Over the last couple of weeks, the topics of writing erotica, and erotic romance in particular, keep coming up. Questions of what constitutes the different genres of writing--erotica, erotic romance, dark romance, and the like—are being asked and with good reason. Somewhere out there in the collective minds, even among some in the erotic genres themselves, the prevalent idea is somehow that writing erotica or erotic romance is not “real writing.” And that ruffles my feathers. I have had several interactions that led me to write this blog. Quite frankly, I’m sick of the stereotypes. Let me be clear: I. Am. A. Writer.
For those of you who know me, I’m a huge fan of Shakespeare. During a fun romp on Facebook, a Shakespearean insult meme made its way around, and we all commented and tossed about some insults and admitted how much the Bard has affected us all one way or another. I sent a friend request to someone who I particularly enjoyed reading his Shakespearean wit and repertoire and he immediately responded with a (and yes, I will overindulge here): “Hey. You may be an okay person, but you write erotica. I write REAL books. Sorry. I can’t be friends with the likes of you.” It wouldn’t be the first time something very similar has happened. “Sorry. I have to unfriend you. My girlfriend might get suspicious.” Or: “My circle of friends just wouldn’t understand that I talk to a writer of erotica.” You may be laughing. But I’m not making this stuff up—that somehow I’m some horny degenerate who only thinks about sex or having sex with others, that I couldn’t possibly have a mind or a flare for writing anything but smutty, pappy trash, that I am going to share nude photos of myself at the turn of a dime. Because, of course, what else would an erotic romance writer possibly be capable of? Let me tell you. We who write erotica or erotic romance care about the same things every writer cares about. Are there holes in my story? Does the dialogue work? Sound realistic? Do my verb tenses match? Did I use the right word choice? Does my story make you care about the characters? Does the imagery do it justice? Are there places that didn’t make sense? But more than that, we ask: Can you see and feel my characters’ emotions? Did you feel their feelings as they were happening to them? Their love? Their lust? Their angst? Their sadness? Their anger? Is there pathos or hamartia in the protagonist’s or antagonist’s journey? Yeah. Sounds like real writing to me. Don’t tell me because I choose to include graphic sexual content in my writing that it is now somehow subpar or without merit. Sex, love, lust, passion—THAT is part of feeling alive. That is part of living. You don’t get much more emotion or feeling than that. It’s really the point of life—to find love, to feel alive, to be brought to unimaginable feelings of both pleasure and pain, love and loss, desire and repulsion, sadness and triumphs. A person may not like my genre. It may not interest them or titillate them for whatever reason, but it doesn’t make me any less of a writer. I don’t particularly like paranormal. So what? The person who writes that is suddenly not a “real” writer just because it doesn’t suit my tastes? So let’s stop with the stereotyping. Please. Is there terrible erotica out there? You bet. Are there some erotic writers who are sexual deviants and only think about sex? Of course. But there are deviants and shitty writing in Every. Single. Genre. Don’t single out mine. And don’t judge it until you read it. Read my books and then have an opinion. If you still hate my writing, so be it. I welcome constructive criticism. I care about growing, improving my craft, choosing that exact, right word, and creating characters who are round and alive, characters we know in real life, characters we relate to and want to follow along on their journey. Wow. Holy shit. I actually sound like a “real” writer. Imagine that?
