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This is number forty-five in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
WHEN I STARTED writing this blog in March of 2023, I was reading Rachel Kramer Bussel’s book How to Write Erotica. At the time, I accepted her definition of erotica: Writing that is intended to arouse. Now, I think it’s time to refine the definition.
First, there is such a wide range of material that is intended to arouse that the definition loses impact. Pornography is intended to arouse. Soft romantic poetry is intended to arouse. Fiery political speeches are intended to arouse. There are different kinds of arousal and we can start by refining the definition to ‘writing that is intended to sexually arouse the reader.’
Still not good enough, because readers become aroused by different things. For one person it might be a description of a woman’s breasts rising and falling with each breath as she talks about the love of her life. Another person might only be aroused by explicit descriptions of what is felt as the penis slowly enters the receptive folds of a woman’s vagina. Others might not be aroused by any written words, but instead require pictures. The intent to arouse is important, but not exclusive.
In this post, I’m interested in the difference between pornography and erotica. Many sources attempt to define that difference with varying degrees of success. The Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly tolerated) is largely subjective and reflects changing community standards.”
In the Britannica’s terms, the sexual element in erotica is part of the larger aesthetic element. It is recognized as art, where in pornography, sexual arousal is its main purpose, even if it has some literary merit.
In last week’s blog, I hit on one of the differences between men’s and women’s outlook on the subject and I realized I’d really identified my own aesthetic. In erotica, we deal with the people involved. In pornography, we deal with the body parts involved.
I understand that might realign the definition of some of my own writing from erotic to pornographic. I’m sure I’ll come up with ways to justify it, but for now, I’d like to explore the distinction and see if it holds together.
Sex is a normal part of relational development. When the story is about that relationship, the sex—even when it is explicit—tends to be more erotic. It embraces the emotional, mental, and physical experience of the people involved. The sexual activity is a part of the relationship, but is not the exclusive focal point.
A story that is ‘about sex,’ however ignores the relationship perspective. It embraces the physical experience without paying more than peripheral attention to the emotional or mental experience. In porn, we are focused on the body parts involved in reaching an orgasm. We tend to treat them as separate from the whole person.
I believe this is a significant feature of pornographic video. There is usually very little story development. The pizza delivery guy shows up and the customer confesses she has no money, but suggests she could pay with her body. It takes about six lines of dialog before the two are naked and fucking. The camera focuses on her breasts, her mouth as she fellates him, her vagina as he penetrates her. Then it’s all about changing positions so the camera can get a better view. In each position, the participants will make sure the hair is out of the way, the hands don’t block the camera, and an ‘open’ position is maintained. Finally, the come will be sprayed where it is visible. The intent is not the pleasure of the actors, but the pleasure of the viewer.
When it comes down to it, erotica gives a much more realistic view of life, because it deals with the whole relationship. I’m not saying that the pizza delivery guy never tags the customer, but if the frequency were anything like what is portrayed in porn, there would be lines of males waiting to become pizza delivery guys. The number of stepbrothers and stepsisters who get involved with each other is nowhere near what is portrayed in porn. How many women in real life kiss another woman and suddenly realize they’re lesbians?
The focus on the genitals in porn makes the situations much less common than they are portrayed. Whereas every developing relationship has erotic elements that strike home with the reader. He’s so sweet to help her like that and take care of her. Of course she’ll become attracted to him! Maybe he’d like cookies.
Pornography includes stories intended to arouse by focusing on sex acts and genitalia. Erotica includes stories intended to arouse by focusing on relationships that may include sex as a part of the development.
Now, if I could apply that to what I’m writing, I’d be much better off!
An editor’s note to me after reviewing this post: “You know, this topic could easily fill a couple large books, right?”
My response was: “Yes. They're called The United States Statutes at Large.”
I’m not through dealing with pornography vs. erotica, but I don’t plan to attempt to redefine the legal code or thousands of pages of judicial rulings. We’ll get a little deeper each time.
I was asked this week about writing from the perspective of the opposite gender. Yes, I have written books with a female protagonist rather than a male, and it is very difficult. Next week, I’ll deal with “Capturing the Character.” I’ll especially deal with capturing the character of a person of the opposite sex.
This is number forty-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
OBSERVATION: Women are different than men.
You might believe this is obvious, but as Wesley said, “The obvious seldom is.” (The Book of Wesley, CC185) In the enlightenment of the twenty-first century, for example, we have learned there is a difference between sex and gender. While sex refers to the physiological or biological characteristics, gender refers to behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits often associated with a specific sex.
