions, and here's the link to "The Visitor from Incel World" in case you want to give it a read.
1. General impression -- was the book a fast read? Was it a slog? Did you like it? Was it a fun read or did it bore you? That kind of thing.
2. Pacing. Did some sections just zip along, while others were a slog? If so, which sections were a slog?
3. Plot: do you feel the story resolved itself nicely? Were any major plot points left hanging other than those that were obviously intentionally left hanging? (Writing the sequel right now!) Were there any cases of idiot plot, where the plot will only work if someone does something really stupid?
4. Characters -- were the characters appealing and interesting? Were they realistic? Did they do some things that were obviously stupid and/or out of character?
5. Setting -- Was Collar World interesting? Did you wind up wanting to know more about it? Did everything seem consistent?
6. Craftsmanship -- Were there enough spelling or grammar errors to annoy you or make some passages difficult to read? Were there any particularities of style, such as using “slavegirl” instead of “slave girl” that were an issue for you?
7. Humor -- were the parts that were supposed to be funny actually funny? Did the humor make you laugh or at least smile? Was it out of place in some scenes? Did it detract from the dramatic tension of the story?
8. Sex -- Collar World is a very different place, sexually, where everyone is kinky and has no problem with public nudity or public sex. I tried to keep it from being too “in your face” but I also wanted to give Ariana something to react to. I also wanted it to give an otherworldly feel to Collar World. Did you generally find this successful? Or unsuccessful? Were there any aspects of the sexiness that you liked/disliked?
Thanks for reading “The Visitor from Incel World.” I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for any input you can provide. We all want better books out there, you might be the one whose comment makes a difference in this case.
And 0 feedback from beta readers. Boo!
In thinking about why this might be so, it occurred to me that it would be intelligent of me to have some specific questions for beta readers to answer. So I made up a list of eight questions. Well, each question has sub-questions, but I don't expect every beta reader to answer every question, they're mostly just to jog readers' memories and to let them know what information I'll find useful, and change the story for.
Here are those questions, and here's the link to "The Visitor from Incel World" in case you want to give it a read.
1. General impression -- was the book a fast read? Was it a slog? Did you like it? Was it a fun read or did it bore you? That kind of thing.
2. Pacing. Did some sections just zip along, while others were a slog? If so, which sections were a slog?
3. Plot: do you feel the story resolved itself nicely? Were any major plot points left hanging other than those that were obviously intentionally left hanging? (Writing the sequel right now!) Were there any cases of idiot plot, where the plot will only work if someone does something really stupid?
4. Characters -- were the characters appealing and interesting? Were they realistic? Did they do some things that were obviously stupid and/or out of character?
5. Setting -- Was Collar World interesting? Did you wind up wanting to know more about it? Did everything seem consistent?
6. Craftsmanship -- Were there enough spelling or grammar errors to annoy you or make some passages difficult to read? Were there any particularities of style, such as using “slavegirl” instead of “slave girl” that were an issue for you?
7. Humor -- were the parts that were supposed to be funny actually funny? Did the humor make you laugh or at least smile? Was it out of place in some scenes? Did it detract from the dramatic tension of the story?
8. Sex -- Collar World is a very different place, sexually, where everyone is kinky and has no problem with public nudity or public sex. I tried to keep it from being too “in your face” but I also wanted to give Ariana something to react to. I also wanted it to give an otherworldly feel to Collar World. Did you generally find this successful? Or unsuccessful? Were there any aspects of the sexiness that you liked/disliked?
Thanks for reading “The Visitor from Incel World.” I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for any input you can provide. We all want better books out there, you might be the one whose comment makes a difference in this case.
June 24, 2019
How Do You Deal With An Idiot Thief In A Basic Income World?
One of the problems of looking at a future post-scarcity society with free housing, food, clothing, transportation and medical care for everyone is: what do you do with the incorrigibles who can't manage to lead a decent life even under those conditions?
I answered that question and got in some sex slavery content in Katie: Pet Shop Girls #1.. (And yes, it's a freebie.) All you have to do to live a very pleasant life in Katie's Basic Income world is don't commit violent acts against others and don't steal things. If you can manage that, you're golden.
Katie is a nice girl, but she's got no morals and she's dumb as a rock. She gets every toy and bit of clothing she could want from her personal 3D printer, all she has to do is pay the gnerally very minimal price for the design and then print out whatever she likes.
