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This is number sixty-six in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I SPEND WAY TOO MUCH TIME working sudoku puzzles. It’s a filler when I’m eating a meal (or waiting for one) in a restaurant. When I need to take a break from writing, I work sudoku puzzles. Most importantly, when I go to bed, I turn off all my devices and work a sudoku puzzle. I have learned important life lessons from sudoku.
I mean really! And they affect my erotica.
Let me see if I can pull those two threads together for you.
I have worked my way through the Mensa book of sudoku, Level 2 of Truly Nasty Sudoku, and Brown Belt Sudoku, second degree. I know what a Gordonian Rectangle, an X-wing, and a swordfish are. They are solution techniques for sudoku puzzles. And the puzzles are getting harder as I progress. They require more logic maps to solve them.
As a brief side-track (as if this whole section isn’t a side-track), I have a friend who is a brilliant mind. He is an electrical engineer and if I named some of the systems he invented while working for two of the largest tech giants in the world, you would just say, “Wow!” He also works sudoku puzzles. But his approach is very different than mine. He thinks sudoku is a game! He works the puzzles in ink. His daughter once asked, “What if you make a mistake?” His answer was, “Then I lose the game.”
NO! Please. To me, sudoku is not a game. It is a puzzle to be solved. If I make a mistake and ‘lose a game’—often the case when I’m working a puzzle late at night and falling asleep in the process—I erase the puzzle and start over!
Yes, erase. I work sudoku on paper with a pencil. I make marks, small numbers, and erasures.
But success often depends on what order I solve the steps. I can’t approach sudoku randomly. There are methods of identifying the ‘only one choice’ answers. There are methods of examining rows, columns, and boxes, of looking at the possibilities for individual numbers, and ways to separate triples from doubles.
Choosing the right place to start, however, often determines whether I succeed in solving the problem.
That’s just like writing!
Before I started writing Nathan Everett’s The Gutenberg Rubric in January 2008, I had compiled several hundred pages of esoteric research over a period of thirty years. I knew everything that went into the story. Most impressive amongst the collection was every scrap of information I could dig up on the Library of Alexandria and its destruction or disappearance.
I was excited about that research and started my book with Ptolemy the First making the City of Alexandria the capital of Egypt after Alexander the Great’s death and division of his empire.
You know: Start a story at the beginning. Of the first 40,000 words I wrote, 25,000 were descriptions of how the Library of Alexandria was founded, flourished, spread, was destroyed, was moved in secret to Carthage, then Rome, then Constantinople, and finally to Nemrud Dagi in Anatole.
They were the first words I cut when I began rewriting in November of 2008. The manufactured history of the Library of Alexandria was not the thriller of racing time, biblioterrorists, and homeland security across two continents in an effort to find and preserve a second book supposedly printed by Johannes von Gutenberg.
Instead, I started the book with the first act of biblioterrorism that caught Keith Drucker in the rain of shattered glass from the atrium of the library where he’d been evaluating old manuscripts. It was a much better starting point. The book flowed well from that point on. The history of the Library—as well as the history of ink, the legends surrounding Gutenberg’s legal and business dealings, the exact proportions of lead, tin, and antimony needed to create a dimensionally stable alloy for printer’s type—was revealed in dribbles as Keith and his girlfriend Maddie go from library to library, just one step ahead of the terrorists.
I found the right starting point.
The Gutenberg Rubric eBook is available from Bookapy. The trade paperback is available from other vendors.
Starting at the beginning is a logical step in writing. But when I wrote Devon Layne’s Living Next Door to Heaven series, I had to restrain myself from writing any sexual material involving any of the major characters until the second book because they were all under fourteen. After having the first chapter rejected four times, even after I scrubbed it, SOL’s webmaster approved it for release and explained the automated system had rejected it based on the description, which talked about kids.
I felt the entire story would be lacking if I didn’t start with the kids, though. Still, it didn’t start with birth. I chose a significant moment that would establish Brian’s relationship with Heaven immediately, even though it was not sexual or romantic.
I saw a cartoon recently from Grant Snider that described what he called “The Story Coaster.”
Like much erotica, the illustration shows way too much deep backstory, lengthy prologue, and exposition before finally getting to the climax at only about a quarter of the way through the ride. From there on, the author is trying to figure out a) how to make it longer, or b) how to end it all gracefully.
I have been told—frequently—that I need to get some action right up front while not giving away the whole storyline. I fail at it as often as I succeed. But usually, I manage to find the beginning of the story I want to tell instead of reciting tons of backstory that I need to know in order to write the story, but the reader doesn’t need to be told in order to enjoy the story.