Of course, we have also learned that the physiology might not be as simple as we once thought. Where it was once deemed that an x chromosome or a y chromosome determined one’s sex, biologists have discovered there are many other genes that determine sex, and specific combinations of those genes can and do create sexual variants that many cultures in the world have been aware of for millennia, but did not have the scientific descriptions for.
Now that I have you all on your high horse about how many sexes there are and who determined them, let me get to the point. I’m referring to gender roles and traits when I discuss Mars and Venus. Women respond differently than men in terms of social situations, cultural assimilation, and emotional responses. And figuring it out can be a lifelong work of futility.
Whatever is a writer of erotica to do?
I often joke that I write ‘old men’s erotica.’ That means that we need to sit and talk about the weather for half an hour before we get to any action, and that sexual activity must be described in detail because men in general, and old men especially, have a poor imagination. I have been asked in comments and email to include much more detail in my descriptions of women in my stories, down to bra size, shoe size, weight, and height. I don’t believe most women understand bra size, let alone men.
I’m more inclined to refer to relative characteristics rather than absolutes. A breast larger than my palm. A waist so tiny I could fit my hands around it. A few inches shorter (or taller) than I am. I believe those terms can be adapted by any man if he takes even a moment to consider them.
In the fall of 2018, I began writing "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins" series, beginning with Double Take. It was my fun take on a do-over in which the hero comes back as his younger self, but in a different timeline and an alternative universe. He has to try to use his accumulated life experience to understand his new reality. He discovers his past life is a real hinderance to enjoying his present life.
SPOILER ALERT. In chapter 44 of 47, I revealed that one of the characters was a trans-female. She was not only on hormones, but was mid-op in having her sex changed. If she was a nobody character, that might have gone unnoticed, but she was a best friend/girlfriend of Jacob. All manner of hell was rained down upon me for this. For me, it was a sign that Jacob could adapt to a different world in some of the most extreme circumstances—something many of my readers proved they could not do. I lost nearly a third of my readership that day.
I felt it was an important element to the story and to the relationships that were built into the story.
It ultimately prompted my disclaimer that I now put at the beginning of all my stories:
This book contains content of an adult nature. This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view.
Let me say that women read over the reveal without flinching. It was only men who were so shocked and horrified by this that they could not process it as a fictional story. Double Take is available on Bookapy. The series is available both as individual books and as a discounted collection.
There are many other differences between the way men and women look at erotica. I mentioned recently that I had read a mainstream romance and was surprised to find that it included an explicit sex scene. But as well-done as the scene was, the female author had never used any common sex slang. She did not say pussy, cunt, tit, boob, cock, prick, dick, fuck, or screw. You would be hard-put to find men’s erotica that did not use these words.
My wholly unscientific opinion on this is that women do not catalog body parts separate from the body. Where a man might say, “I slid my dick into her pussy,” a woman would be more apt to simply say, “He slid into me.” In her mind, the dick was the man and the pussy was her. They weren’t separate things that acted on their own.
I find that watching porn or talking to porn actresses—which I often do—their language is more detached the way a man’s is. And that is understandable. Porn is primarily created for men. Remember my comment that men need to have things spelled out in detail? That’s what porn does. It takes the focus off the people who are engaged in sex and puts the emphasis on the parts of the body that are connecting.
Men tend to focus on their orgasm until it arrives. Then they are done, or need to wait until they can get to an orgasm again. In other words, men think about coming. Women, on the other hand, need to get out of their heads in order to have an orgasm. Often, thinking about an orgasm actually prevents them from coming. Often, a woman feels she has to have an orgasm in order to be good for her partner. Hence the age-old myth of the faked orgasm. Or maybe it isn’t entirely a myth!
It's one thing to know or understand these things, but something else entirely to write stories that acknowledge them. How can an author be fair about the differences between men and women that go beyond the classic ‘Tab A into Slot B?’
I think I’ve opened the door to several possible posts. After all, the essence of heterosexual erotica is getting a man and a woman together. I think next week I’ll explore “The Difference Between Erotica and Porn.”
This is number forty-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“I DON’T MAKE RESOLUTIONS because I don’t want to suffer through the disappointment of breaking them in a couple of days.”
Sound familiar? In fact, I’ve heard that statement in one form or another from countless friends and acquaintances. Resolutions turn the New Year into a year-long Lenten Season in which the purpose seems to be to deny ourselves something.