There are luxury, non-printed, items though. They are handmade one of a kind stuff. Generally poor but pretty girls like Katie get such things as gifts from Basic Income boys that date them, in the hopes that they'll get laid, which … they often do. But Katie sees a nice dress her friend gets from a boy, and envies it, and steal it, because she's just that dumb. And as we all know from the legend of Florida Man, there is just no limit on human dumbness.
Well what do you do to punish a Basic Income person who is used to having just a room to live in? Logically, you take away their 3D printer so no toys for a while. But I decided to go one better and have the punishment be having your mind reworked by an AI so you can't steal/commit violence any more. It's a scary thing, because although you come out of it unharmed, you just aren't who you were before you had the surgery. You CAN'T steal or commit violence.
But pretty girls like Katie have another option, they can volunteer to be Pet Shop girls, basically sex slaves for wealthier people (like the very small percentage of people who have actual jobs instead of just gigs).
Since Katie volunteers for it, it's not EXACTLY slavery, but since her only other option is not being Katie any more thanks to psycho-surgery, it's got a definite sex slavery vibe going, especially thanks to all the sexual bondage scenes I wrote for it.
It's another freebie, designed to get you interested in Nataly, the Violent Virgin, which I think is one of my better works. And both are far too hot for Amazon.
June 23, 2019
Dammit, I've Written Sci-Cli Fiction
So there's this new thing going around, climate-change science fiction, called Sci-Cli by some, god help them.
The idea is that climate change is going to fuck us up so thoroughly that science fiction writers HAVE to write about it. Judging by the way climate scientists are running around screaming about it like their hair is on fire, it's gonna be HUGE. I mean, the coral reefs are already dying out RIGHT NOW. Not someday, not in the future, right fucking NOW.
Unfortunately, in my experience science fiction that's written to further a cause is pretty awful stuff. It's not that SF can't have opinions about the future, or that it can't advocate for this or that, but the story has got to rule.
Utopia, for example, started out as the name of a science fiction novel written by Thomas More in 1516. It was about wonderful people who lived on a great fictional island and it's described as being similar to life in some religious monasteries, so you know it was one rockin' read! Well, for 1516, maybe. I think by modern standards, reading it is probably a lot like having dental work without anesthesia. Certainly, that's what reading most advocacy SF is like.
So advocacy SF, utopian or dystopian or somewhere in between, sucks. This is known. But thing is, climate change is happening now. I mean, back in the 1950s and 60s if you were writing about computers based on this nifty thing called a transistor that would someday give you the power to do differential equations with a device the size of a home refrigerator that weighed only half a ton, well you're writing SF, son. You're ahead of the curve.
But if you're writing about personal computers on a fucking Commodore-64 in the mid-80s, you're not doing SF, you're just fucking around. You are behind the curve, buddy.
And that's the thing, the coral reefs ARE dying off, right now. Scientists are coming up with panicky attempts to save them and even the morons that run governments are giving them money to give it a try, because coral reefs are worth fucking money. If you're not including climate change in your stories of the future, you're fucking up. You are behind the curve.
Even if you want to have things be about the same a century from now, you have to at least do some hand-waving to explain why your grandkids aren't living in underground silos trying to stretch a small bar of wobbly tofu into a meal and cursing the memory of their grandparents who couldn't be bothered to deal with climate change when it would have been doable. You have to say “The atmo-stabilizer plants cured the atmosphere and made everything good in 2065, to everyone's great relief” or something along those lines.
Thing is, I'm already writing sci-cli (god I hate that term, I hope it never catches on). In my sequel to “Visitor from Incel World” the people from Collar World have figured out how to open crosstime gateways to Incel World, and they're just fucking horrified at what they find, and I'm not just talking about all the vanilla sex. They figure our world has maybe a century before things really go to shit, with plenty of unpleasantness along the way that could accelerate things. They think we're violent (because of all the wars, you know) and we're run by corrupt thugs (because current events).
So I'm doing my part, so there! No grandkids swearing over their tofu at me!
The idea is that climate change is going to fuck us up so thoroughly that science fiction writers HAVE to write about it. Judging by the way climate scientists are running around screaming about it like their hair is on fire, it's gonna be HUGE. I mean, the coral reefs are already dying out RIGHT NOW. Not someday, not in the future, right fucking NOW.