Of course, there is a plethora of authors who take the action-first advice and open with a sex scene. I find it is better in my books to build a lot of sexual tension between the characters, but to make them wait to get to the main event. Typically, my readers have to get through half the book before they are rewarded with sex. Once again, it’s something I strive for but am not always successful at achieving.
If I fail at solving a sudoku puzzle, I erase it and start over, choosing a different starting point based on what I learned the first time. The same is true of my erotica. All of my stories get rewritten, but the second draft is all about finding the right starting point for the story. Based on what I learned in writing the whole book, is the first sentence that I loved so much really the right first sentence to start the book?
Much of the craft of writing erotica is just general writing craft. Next week I’m going to deal with another important aspect: Getting to “The End.”
This is number sixty-five in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I’M NOT BEING POLITICAL. Honestly. Of course, I can’t say I’m not interested in politics because if you don’t take an interest, you are basically saying “Whatever everybody else wants is fine with me.” A lot of times I seem to have characters who float along with the tide of whatever comes along. They don’t make decisions and let the women in their lives rule. I see and hear ‘alpha males’ cringing at that thought.
But despite sometimes dealing with what could be political issues, I try to be fair in representing them and not generally campaign for my own viewpoint. Take, for example, the generation gaps.
To many people my age, there are only two generations: Boomers and Millennials. So, everything that is wrong with the world today is because Millennials destroyed it, cancelled it, promoted it, or lived it. This viewpoint tends to ignore the fact that we Boomers raised the next generation to be what we wanted them to be.
On a visit with Jim, a fan down in Arizona, we had a rather intense discussion regarding whether the current generation of young people were generally disrespectful, lazy, and ignorant. We had different perspectives. And I find I’ve had that same conversation with others with varying degrees of passion.
I think it’s important first to take a look at the seven generations since 1901. They’ve actually been described and defined in sociology by birth date.
1901-1924: The Greatest Generation. Defined by participation in WWII.
1925-1945: The Silent Generation. Defined by living through the Great Depression at a vulnerable age.
1946-1964: Baby Boomers. Heavily influenced by Vietnam War, integration, and civil rights.
1965-1980: Generation X. A generation of prosperity, home ownership, and a bridge to technology.
1981-1996: Millennials. Grew up in the internet age and are known as the first global generation (as in not specific to the US).
1997-2012: Generation Z. Grew up with heavy demand for college education. Also known as Digital Natives.
2012-present: Generation Alpha. Heavily influenced by COVID-19, a true 21st century generation to whom personal technology and AI are givens.
Okay, now that we have these out of the way, how do we handle these age groups in writing erotica?
In 2018, I published Devon Layne’s Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain. It’s the story of a group of Digital Natives, born about 2000-2001. In studying the characteristics of these kids, I made some startling discoveries. They were mostly the children of what they called ‘Xennials,’ a mix of early Millennials and late Gen Xers.
Difference 1, as recorded by Jett Black: Most of his generation didn’t have sex until last year of high school or in college. His grandfather, a Boomer, had been in the generation that coined the term ‘free love.’ Along with women’s liberation, they also were sexually liberated, though most held very traditional opinions of marriage. The Xenials had practically invented the terms ‘hook-up’ and ‘friends with benefits.’ Jett’s generation saw it all online but had little experience with actual physical sex.
Difference 2: Jett’s parents bought their music on CDs they played in the car or on their stereo. Jett bought only the specific songs he wanted and played them through his iPhone earbuds. His grandfather had a stack of vinyl records and a turntable with big room-filling speakers.
Difference 3: While Jett’s parents were mostly raised in an environment of “Go play outside,” Jett and his friends spent incredible amounts of time on their devices. And no wonder. When Jett arrived home at birth, his room was equipped with a digital monitor that was always tuned to by his parents. He learned his ABCs from YouTube videos. His parents learned them from Sesame Street. By the time he was ten, he had his own iPhone. He and his friends were ‘connected’ from childhood to adulthood and shared everything with each other—as long as they weren’t in the same room IRL (in real life).
Of course, there were dozens of other differences, but those were called out in the first few pages of the book. In writing about this group of Digital Natives, I had to get into the mindset of the kids of that age. I had to deal honestly and fairly with that generation.
Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain is available on Bookapy.
I have to be honest with you: Being fair with people can be exhausting. I make a lot of shit up when I’m writing, but I spend hours and hours researching ideas and concepts. That informs some of my opinions in ways I didn’t expect.