Stop eating sugary things.
Quit smoking.
Lose twenty pounds.
Exercise three times a week.
Those are a few of the things that are common resolutions. They all require a punishment of some sort for having screwed up in the past. That’s the way I’ve always looked at them.
Then I recently ran across an article that suggested we only make fun resolutions. These are not punishment, but rather a reward for living in 2024.
Eat more ice cream.
Order a different dish at your favorite restaurant each time you eat there.
Learn how to swear in multiple languages.
Always ask for a senior discount before paying.
Somehow, all of these sound like fun things that I could accomplish in the coming year. Of course, as fun as those are, they aren’t the focus of what I’d like to accomplish this year.
When I started the Photo Finish Series, I was incredibly excited. In many ways, it was the closest thing I had to an autobiography and it felt good to get some of these feelings and stories on the page. Nate Hart was the pseudonym I used in high school for my writing—mostly poetry. He shows up again in Living Next Door to Heaven as the mysterious author of poems Brian reads in competition—poems that I wrote in high school. And many of Nate’s experiences and most of his philosophy came right out of my life.
I knew the series wouldn’t be as popular as anything that was more neutral, especially as I chose to lay bare the struggles of attempting to be a conscientious objector in 1966-1973. It’s not, in general, a very popular stance—and for that matter it never was.
There is also a lot of wish fulfillment in the story: Nate has multiple girlfriends, and an active sex life. Something I went without. And he has a talent that attracts girls to him—something that being a writer never did for me. I may have been so excited about fulfilling my fantasies that I went a little overboard and lost a good many readers as the series goes on. Now as I’m about to begin posting the final book in the series, Follow Focus, in February, I realize that this is what the story has been leading to and may be the best book of the series, but many readers won’t pick it up because of what has gone before.
Resolved: To become a better writer.
I’m a good writer, even though I sometimes lose my way in a story. Usually, I manage to get it back. But I haven’t really focused on getting any better at my craft lately. I currently have three books in process and they all three have great potential. I’ve completed the first draft of Nathan Everett’s (Wayzgoose) A Place Among Peers, the sequel to the story of Liam Cyning and Meredith Sauvage. I’ve also completed the first draft of Nathan Everett’s The Staircase of Dragon Jerico. And I am well into writing the next volume of Devon Layne’s The Props Master series, Promethean, Child of Earth.
I would like to turn these three books into the best I’ve ever written, and that’s going to require some work. So, where do I start?
The Staircase of Dragon Jerico is a romance drama. It’s not erotica, though. So, I decided to read some romances to see what I could find out. I’ve only gotten through one so far, and it was not really what I expected. This is from a bestselling author, so she must be doing something right. It’s well written and literate.
The characters are clearly developed with additional information exposed all the way through the book. It is written in a third person limited POV, meaning that each section is from the perspective of a single character featured in that section, but in the next section, it may well switch to a different character’s POV. That’s a stretch for me, but I like the result.
One of the things that surprised me was that the sex scenes that came in the last quarter of the book were as explicit as those that I’ve written in my erotica! At the same time, she did not use any of the common words found in just about any story on SOL. She never said ‘pussy,’ ‘cock,’ ‘cum,’ or ‘fuck.’ Yet the scenes were explicit.
I avoided sexual tension in Staircase and as a result, the draft is rather dry and the love between the two principal characters seems to come out of nowhere.
I’ve been criticized on occasion, including by my alpha readers, for having minor characters who were two-dimensional and didn’t really feel like real people. I noticed that in this book, too, so I guess both the author and I have some work to do in that regard.
I have a couple more romances that I picked up at a half-price outlet for used books. I expect I’ll have some extra reading time this week as I’ll be in the hospital for a procedure on Thursday-Friday. But I am already considering what I should change or enhance in my stories to lift my writing to the next level.
I expect I’ll also take a look at a couple of the major texts on writing by successful writers. I’ve never taken the advice of those writers seriously because it’s always seemed like an afterthought to their success, not as a plan for their writing. I have Steven King’s book, On Writing, and have yet to crack the cover. I plan to re-read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat. I’m sure I’ll find some more.
In a movie short, “A Day in the Life of Pablo Casals,” filmed in 1957 when Casals was 81 years old, director Robert Snyder asked the world-famous cellist why he continued to practice four and five hours a day. Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”
Well, I’m only 74. I write every day. I think I can still make progress.