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I’ve gotten a couple of reviews lately that have me baffled. While the majority of the review is always positive, I keep getting comments like: You call this dark? Please. Or—this is too dark. Or—this is not true BDSM… I’ve posted my work in a Goodreads group for Dark Romance. Or maybe it was Dark Erotica. I’d really have to go back and look. But does it really fit there? It’s not as dark as writers like Pepper Winters or Claire Thompson or Annabel Joseph. It’s dubious consent at best. There certainly isn’t any non-consent or kidnapping. There is no physical harm or rape or anything of the sort that come to my heroines. I find that repulsive personally, so you won’t be getting any of that from me in my writing. Sorry. And yet, it certainly doesn’t fit in your regular, run-of-the-mill Romance category either. I’ve written a former blog about the genre of romance if you’d like to go back and read it. HEA—is it necessary? I argue it is, for romance is a trope that follows prescribed lines. But my writing, especially THORNE? It’s not strictly romance. And then there’s the genre, BDSM. Yes. There are definitely elements of BDSM in my writing. Bondage, flogging, spanking, tickling, orgasm denial, punishment, humiliation, D/s…However, these days, it seems people are looking for manuals and rules that govern BDSM or you get a rash of protest. Since when did writing fiction come with so many rules? I hear it over and over again-- You have to have safe words. Where is the proper aftercare? This is abuse. BDSM is not THIS, O’Brien-- I don’t write BDSM manuals. I write works of fiction based on autobiographical elements, or what I refer to as my subconscious running the show. In other words: Don't try this at home, kids. Sarah Wendell wrote a great article, explaining her definition of what dark romance means to her: What exactly do people mean when they discuss a romance (or any piece of entertainment, really) being "dark?" "Light" is relatively easier to define: funny, friendly, not painfully emotional or wrenching. The opposite could be used to define "dark" romances, I suppose—serious in tone, emotionally powerful, potentially painful…a dark romance is one wherein there's going to be a happy ending eventually, but it'll hurt a bit first, for everyone involved, including me, the reader. I completely agree with her. I don’t write upbeat, happy-go-lucky, light tales. I don’t like to read them. I’m not going to write them. You want erotica for titillation only, I say go for it. I’m not going to knock you for it. Not at all. But I like stories. Contemporary, real-to-life stories. I like character development. I like characters I love to hate. Real. Flawed. Round characters. I like angst. I like emotion. I want to feel that flip in the pit of my stomach when I read. I want to find myself in the stories I read and write. I want to cry occasionally. I want to get aroused. The mind. In particular, a woman’s mind. That’s where it happens for me. So, because society is making me categorize my writing, I am sticking with Dark Romance. Dark because it’s a painful, emotional journey that isn’t always “right”; and romance, because yes, with me, there will eventually be a happy ending. And erotica? You bet. Without the hot sex, life would be just well…what would it be? Nothing. Great sex. It’s what makes us feel alive, isn’t it? Okay. And maybe banana pancakes. But that's another story entirely! I was always the girl growing up who just wasn’t quite like the rest of them. I liked working hard. I liked contorting my body until I could feel the ache inside my bones, until I could feel the pain in my teeth. I liked to wear lipstick and nothing else and found myself fascinated with the shape of my lips and the different colors I could make them. I ate too little. Slept too much. Masturbated far too often and at far too young an age. I enjoyed the feeling of being naked alone behind closed doors, exploring my deepest secrets within my imagination, as I put my hand over the rapid pace of my heart to feel how nervous it made me. I blushed at the faintest mention of my name and almost perished when complimented. I loved to find the answers behind someone’s eyes. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of when someone REALLY looks at you. And I read. Every chance I got. Guess I haven't changed very much. I loved to read, especially from about ten years old. Books I shouldn’t have been reading. Books I didn’t quite understand at the time, books and plays in high school that made sense to me only on a purely emotional level: Wuthering Heights, The Mill on the Floss, Romeo and Juliet, The Awakening, The English Patient. Like my childhood books, of course the infamous Judy Blume and Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, I didn’t realize that I didn’t quite understand them. And yet, I did. I understood them in that one moment of living. I was the girl crying to Mariah Carey as my sophomore boyfriend moved out of state, abandoning me at thirteen who thought she’d never recover. I was that eighteen year old in love with my very own Heathcliff for seven years. I was the leery girl, afraid to jump into that headlong lust that beckoned me only months ago. But when I read and reread such books or plays or stories I loved and couldn’t quite even understand why I loved them at the time, I see myself in them again. I see a different self. I see my niece and my students. I see the older characters in the book. I see the passion and the lust in Romeo and Juliet, the idea of what it means to go against what is expected of me. I don’t see Kate Chopin’s protagonist as a selfish woman anymore as I did in high school. I see and feel exactly why she walked into that ocean to take her life. For to live an unfulfilled life and then perhaps find someone that might actually take away the mundane, preordained, mapped out societal bullshit but not be able to act on it? I get it all so differently now. A student in my class asked me the other day why we still read Shakespeare, that it didn’t make sense to him in high school. What should have been a simple answer, turned into a passionate discussion of what makes a work of literature last. After class, the student looked at me and said, perhaps I should go back and reread it? And I answered, emphatically, “Yes. Perhaps you should.” |
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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