For example, I was the first person in my family to go to college and get a degree. (My oldest sister was in college just long enough to get her MRS—about six months.) I got scholarships, grants, and a ministerial discount for being a preacher’s kid. Despite all that, I took out a thousand-dollar student loan for my freshman year, and another thousand the following year.
When I realized that I could come out of college $4,000 in debt, I panicked. That would be equivalent to $30,000 today—a bargain for a college education. I stopped taking out loans and got student work study that would carry part of the load. I moved into a one-room apartment over a Styrofoam factory ($45 a month) where I worked 20 hours a week and bought my own groceries instead of eating in the school cafeteria. And it still took me over ten years (in addition to the four-year deferment while I was still a student in undergrad and graduate school) to pay back that damn loan. I paid more for that $2,000 loan than I paid for my first house.
With everything that was happening in my life, I count it a miracle that I woke up to the fact that I’d be so deep in debt if I continued to follow the advice of both the school financial office and my banker. And even my parents, who had nothing financial to contribute to my continuing education.
By the time Gen X and Millennials came along, a vast shift had occurred in society. We had fully entered an age of technology and the minimum entry-level job requirement for anything that touched that industry was a bachelor’s degree or higher. By the time Millennials came of age, home ownership had become an unreachable goal for most. The cost of their required college degree had risen to $13-26,000 per year! Millennials’ parents were unable and unwilling to help foot the bill, so the college tuition loans could easily top $75-100,000 by commencement.
So, we come to the issue that faces the country today. An issue that I refuse to take a stand on in this blog, but feel the reality needs to be dealt with fairly.
I discovered I had several misconceptions regarding the issue of student loan forgiveness. I hear things like $62.8 billion in loan forgiveness and I immediately think, we’re going to give away $62.8 billion to these college students who couldn’t manage their debt like I did! But we’re not. Though there are various programs for debt repayment that depend on income, by and large the loan forgiveness is made only to those who have already completed ten years or more in payments. During that time, most will have repaid the amount of their original loans plus reasonable interest. Many will still, however, owe almost as much as they started with, or in some cases more.
So, the write-off of student debt is of future interest payments.
And, by the way, that interest is not paid to the US government. It is paid to the banks who funded the original loans—without security. Hmm. How many times have we bailed out the banks for just that?
I’m obviously not an accountant and I know there are lots of different bookkeeping methods and there are even more levels of need. I’m also aware that we would not have the number of doctors we currently have without the loans they took out over the years it takes to get that education. We would not have anywhere near the number of computer programmers—keeping the internet, cell phones, software and operating systems, and air flight computers functioning—accountants, teachers, architects, politicians, lawyers, and preachers that we currently have.
I’m not saying we should or shouldn’t forgive student debt. I am saying we need to fairly consider what it costs and what it gains. That’s being fair regarding generations, just as seeing how much sex they have is.
I got a little long-winded with that one, but I don’t want to revisit it, so I had to get a lot out in a single post. I deal with these subjects because they are issues the characters in my books have to deal with. The main character in my current WIP was born in 2005. He’s near the end of the years for those digital natives and is faced with how to earn a living while preparing for the Olympics. Next week, I’ll talk about “Knowing Where to Start.”
Enjoy!
This is number sixty-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
A CALL FROM A FRIEND got me thinking about the use of ‘they/them’ pronouns for a per-son. He’s a pretty open and I might even say liberal screenwriter, so his confusion on the subject puzzled me. In a 40-minute phone call, we seemed to have reached an understanding.
But I hear the question more than I like to admit in this ‘age of enlightenment.’
I heard a comedian recently who said, “I’m a comedian and my pronouns are he-he-he.” Yeah, it was very funny. Maybe you had to be there.
I think the confusion is less significant than alarmists want to think. We authors have been using ‘they’ as a singular pronoun for a person of unknown gender for more than a hundred years. The use of singular ‘they’ emerged in the 14th century! It wasn’t even criticized by rigid grammarians until the mid-19th century. In the 21st century, most writing style guides accept it as a singular personal pronoun.
“But it’s so confusing that a guy wants to be called ‘they’ when he’s obviously a ‘he.’” Really? When did they tell you they were a guy? It’s not that confusing if you’re minding your own business.
However, it is equally inappropriate to use ‘they’ when you know the gender and your audience knows the gender. It is used strictly for a person of unknown or non-conforming gender.