Unfortunately, in my experience science fiction that's written to further a cause is pretty awful stuff. It's not that SF can't have opinions about the future, or that it can't advocate for this or that, but the story has got to rule.
Utopia, for example, started out as the name of a science fiction novel written by Thomas More in 1516. It was about wonderful people who lived on a great fictional island and it's described as being similar to life in some religious monasteries, so you know it was one rockin' read! Well, for 1516, maybe. I think by modern standards, reading it is probably a lot like having dental work without anesthesia. Certainly, that's what reading most advocacy SF is like.
So advocacy SF, utopian or dystopian or somewhere in between, sucks. This is known. But thing is, climate change is happening now. I mean, back in the 1950s and 60s if you were writing about computers based on this nifty thing called a transistor that would someday give you the power to do differential equations with a device the size of a home refrigerator that weighed only half a ton, well you're writing SF, son. You're ahead of the curve.
But if you're writing about personal computers on a fucking Commodore-64 in the mid-80s, you're not doing SF, you're just fucking around. You are behind the curve, buddy.
And that's the thing, the coral reefs ARE dying off, right now. Scientists are coming up with panicky attempts to save them and even the morons that run governments are giving them money to give it a try, because coral reefs are worth fucking money. If you're not including climate change in your stories of the future, you're fucking up. You are behind the curve.
Even if you want to have things be about the same a century from now, you have to at least do some hand-waving to explain why your grandkids aren't living in underground silos trying to stretch a small bar of wobbly tofu into a meal and cursing the memory of their grandparents who couldn't be bothered to deal with climate change when it would have been doable. You have to say “The atmo-stabilizer plants cured the atmosphere and made everything good in 2065, to everyone's great relief” or something along those lines.
Thing is, I'm already writing sci-cli (god I hate that term, I hope it never catches on). In my sequel to “Visitor from Incel World” the people from Collar World have figured out how to open crosstime gateways to Incel World, and they're just fucking horrified at what they find, and I'm not just talking about all the vanilla sex. They figure our world has maybe a century before things really go to shit, with plenty of unpleasantness along the way that could accelerate things. They think we're violent (because of all the wars, you know) and we're run by corrupt thugs (because current events).
So I'm doing my part, so there! No grandkids swearing over their tofu at me!
June 21, 2019
My Fantasy Fuel Novel, “Slavegirls of Outer Space," Available for Free
So a decade or so ago, I came across the movie Slavegirls From Beyond Infinity. I did and still do consider the first 15 minutes of the movie the finest sexy scifi B movie ever made. Unfortunately, after that first 15 minutes it very quickly devolved into a tepid remake of “The Most Dangerous Game” whose only strong point was two pretty good B-movie actresses running around in skimpy leather bikinis, which, sadly, still leaves it as a top-level sexy scifi B movie even if the story is really old shit. I mean, almost a century old (first published in 1924) and has been remade time and time again in many formats, each more boring than the next.
I was so pissed off over the loss of what started out to be a GREAT movie that I did want any writer of erotic SF would do: I wrote a book based on those first 15 minutes, extending the rest of the story logically from the beginning, which involved an escape from a cargo hold on an interstellar slave ship.
Thus was Slave Girls of Outer Space written, to be the story that “Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity” SHOULD have been. The short blurb sums it up nicely:
Join Dita and Maria, two hot, sexy escaped slave girls, as they romp through a galaxy filled with competing interstellar empires, artificial intelligences, aliens, space pirates, hair's-breadth escapes, space battles featuring starships firing ravening bolts of utter destruction, and hot sexy men. It's just plain fun, like watching a 1980s sexy SF B-movie, minus the stupid, plus the kink!
The first version of this story I wrote was a full-on erotic science ficiton story, with graphic sex scenes and everything. But while I was wirting it, somebody reported a ton of my books to Amazon as being too rapey for Amazon, which was really cracking down on the kink stuff, and about half a dozen of my books got banned and I got sent a letter saying I was a hairs-breadth away from being banned from Amazon.
So I rewrote the book, going back in and removing all the graphic sex scenes, leaving in the fantasy fuel because damn, anything entitled “Slave Girls of Outer Space” HAS to have fantasy fuel. But when I tried to post the story of Amazon it stalled and would not publish. It didn't get banned, it just got stuck in the works, and since I was a hairs-breadth away from being banned, I decided to take the hint and posted it to Smashwords instead.
The book is a freebie, so feel free to check it out. If you like it, there's a full length novel version with erotica available for just $4.99. Either way, enjoy!
