The Unvarnished Truth of Current Reader Expectation

Here, publicly, is my response to Joan Defers ‘On “Dark Erotica” post. I posted it here because I’m so fed up to the teeth with the emergent relationship between readers and writers, I just couldn’t keep silent any longer.

What I find truly depressing is the unvarnished reality: readers now expect to consume books the way they walk into McDonalds and order a Big Mac. It better taste the way they expect it to taste. Better have the same ingredients. Better look the way it did before. After all, they’ve bought their PRODUCT and the customer is always right.

Reading is no longer about having an adventure or being shocked, or surprised, or challenged, or stumbling across something unexpected. If it doesn’t conform to the tropes they have been led to expect from whatever sub-sub-sub genre marketing they’ve had it sold to them as, they feel ripped off.

This expectation makes erotica writers into literary sex workers. It makes them factory staff, churning out formulaic trope after formulaic trope. Change the names, the colour of hair, the professions of the characters, and run the same trick again. God forbid a reader should end up with something unexpected on their kindles.

May you get what you deserve. And may you drown in the predictable banality of it all.

Readers have a right to expect skilled writing. If they buy a sci-fi novel, they have a right to expect it to be about the ‘not yet possible’ and if they buy a fantasy novel, they have a right to expect the ‘impossible’ (I’m taking my definition from the fabulous Kij Johnson). If they buy detective fiction, they have a right to expect that there will be some form of a mystery that requires unravelling. If they buy erotica, they have a right to expect sexual desire as an integral part of the plot or character development. Not necessarily what YOU SEXUALLY DESIRE.

But that’s where it ends. I am not a whore. It’s not my JOB to get you off for money. I write, I’m not a sex worker. Not a porn producer. I don’t perform literary cunnilingus for cash. If I did, I can assure you, you couldn’t afford me. Because it sure as fuck wouldn’t be on sale for $0.99 or $3.50 at Amazon. If you don’t like it weird, rough and edgy, don’t fucking read any of my books. And don’t EVER FUCKING WHINE that I don’t give you happy endings.You’re barking up the wrong genre. For that, you either need to visit a Bangkok massage parlour or a romance novel.

I’m not going to allow the present fashion for treating cultural product as a fast food meal or a pair of factory sneakers ruin my love of reading or writing literature and if that means I only have five fucking readers in the world… I don’t care. I fell in love with reading because it offered me the unknown, the dangerous, the frightening, the wondrous. Not a fucking Big Mac.  I began to write to participate in that dialogue, not in frigging someone for money.