I think that some of the confusion originates in the acronym LGBTQIA+: Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender or Transsexual, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual or Androgynous, and (+) any other non-conforming identity, gender, or sexuality. In this acronym, we conflate sex (transsexual, intersex, and asexual), gender (transgender, queer, androgynous), and sexual preference (lesbian, gay, bi)—all three of which are remarkably different. But we lump them all together largely for the convenience of white cisgender heterosexual males.
Don’t get upset about the term ‘cis.’ It’s not an insult. In Latin, it is the opposite prefix of trans and is not an acronym. So, a cisgender male identifies as a man. A transgender male identifies as a woman. Cis=on the same side as birth assigned sex. Trans=on the opposite side of birth assigned sex.
Back to the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. Like I said, we’ve been using it that way for hundreds of years. For example:
“Someone left their backpack in the office. Will they please return to claim it.”
No English speaker would think twice about this construction. We know exactly what it means. We don’t know either the sex or gender of the person who left the backpack. They are needed in the office.
So, that covers the first use. Sex or gender unknown, use ‘they.’
The second use is for a person who is known, but whose sex or gender is non-binary. If you simply make an assumption due to observable characteristics, you have an equal possibility of being right, wrong, or just offensive. Typically, people self-identify. That’s why a common question in today’s polite society is “What are your pronouns?” When a person does not fit in with either birth assigned gender or observable behavior, they will likely identify with ‘they/them’ pronouns.
When I released Devon Layne’s Double Take, the first of the five Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series, it started setting personal records for readership of all my stories with nearly 10,000 active readers. In chapter 45, I revealed that the cute petite girl claiming Jacob as her boyfriend was transsexual.
I lost over 3,000 readers that day and endured an incredible amount of vitriol from those parting. None of them were actually missed that much. My favorite attempt to politicize it:
“God created two sexes. Democrats created all the rest,” was one comment.
Wow! Democrats must be the oldest political party in the world. I had no idea they were so influential to the ancient Greeks where we find transgender, pansexual, hermaphrodites, and asexual persons among both men and gods! Not to mention hetero, lesbian, gay, bi, bestiality, and possible intergalactic crossbreeding. This is nothing new!
The entire five-book Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series including Double Take, is available on Bookapy as a collection or individual volumes.
I hear the sarcastic questions in my head.
“So, you must believe in men going into women’s restrooms.” “You must be all for transgender athletes unfairly competing against women in sports.” “You must…”
No, I don’t must. First off, these are two completely different issues. The first is covered by all manner of existing laws that prohibit public indecency in restrooms as well as other public places. Remember that transgender means displaying the characteristics and behaviors of the opposite gender from birth assigned sex. If a person identifies with the opposite gender to the extent of hormones for secondary sexual characteristics and behavior patterns of the opposite gender, then yes, they should be allowed into the restroom of the gender they identify with.
“NO! They have to go the restroom of their birth sex.”
I love that one because I always pull up a photo of a friend of mine. He’s a little overweight, but has a nice beard, dresses sharply, is employed in social services, has a lovely wife, and has two great sons.
“So, this is the person you want going into the women’s restroom?”
“No! That’s what we want to prevent!”
“But this person was born with the assigned sex of female.”
“It’s dangerous!”
The last time I checked, there had never been an assault initiated by a transgender person of either sex in a public restroom. Compare that to the number of cases against senators and congressmen.
Well, what about transgender athletes?
I say this is a different situation. This should not be a question of gender identity. There are physical biological differences that separate genetic men from genetic women in sports—a physical competition. Those differences are exactly what Title IX was set up to protect with equal opportunities for both. I have no difficulty with the transgender athlete referring to herself as a ‘she.’ As an athlete, however, there is a biological advantage to a trans female over a cis female.
Yes, you could apply that to a lot of situations and I’m sure people will attempt to, even when it’s irrelevant.
Finally: It just sounds strange to use 'they' for an individual. Like I’m supposed to say, “They is going out tonight?” It sounds stupid!
And you would be stupid to attempt to use it that way. Substitute ‘you’ for ‘they.’ “You is going out tonight.” Yep, stupid. You see, we are quite accustomed to using a plural verb for a pronoun that could be singular or plural. (Or maybe you can go back far enough in time to separate the difference between ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’ which isn't a difference of singular and plural anyway.)
‘You’ is a pronoun that can be either singular or plural and we always use the plural verb with it. We have no problem with it at all! Like ‘you,’ ‘they’ takes the plural verb whether used as a plural or a singular pronoun.