I was so pissed off over the loss of what started out to be a GREAT movie that I did want any writer of erotic SF would do: I wrote a book based on those first 15 minutes, extending the rest of the story logically from the beginning, which involved an escape from a cargo hold on an interstellar slave ship.
Thus was Slave Girls of Outer Space written, to be the story that “Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity” SHOULD have been. The short blurb sums it up nicely:
Join Dita and Maria, two hot, sexy escaped slave girls, as they romp through a galaxy filled with competing interstellar empires, artificial intelligences, aliens, space pirates, hair's-breadth escapes, space battles featuring starships firing ravening bolts of utter destruction, and hot sexy men. It's just plain fun, like watching a 1980s sexy SF B-movie, minus the stupid, plus the kink!
The first version of this story I wrote was a full-on erotic science ficiton story, with graphic sex scenes and everything. But while I was wirting it, somebody reported a ton of my books to Amazon as being too rapey for Amazon, which was really cracking down on the kink stuff, and about half a dozen of my books got banned and I got sent a letter saying I was a hairs-breadth away from being banned from Amazon.
So I rewrote the book, going back in and removing all the graphic sex scenes, leaving in the fantasy fuel because damn, anything entitled “Slave Girls of Outer Space” HAS to have fantasy fuel. But when I tried to post the story of Amazon it stalled and would not publish. It didn't get banned, it just got stuck in the works, and since I was a hairs-breadth away from being banned, I decided to take the hint and posted it to Smashwords instead.
The book is a freebie, so feel free to check it out. If you like it, there's a full length novel version with erotica available for just $4.99. Either way, enjoy!
June 20, 2019
Sex Slavery Fantasy Fuel: In Praise of John Norman
The difference between erotica and sexy non-erotica, I've discovered, is this: erotica provides graphic descriptions of sex acts designed to get the reader off. Mainstream sexy fiction provides fantasy fuel only. No graphic descriptions of sex acts to get you off, but plenty of erotic events, briefly described and plenty of erotic situations that let the reader create their own graphic sexual fantasies, something we as yet don't have the technology to prevent, thank God.
And the person who did this better than ANYONE for the kink community is John Norman, whose Gor novels are, IMHO, works of genius, smoothly combining sex slavery fantasy fuel with science fantasy sword and sandal stories. He was the only one to see how smoothly and easily this could be done, and kind of still is, since nobody has really followed in his footsteps.
He clearly loved heroic fantasy and made solid heroic fantasy stories in his novels, but he also included sex slavery fantasy fuel like nobody else did, and that includes Filthy Philip Jose Farmer and Randy Andy Offutt!
(Norman does have a way of having his characters pause regularly to drone on and on and on about women's rightful place in natures as men's slaves, which has earned him a lot of enmity among feminists. My advice is, skip those parts when they start up, the books are much shorter and more fun to read without them. With them, they are almost unreadable. Makes all the difference in the world.)
When Norman's books debuted with Ballantine Books back in 1964, they were so heavily edited that no one really knew what he was up to. They got accepted as just the usual heroic fantasy Conan knock-offs, ho-hum. Norman got sick of this and moved to DAW books after publishing half a dozen or so books with Ballantine. Freed from the constraints of Ballantine Books, the books grew longer and more sex slavery fantasy fuel filled, and also a lot more popular. They're still going strong on Amazon with the most current book in the series being number 35, Quarry of Gor.
This was WAY before the explosion of erotic ebooks created kinky epics, it was before COMPUTERS, much less ebooks. It was practically prehistoric. Point is, Donald A. Wollheim, the head of DAW books, said that John Norman was outselling all is his other fantasy authors COMBINED sometime back in the 70s or 80s.
And there was a lot of evidence that Norman's readers were primarily female. It was really hard to get good numbers here, because of course, most books were being bought in bookstores, and the clerks had no incentive to keep track (though some DID report attempting to shame buyers of Gor novels).
Still, given what we know about the ebook market, it would make sense. Also, an insider at Linden Labs, the people who created the Second Life virtual world, where Gorean roleplay is and was a big thing, reported that about two thirds of Gorean roleplayers had female names on their credit cards.
So, there's that. And the reason I stress that so many Gor novel readers are female is to make the point that people who are trying to suppress books like the Gor novels and erotica in general are suppressing, not big nasty male proto-rapists, but women who like the submissive sex roleplay. (Some dom males like myself like them, too, but we're surprisingly sophisticated in our tastes, so there – neener-neener!)