We shall see what kind of progress I can make, but don’t expect 2024 to start with a phenomenal breakthrough. I’m looking at the difference between a man’s and a woman’s POV in next week’s post: “Mars vs. Venus.”
Happy New Year!
This is number forty-two in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“THE DIFFERENCE between life and fiction is that fiction must be believable,” I was told in my first writing class back in 1969. Real life can throw anything at you and it doesn’t make a difference if you believe it or not. It simply is.
I recently mentioned to an editor that I had an acquaintance who was in the top tier in national competition in working a Rubik’s Cube with his toes. She couldn’t believe it, but her comment was, “OMG with his toes!!!!! lol You couldn't make that up lol.” Unbelievable, but that’s life.
But it is not true that fiction has to ‘be believable.’ Fiction needs to be plausible within its universe.
I recall a scene from the movie Thank You for Smoking in which the tobacco lobbyist was working with a movie producer to put a character smoking in a sci-fi movie on a space station. The objection was that in the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the space station, smoking could cause an explosion. I don’t recall the exact line, but the producer said something to the effect of, “All we need to do is drop in a line like, ‘Thank God we got the gas mixture for our atmosphere adjusted so we can smoke without blowing up.’” Consistent within the movie’s universe.
I have many unbelievable situations in my erotica (as does just about everyone who writes it). Take, for example, polyamory. Conceptually, multiple consensual relationships in which everyone is happy with everyone else are reasonable and known in the real world. But they are not as common as I depict them in my books.
In my “Model Student” series—now available both individually and as a discounted series on Bookapy (finally)—I first began exploring the ‘guy with multiple girlfriends’ concept that has been featured in so much of my writing. I personally find the idea of a guy living with two women who love him and love each other just as much to be patently unbelievable. If it weren’t for the many ‘happily’ married people I know, I would suggest that a man and a woman living together happily ever after is unbelievable. But that’s life. I think.
But the situation is, to many, desirable. We’d like to believe it was possible. And so, we willingly suspend our disbelief to include a world in which multiple polyamorous relationships are both possible and common.
I mentioned to my daughter this week that I was writing a blog post on the willing suspension of disbelief and her comment was, “What an appropriate topic for Christmas Eve.” Perhaps she was talking about Santa Claus.
The essence of ‘faith,’ however, is belief in the unbelievable. We willingly suspend our disbelief, without asking for proof or facts.
But what makes the unbelievable believable in our fictional world?
First, it needs to be something we find attractive or desirable. In other words, we have to be able to visualize the concept. Perhaps it is something we can dream of. Do fish dream of riding a bicycle? It’s not within their realm of fantasy. Fish don’t swim upstream to spawn thinking “This would be so much easier if I had legs and a bicycle.” But readers of fiction can conceive of that. We could conceive of flying to the moon, and dream of it, and achieve it.
Secondly, it needs to be consistent with the world of the story we’re being told. In erotica, polyamory is completely consistent with a sexually liberated and exploratory environment. I believe that one of the reasons we do not see many stories of fifty-to-eighty-year-olds engaged in sexual adventures is because sexual liberation and exploration is not consistent with the world we know they inhabit. Sexual liberation and exploration are topics of discovery found mostly among teens and young adults. They’ll try anything.
Third, it needs to be in character. If the character who will engage in a sexual act is sexually repressed, she can’t simply kiss another girl and immediately progress to a loving lesbian relationship. It’s not consistent with her character. She will suffer anxiety over it. She will set up barriers. And ultimately, if she is to progress in that way, there must be a catalyst or a trigger for her actions. What pushes her over the edge and into this relationship?
In the “Model Student” series, Lissa and Melody both have some same-sex experience before they start fooling around with each other. But even with that, it is the catalyst of Tony loving both of them that liberates them enough to fall onto each other and ultimately to marry. Kate is the youngest of the five principals in this story. She is driven by her own sexual awakening. She knows the object of her desire is only achievable through a relationship with all of them and she spends several months testing the water a little at a time before she becomes active with Melody, Lissa, or Wendy.
Finally, within this universe, the relationship or event needs to have some probability. In other words, given that Tony and Kate go to the same school, have the same lovers, work together on various projects, kiss and make out whenever possible, and have similar values, how likely is it that they will get married? By the same token, with Kate’s background and experience is it also likely that they will have children? While marriage has an acceptable degree of probability, parenthood does not.
When we pick up a book—of any genre—we commit to suspending our disbelief in the world represented there. We do not, however, blindly accept whatever happens in that story. Within those constraints, the fiction needs to be believable.