The only thing standing between you and accepting ‘they’ is your own stubborn entitlement to make judgments about other people. Just stop it, okay?
This could go on for a dozen posts, but if you haven’t gotten the point yet, eleven more posts won’t help. Next week: “Just Being Fair.”
This is number sixty-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“IT’S JUST A STORY. Of course, no one would actually do that!”
Oh yeah? What I really want to say about this is that nothing is just a story anymore. I grant you that rational thinking human beings can distinguish between fact and fiction and identify when something is just a story for entertainment purposes only. I am doubting the prevalence of rational thinking human beings in our population.
How many “French Ticklers” were sold in truck stop restrooms, clearly marked “For Entertainment Purposes Only?” The packages went on to state “Not for the prevention of disease or pregnancy.”
“You have to use a condom.”
“Sure, I have one right here. You’ll like this.”
Nine months later…
May I remind you that L. Ron Hubbard’s series of science fiction books beginning with Battlefield Earth and including his pseudo-scientific opinion piece, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, spawned or gave legitimacy to the entire Church of Scientology?
No matter what genre you write in, you are responsible for what you’ve written. If you glorify “non-consensual sex,” you need to call it rape. You can’t hide behind a term that conceals what you mean. An “underage woman” is a child. Call her that. We wouldn’t have the blossoming of laws about depicting teens under the age of sixteen in sexual situations if there was no content that was irresponsible about this in the first place. (Content restriction for eBooks sold on Bookapy: No textual description of sexual acts or nudity of any character under 16 year old (the age of consent in Canada).)
So, I am a stickler about such mundane items as consent in fiction. I downloaded a free book some time ago to broaden my understanding of published erotica—A Time for Will by Libby Campbell. I was infuriated by the main principle that a dominant male can simply walk in and take over the lives of young women, enforcing his control with beatings, and the women will swoon over it. I couldn’t read past the fourth or fifth chapter, but unless one of those women sticks a knife in his back sometime soon, it is simply a false narrative glorifying a primitive man who expects women he encounters to simply obey him because he’s the man.
In the most popular series of my career, Living Next Door to Heaven, with over 2.1 million downloads, I presented a group of precocious teens who band together to form an agreement of what is acceptable and not acceptable behavior with each other. The intent was that signers of the agreement could safely date each other as they desired. In book two, The Agreement, the terms are spelled out.
The Group Dating Agreement
1. I will always treat everyone in the group fairly, equally, and with respect.
2. I will not be jealous of anything that anyone else does or engages in with anyone else in this group (male or female).
3. I will always receive the explicit consent of my partner(s) before engaging in any potentially sexual activity and will respond in compliance with their wishes.
4. I will always have the option of declining any advance of any kind from any partner and it will be honored.
One of the items most feared by the teens was that they would progress too fast and be pressured into behavior they didn’t really want to participate in. The agreement guaranteed every member the right to refuse any act without question, and the guarantee that no one would try something without asking first.
“May I kiss you?”
“On the cheek. It’s too soon for anything else.”
“Okay.”
It was easy! Or who can forget the sexiest words Brian says he ever heard:
“I give you explicit permission to touch me anyplace above my waist, inside or outside my clothing while we’re kissing.”
The Agreement and all ten books in the Living Next Door to Heaven saga are available on Bookapy.
If something as simple to understand as consent can’t be worked into your writing, why not? Is it because you don’t believe consent is necessary? Do you have telepathic powers that let you hold that conversation without speaking it? It is never too late to ask, give, or refuse consent.
Oh, but maybe that worked in my particular story of these particular teens, but it’s too cumbersome and unromantic to actually include explicit consent in a fiction story. We’ll just assume it.
No, you won’t assume consent in a mind-control story. You will explicitly rape the controlled person.
And if you are having trouble with consent—which many of us do because we never practiced it before—then we haven’t adequately explored ways of asking for consent.
I offered my lips to her and she met me with passion. (Silent consent and participation.)
“Let’s go to bed.” “Make me.” (Yes, that latter is explicit consent. There is a definite buy-in to the game.)
“You could pin my hands behind my back and kiss me any way you wanted and I’d just be helpless to resist.” (Not only consent, but explicit instructions on how to exercise it.)
There are thousands of ways to include consent in your erotica and other fiction. We have simply become so used to imposing our will or having another’s will imposed upon us that we forget that consent is mandatory. I return to the initial premise: Non-consensual sex is rape. It is not romantic, even if we think the victim enjoyed it.