Of the Gor novels, my favorite is Dancer of Gor. It is atypical, written from the POV of an Earth librarian captured by Goreans and trained to be a paga slut dancer. (Most Gor novels are written in omniscient POV, or first person, with a male protagonist.) It has a slave girl auction scene that is four chapters long and IMHO sets the standards for kinky slavegirl auction scenes, period. It also has a scene in which the protagonists' virginity is auctioned off by the paga tavern that owns her, to 17 lucky winners, who all get to fuck her that night while she's chained in an alcove and hooded so she can't see who fucks her first.
Fantasy fuel? You bet!
And the person who did this better than ANYONE for the kink community is John Norman, whose Gor novels are, IMHO, works of genius, smoothly combining sex slavery fantasy fuel with science fantasy sword and sandal stories. He was the only one to see how smoothly and easily this could be done, and kind of still is, since nobody has really followed in his footsteps.
He clearly loved heroic fantasy and made solid heroic fantasy stories in his novels, but he also included sex slavery fantasy fuel like nobody else did, and that includes Filthy Philip Jose Farmer and Randy Andy Offutt!
(Norman does have a way of having his characters pause regularly to drone on and on and on about women's rightful place in natures as men's slaves, which has earned him a lot of enmity among feminists. My advice is, skip those parts when they start up, the books are much shorter and more fun to read without them. With them, they are almost unreadable. Makes all the difference in the world.)
When Norman's books debuted with Ballantine Books back in 1964, they were so heavily edited that no one really knew what he was up to. They got accepted as just the usual heroic fantasy Conan knock-offs, ho-hum. Norman got sick of this and moved to DAW books after publishing half a dozen or so books with Ballantine. Freed from the constraints of Ballantine Books, the books grew longer and more sex slavery fantasy fuel filled, and also a lot more popular. They're still going strong on Amazon with the most current book in the series being number 35, Quarry of Gor.
This was WAY before the explosion of erotic ebooks created kinky epics, it was before COMPUTERS, much less ebooks. It was practically prehistoric. Point is, Donald A. Wollheim, the head of DAW books, said that John Norman was outselling all is his other fantasy authors COMBINED sometime back in the 70s or 80s.
And there was a lot of evidence that Norman's readers were primarily female. It was really hard to get good numbers here, because of course, most books were being bought in bookstores, and the clerks had no incentive to keep track (though some DID report attempting to shame buyers of Gor novels).
Still, given what we know about the ebook market, it would make sense. Also, an insider at Linden Labs, the people who created the Second Life virtual world, where Gorean roleplay is and was a big thing, reported that about two thirds of Gorean roleplayers had female names on their credit cards.
So, there's that. And the reason I stress that so many Gor novel readers are female is to make the point that people who are trying to suppress books like the Gor novels and erotica in general are suppressing, not big nasty male proto-rapists, but women who like the submissive sex roleplay. (Some dom males like myself like them, too, but we're surprisingly sophisticated in our tastes, so there – neener-neener!)
Of the Gor novels, my favorite is Dancer of Gor. It is atypical, written from the POV of an Earth librarian captured by Goreans and trained to be a paga slut dancer. (Most Gor novels are written in omniscient POV, or first person, with a male protagonist.) It has a slave girl auction scene that is four chapters long and IMHO sets the standards for kinky slavegirl auction scenes, period. It also has a scene in which the protagonists' virginity is auctioned off by the paga tavern that owns her, to 17 lucky winners, who all get to fuck her that night while she's chained in an alcove and hooded so she can't see who fucks her first.
Fantasy fuel? You bet!
June 19, 2019
Fantasy Fuel
RAAAAAAAAAAPE! (Trigger Warning, you betcha!)
You've often heard me complain about the censorship on Amazon. They won't let you do rape fantasies.
But Amazon isn't the only distributor out there. Smashwords gives CONSIDERABLY more freedom to their writers. They still can't allow books that out and out proselytize about how great real life rape is – no one can, the credit card companies won't process payments for publishers who promote rape as a lifestyle.