So, I guess the old adage is still true. The difference between life and fiction is that fiction needs to be believable—within the boundaries we set for it.
Next Sunday is New Year’s Eve. I think I’ll talk a little bit about goals and what I’d like to achieve in my writing of erotica: “Resolved.”
This is number forty-one in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
THIS ABOVE ALL, to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3
I’m not sure how long before I was actually cast in Hamlet I became aware of this quote. I suspect, however, that I assumed it was biblical. Any good quote must have come from the Bible. Right?
But it’s one of the gems of literature that I also think is often misinterpreted. When I hear it quoted these days, it is usually to the tune of “I do whatever I want and I speak my mind no matter what.” That essentially denies the preceding twenty-one lines of fatherly advice Polonius gives his son Laertes before sending him off to France. The beginning of this soliloquy is “And these few precepts in thy memory look thou character.” Polonius generally exhorts his son to high character, reserved behavior, and limited speech. He expects that his advice to be true to himself is reflected in a noble character.
Which brings me to writing erotica. I write, as I said last week, to be read. Unlike the writers I hear who state they don’t write for others, only for themselves, so they don’t need to please anyone else, I do write for others. But at the same time, I must be true to myself.
When I first started writing erotica, I was surprised at the response of readers to what I was writing. I originally wrote The Art and Science of Love as a kind of therapy because I needed a happy ending. The success of the serial surprised me and lifted my spirits considerably. I decided to write a book that I’d thought of years earlier, but never really got off the ground. But it would be a long story and I wanted to keep my name fresh in the minds of readers on SOL so they didn’t forget about me.
That next story—a short story titled “Welded Together”—was a dismal failure. There were some real reasons it flopped and they were lessons I needed to learn. You see, ASL and “Welded Together” were not my first projects. I already had three books in the market with more underway. I’d published over a dozen books by other authors. I considered myself a professional in the industry.
But I started writing on SOL because I wanted a happy ending, and I forgot that was what most of my readers also wanted. My literary fiction and mysteries (see Wayzgoose on SOL or Nathan Everett on Bookapy) did not have particularly happy endings. People who read those genres are not necessarily looking for happy endings. I betrayed my own intent, however, by giving “Welded Together” a bitter ending, and I received scathing comments as a result. I rewrote the ending in time to stem the flood, but the story was not very good at that point.
The story stuck with me because I thought the concept had a lot of potential that I’d failed to live up to. So, when I wrote the stories in Pygmalion Revisited a few years later, I rewrote that story as “Iron Alchemy” and included it in my stories of Pygmalion. “Rewrote” is too light a term. I completely threw out the story and started from scratch with the same basic theme, and it is one of the most beautiful stories in the collection. The fact was that in the original, I had not been true to either myself or my readers—corrected in the new version. Pygmalion Revisited is available on SOL by author aroslav.
So, my first principle in writing erotica is that we get a happy ending. If I don’t have a happy ending to my erotic stories, then I’m not being true to myself or my readers.
However, that doesn’t automatically make every story happy all the way through. In fact, my second principle is that you can’t have a “happily ever after” if you have “happily ever before.” Pain and loss are things that make people compassionate, loving, empathetic, and aware. Loss is an obstacle that must be overcome in order to have that happy ending.
I have often been accused of letting my liberal political views creep into my stories. In fact, I recently received a truly lovely (unintentionally) compliment in the comments to Double Take. “Woke garbage,” said Papawtoo. Thank you. I try to always be aware of and concerned about social injustice. That is the definition of woke, and I’m happy that makes it into my stories. For me, that means equally fair treatment to characters of all races, religions, genders, sexual preferences, and political viewpoints. It is who I am and I must be true to it.
I place a disclaimer at the head of my stories now that I never used to consider important.
This book contains content of an adult nature.
This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view.
If a person is unable to deal with religious, political, or world views that differ from their own, I don’t consider them adult enough to read my stories. You don’t have to agree with it. Just deal with your own response to it. I don’t write material to offend people. I write material that will be thought-provoking and entertaining.
“This above all, to thine own self be true.”
What and who I am will always be revealed through my stories. I cannot help it and wouldn’t if I could. There is nothing about my religion or politics that requires me to convince you that I am right. Nor is there anything in my religion or politics that requires me to listen to you trying to convince me.
Enjoy the story for what it is.
I remember hearing once that the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must be believable. Next week, I’ll deal with what is believable and what is not believable in erotica: Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
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