In my Team Manager series, Dennis and his girlfriends/teammates establish just three rules: No means no. Never without protection. Never in front of the children (or parents). Easy rules the group could abide by. Coach Ardith was even more explicit.
“Let me be perfectly clear on this,” Ardith said. “‘No’ means no. ‘Stop’ means no. ‘I’m tired’ means no. ‘Not now’ means no. ‘I’m not sure’ means no. ‘I don’t know’ means no. ‘I’m not ready’ means no. ‘I’m not protected’ means no. ‘No’ does not mean ‘convince me.’ If it’s not a yes, it’s not consent. Does every single one of you understand this?”
Well? Do you?
This is probably the least popular rule I follow and promote in writing erotica. It is, however, one of the places in which writers of erotica can influence the shape of society. I’ve done nothing but rant this month. Next week, the rants continue with “Getting to They.”
This is number sixty-two in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I GUESS I just pronounced myself anathema. There is little in the American English language that currently creates such a backlash as the word “woke.” And that is a case of lumping things together so we can dismiss them all instead of dealing with the one thing that makes us uncomfortable.
I hear that “woke” means having men in women’s restrooms. That “woke” means taking away everyone’s guns. That “woke” means rewriting history and denying cultural heritage. That “woke” means political correctness. That “woke” means you can’t compliment a woman on her looks. That “woke” means allowing the country to be overrun by illegal immigrants. That “woke” means increasing taxes to pay for foreign aid instead of helping veterans. That “woke” means giving handouts to people who are too lazy to work. That “woke” means paying millions of dollars to forgive student loans instead of making them work to pay them off like everyone else. (Except large corporations and banks who get their debts forgiven all the time.)
Pseudo-conservatives wrap anything up that they dislike and refer to it as “woke” in order to keep from acknowledging the one simple thing that it is:
To be aware of and concerned about social injustice.
And believe me, neo-liberals contribute to the same load of crap by claiming that whatever their current cause is amounts to being “woke.”
My earliest writings—we’re talking about the 70s and 80s—carried the same themes that my current writings do. Equal rights. Civil rights. Women’s rights. Antiwar. Anti-discrimination. Freedom to control our own bodies, families, money, and thinking. Freedom to be who we are and not who the government or a political party tells us we have to be.
It strikes me as strange that political parties that claim to be in support of no government regulation, and personal rights (like freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom of assembly, etc.) are also the ones voting for regulation of those very things. Please don’t tell me I am anti-Republican or anti-Democrat because I consider both to be equally bad about this.
One of the things that surprises me is how one side will take a position that it ordinarily would be opposed to if it weren’t for the other side being opposed to it. For example, show a picture of a young woman standing on the American flag and the right will want to crucify her. But show a picture of the American flag with a blue or black stripe replacing a white stripe, and the same people will talk about how it patriotically honors policemen or fallen first responders.
No, my friends. It is desecrating the American flag just as much as standing on it or burning it! That is not the flag we pledge allegiance to. It has been defaced! But since the left doesn’t like it, the right must declare themselves in favor of it, ignoring the actual law regarding display of the flag. (While you’re at it, check out what the law says about wearing the flag or using it as decoration on vehicles or clothing. It’s pretty specific about what is allowed.)
Fly a thin blue line flag (blue stripe against a black field) if you wish. Fly a rainbow flag if you wish. Fly an MIA/POW flag if you wish. But this law-abiding patriotic author objects to you flying a desecrated American flag. That’s not “woke.” It’s simply obeying the law.
So, why do some people object so strenuously to the term “woke” and insist they are anti-woke because they are conservative?
It’s really pretty simple.
If I lump together all the things that some people claiming to be “woke” believe (gun control, gay marriage, men in women’s bathrooms, open borders, etc.) then I can be against it and ignore the fundamental item of being aware of and concerned about social injustice.
So, scrap the word “woke” from your vocabulary. It has become burdened with so many extra items, the people who use it on either side of the aisle are using a meaningless term. If you are truly anti-woke, stand in front of a mirror, and declare to yourself, “I am unaware of and don’t care about social injustice.” Then you get a free pass to be whatever kind of asshole you want to be.
As for me, I will continue—as I have for forty-five years as an author—writing stories that bring attention to racism, women’s rights, voter rights, antiwar, gay rights, freedom of religion rights, the entire Bill of Rights, and these unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If you insist on calling that “woke,” then go back to sleep and live in your dreams where real life can’t interfere.
If I have any readers left after that rant, I’ll invite you to join me as I continue to explore the responsibilities of an author of erotica. Next week: “Consent in Fiction.”
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