Smashwords does allow rape fantasies, however. People have fantasies about rape all the time. As I endlessly delight in pointing out, a lot of the old-time romance novels (B.E. – Before Erotica) were chock full of rape fantasy fuel, with pirates abducting innocent women, Arabs abducting innocent women, gangsters abducting innocent women, and in the case of gay romances, women abducting innocent women. And raping them. It was always implied, sometimes alluded to, and sometimes even described, though generally in the least descriptive terms possible.
But we're not supposed to notice that women have rape fantasies, or even allude to it!
When I first started writing, I was writing sexual bondage fantasies, about women getting tied up and having sex. The logical narrative for that was that somebody grabs a girl and ties her up, probably a pirate or something.
And my first big hit as a writer was “Riverbeast” a novel about a river pirate who kidnaps the daughter of a merchant who does the river pirate wrong. And yes, the full Riverbeast saga is on Smashwords and you can buy it right now. Hell, you can read the first part of the story for free which has a very nice bit of fantasy fuel when the pirates capture and rape the protagonist and four of her comely young female friends.
Even better, there's the President Slavegirl saga. One of the themes you see in a lot of the old romances was The Fall From Grace, wherein a highfalutin', high born lady is brought low by Fate, or Circumstances, generally in the form of some grubby low class guy who kidnaps her and teaches her The Meaning Of Life the hard, tied-up way.
President Slavegirl is the ultimate Fall from Grace, with a former President of the United States who has stretched the powers of the Presidency so far it would make Donald Trump boggle stripped of her civil rights by the courts and then kidnapped and enslaved by her enemies. She gets tied up and has sex a lot, and she's a freaking prude and a half (that's how she made so many enemies, she put everybody who likes sex in jail, or tried to.) Another novel of mine on sale on Smashwords. And yes, there is a free sample of the first book in the series, “The Homouth” and yes, the former President of the United States of America gets tied up and used thoroughly in it.
That ought to be enough for today, I have a lot to say on this topic, but a blog gives me the latitude to take my time. In my next post, I'll tell you about a popular fantasy author whose books are incredible slave rape fantasy fuel.
You've often heard me complain about the censorship on Amazon. They won't let you do rape fantasies.
But Amazon isn't the only distributor out there. Smashwords gives CONSIDERABLY more freedom to their writers. They still can't allow books that out and out proselytize about how great real life rape is – no one can, the credit card companies won't process payments for publishers who promote rape as a lifestyle.
Smashwords does allow rape fantasies, however. People have fantasies about rape all the time. As I endlessly delight in pointing out, a lot of the old-time romance novels (B.E. – Before Erotica) were chock full of rape fantasy fuel, with pirates abducting innocent women, Arabs abducting innocent women, gangsters abducting innocent women, and in the case of gay romances, women abducting innocent women. And raping them. It was always implied, sometimes alluded to, and sometimes even described, though generally in the least descriptive terms possible.
But we're not supposed to notice that women have rape fantasies, or even allude to it!
When I first started writing, I was writing sexual bondage fantasies, about women getting tied up and having sex. The logical narrative for that was that somebody grabs a girl and ties her up, probably a pirate or something.
And my first big hit as a writer was “Riverbeast” a novel about a river pirate who kidnaps the daughter of a merchant who does the river pirate wrong. And yes, the full Riverbeast saga is on Smashwords and you can buy it right now. Hell, you can read the first part of the story for free which has a very nice bit of fantasy fuel when the pirates capture and rape the protagonist and four of her comely young female friends.
Even better, there's the President Slavegirl saga. One of the themes you see in a lot of the old romances was The Fall From Grace, wherein a highfalutin', high born lady is brought low by Fate, or Circumstances, generally in the form of some grubby low class guy who kidnaps her and teaches her The Meaning Of Life the hard, tied-up way.
President Slavegirl is the ultimate Fall from Grace, with a former President of the United States who has stretched the powers of the Presidency so far it would make Donald Trump boggle stripped of her civil rights by the courts and then kidnapped and enslaved by her enemies. She gets tied up and has sex a lot, and she's a freaking prude and a half (that's how she made so many enemies, she put everybody who likes sex in jail, or tried to.) Another novel of mine on sale on Smashwords. And yes, there is a free sample of the first book in the series, “The Homouth” and yes, the former President of the United States of America gets tied up and used thoroughly in it.
That ought to be enough for today, I have a lot to say on this topic, but a blog gives me the latitude to take my time. In my next post, I'll tell you about a popular fantasy author whose books are incredible slave rape fantasy fuel.
June 18, 2019
Beta Readers Wanted for "The Visitor From Incel World"
Or, “Stop me before I fuck up again!” *The Visitor from Incel World* is completed and is now ready for beta readers. A beta reader is somebody who reads an author's book before it is published and lets them know about any problems they find.
Generally it's something more specific than “This book sucks!” more like, “The section was kinda dull” or “Why the fuck did the hero do THAT?” Or, “I completely lost my suspension of disbelief when X happened” or “that bit that was supposed to be funny was not really funny.”
I'm sure you've read a book or watched a movie or TV show and had these kinds of thoughts – well, here's your chance to make them count, to actually help the author to solve the problem before it goes to print.
If you are interested in beta reading, it's very easy: I have the current version of “Visitor from Incel World” published here on Wattpad. Just go there, read the story, and tell me what you think, either commenting here on this subreddit or via direct message, however works for you.
And don't worry about hurting my feelers with any comments or criticisms. I worked as an editor for over a decade. I'm not thin-skinned. Thick and leathery would probably be a better description.
Generally it's something more specific than “This book sucks!” more like, “The section was kinda dull” or “Why the fuck did the hero do THAT?” Or, “I completely lost my suspension of disbelief when X happened” or “that bit that was supposed to be funny was not really funny.”
I'm sure you've read a book or watched a movie or TV show and had these kinds of thoughts – well, here's your chance to make them count, to actually help the author to solve the problem before it goes to print.
If you are interested in beta reading, it's very easy: I have the current version of “Visitor from Incel World” published here on Wattpad. Just go there, read the story, and tell me what you think, either commenting here on this subreddit or via direct message, however works for you.
And don't worry about hurting my feelers with any comments or criticisms. I worked as an editor for over a decade. I'm not thin-skinned. Thick and leathery would probably be a better description.
June 17, 2019
Achieving Differentness That Has An Internal Logic Of Its Own
It seems like only yesterday t hat I asked readers of this blog or whatever the hell it is to think about what a society where women didn't get raped or sexually harassed any more often than they get eaten by alligators or sharks. And that's because it WAS only yesterday.
My feeling is that under such circumstances women would be a lot more open, relaxed and easygoing around men. That's because rape and sexual harassment wouldn't be a commonplace issue. Most women, even if they haven't been raped or sexually harassed, have close friends and/or relatives who have. They know it's out there, it can happen to them, very easily. That's why women are cautious around men in our culture, especially around men they don't know well. Women are always vetting men, because they HAVE to, for their own safety. Most men aren't inclined to rape or sexually harass women out of the blue, but enough men ARE inclined to do so, to cast a pall of suspicion on all the rest of men.
What if this were not the case, though? What if men simply were not interested in raping and sexually harassing women, in a society where birth control was safe, effective and readily available?
You know the answer, it's obvious. Women would be a lot more open and relaxed around men, more sexually open, too, and more sexually active. How open? It's hard to say, because nothing like this exists in any earth culture or subculture that I know of. Some subcultures are more sexually open than others – imagine the gulf of sexual expectations and experience between the child of a Hollywood movie star and the child of a poor Christian fundamentalist – but the widespread nature of sexual harassment and rape is like a wind that blows everywhere, no matter what the local weather.
I think though, that if women didn't have to worry about being assaulted, it would manifest itself at a very fundamental level, at the body language level. It would be kind of the way women act around their gay male friends, but with one important difference – there would always be the chance that she might wind up having sex with a straight male friend. The difference is, if she did, it would be consensual sex that she wanted, so a fun, positive experience.
Under these circumstances, straight women would think of straight men as being … like candy. A fun, good thing. The powerful effect of sexual desire would still be there to attract women to men as well. There would probably be a lot more of what we now call “promiscuity” but which would simply be normal sexual attraction acting in an atmosphere of safety and openness.
People from such a culture, if they were transplanted to Earth, would be noticeable. Their body language alone would give them away, without engaging in any promiscuous behavior at all.
Now let's think about the men from such a world. What would they be like? Suppose you knew, as a practical matter, that if you want to get laid you can do so easily, anytime, without spending a lot of money or going to a lot of effort. You could go out to a bar or nightclub and meet a woman who wanted to have sex as much as you did, one among many such women. How would that change things? How would you feel if a woman from our current world were to come along and just assume you were sex-starved and would rape her if you had the chance?
You'd feel insulted. Why would you rape this woman when you could fuck a woman who liked you and you liked, very easily? You're not some damn scummy rapist, you're a fun, sexy guy, all the girls you hang out with think so. You like women. Why would a woman assume such a thing about you? Yeah, it's insulting, makes you feel like less of man than you are. Your response to such a woman would probably be massive disinterest. Why would you want to put up with that shit?
Men from such a world would be noticeably different from Earth men, too. Much less … anxious, as it were.
So that's how I write the characters from Collar World. When Ariana Hufflepuff comes to Collar World and accuses people of wanting to rape her, there is much rolling of eyes. No one wants to have sex with her, much less rape her, because she's clearly got mental problems, from their point of view.
Thought experiments like this are what makes alternate world stories interesting to me. I try to create a real culture that has believable people in it that are just different from us, because their background is different from ours. That allows me to write stories that have punch, and that surprise readers with their differentness, but a differentness that somehow makes sense, that has an internal logic of its own. That's the goal, anyway.
My feeling is that under such circumstances women would be a lot more open, relaxed and easygoing around men. That's because rape and sexual harassment wouldn't be a commonplace issue. Most women, even if they haven't been raped or sexually harassed, have close friends and/or relatives who have. They know it's out there, it can happen to them, very easily. That's why women are cautious around men in our culture, especially around men they don't know well. Women are always vetting men, because they HAVE to, for their own safety. Most men aren't inclined to rape or sexually harass women out of the blue, but enough men ARE inclined to do so, to cast a pall of suspicion on all the rest of men.
What if this were not the case, though? What if men simply were not interested in raping and sexually harassing women, in a society where birth control was safe, effective and readily available?
You know the answer, it's obvious. Women would be a lot more open and relaxed around men, more sexually open, too, and more sexually active. How open? It's hard to say, because nothing like this exists in any earth culture or subculture that I know of. Some subcultures are more sexually open than others – imagine the gulf of sexual expectations and experience between the child of a Hollywood movie star and the child of a poor Christian fundamentalist – but the widespread nature of sexual harassment and rape is like a wind that blows everywhere, no matter what the local weather.
I think though, that if women didn't have to worry about being assaulted, it would manifest itself at a very fundamental level, at the body language level. It would be kind of the way women act around their gay male friends, but with one important difference – there would always be the chance that she might wind up having sex with a straight male friend. The difference is, if she did, it would be consensual sex that she wanted, so a fun, positive experience.
Under these circumstances, straight women would think of straight men as being … like candy. A fun, good thing. The powerful effect of sexual desire would still be there to attract women to men as well. There would probably be a lot more of what we now call “promiscuity” but which would simply be normal sexual attraction acting in an atmosphere of safety and openness.
People from such a culture, if they were transplanted to Earth, would be noticeable. Their body language alone would give them away, without engaging in any promiscuous behavior at all.
Now let's think about the men from such a world. What would they be like? Suppose you knew, as a practical matter, that if you want to get laid you can do so easily, anytime, without spending a lot of money or going to a lot of effort. You could go out to a bar or nightclub and meet a woman who wanted to have sex as much as you did, one among many such women. How would that change things? How would you feel if a woman from our current world were to come along and just assume you were sex-starved and would rape her if you had the chance?
You'd feel insulted. Why would you rape this woman when you could fuck a woman who liked you and you liked, very easily? You're not some damn scummy rapist, you're a fun, sexy guy, all the girls you hang out with think so. You like women. Why would a woman assume such a thing about you? Yeah, it's insulting, makes you feel like less of man than you are. Your response to such a woman would probably be massive disinterest. Why would you want to put up with that shit?
Men from such a world would be noticeably different from Earth men, too. Much less … anxious, as it were.
So that's how I write the characters from Collar World. When Ariana Hufflepuff comes to Collar World and accuses people of wanting to rape her, there is much rolling of eyes. No one wants to have sex with her, much less rape her, because she's clearly got mental problems, from their point of view.
Thought experiments like this are what makes alternate world stories interesting to me. I try to create a real culture that has believable people in it that are just different from us, because their background is different from ours. That allows me to write stories that have punch, and that surprise readers with their differentness, but a differentness that somehow makes sense, that has an internal logic of its own. That's the goal, anyway.
Pat Powers Goes BEYOND Outer Subspace!
A blog for me to talk about my books, the writing life, and whatever else lodges deep within the steamy recesses of my alleged brain.
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