As predicted, SOL doesn't want to post essays unless they're part of a story. Their site, their rules, it's all good. So here's the first of two.
Why would anyone want to write naughty stories about characters who were very seldom, if ever, naughty?
The question answers itself, really.
In choosing to write erotica set in J.R.R. Tolkien's universe, one is immediately confronted with the nearly sexless nature of that universe. There aren't all that many female characters, either, and most of those that exist - with a few well-known and obvious exceptions - are background at best and thoroughly victimized at worst (see, for example, poor Elwing). This is not, by the way, a prelude to a feminist critique regarding this lack. Tolkien could write interesting female characters, even though too many of them were defined primarily by their relationships. I don't really blame him for that either; that's not only the world he knew, it's the world he thought to be "correct." Moreover, no conversation about Tolkien and sex or sexuality could possibly be unthreaded from his very sincere but very conservative religious beliefs, and they cannot help but inform his writing. The critique is more or less valid, but it's not like we're going to get a revision out of it.
Still, there is implied sex, of a sort, in Tolkien's works. Some of it exceptionally pure (most of it, actually), and almost all of that is "offscreen," as it were. People get married, they procreate, we meet their kid(s). Certainly none of it is explicit; the Bible is far more R-rated than Tolkien. But what's really fascinating to me is how much of the obliquely-referenced sexuality in his work is dark. Sometimes very dark.
Unconvinced? Let's start here: Túrin impregnates his own sister. Sure, they're under a curse, but it is one of the very rare times Tolkien specifically highlights a sexual act between any of his characters. Incest resulting in conception is more G. R. R. Martin than J. R. R. Tolkien, or at least one would think, and yet there it is.
Even when it's not all doom and womb, there sure are a lot of triangles, and none of them are the fun kind. Lúthien/Beren/Daeron, for example…and don't tell me Daeron's jealous stalking of Lúthien isn't twisted. Or Finduilas/Túrin/Gwindor, which is even more twisted in that she was actually betrothed to one, fell in love with the other, and then…oh, just go read The Silmarillion (though if you haven't, this essay is going to make very little sense). Then there's Idril/Tuor/Maeglin, and…well, I could go on.
Tolkien would eventually trump himself with the much more complicated Gríma/Éowyn/Aragorn/Arwen/Faramir pentangle (actually more of a squiggly line with some polygons in the middle), but the point is that when Tolkien was moved to actually write people's romantic-with-a-chance-of-nookie lives onto the page, it wasn't always white-wedding monogamy and virgin Balrog-butterflies. There's a fair bit real sexual darkness, and not just for people under the ill effects of dragon curses.
Consider Eöl's relationship with Aredhel, with its implied semi-consensuality (less implied than blatant in earlier drafts), that ends well for absolutely no one. Not only does it provide the unstable catalyst for the Idril/Tuor/Maeglin triangle, that instability leads directly to the Fall of Gondolin…an event so important to Tolkien that it's the very first epic he ever wrote for his now-beloved legendarium. It also typifies one of the few very clear positions Tolkien takes on sexual matters: if it's not pristine and thoroughly Good, then it's very, very, very Bad and there will be Consequences. Again one sees the impact of his religion: Eöl's pursuit and capture of Aredhel is wrong, thus the product of their union is wrong, and from this much awfulness flows, but in Eöl/Aredhel rests the original sin.
One might assume that writing "correct" erotica in Tolkien's universe would be pretty much restricted to two things: chastity/marriage/pure love stories, and tales of darkness, jealousy, and betrayal in the classic and entirely familiar form. Plus that one really icky (or hot, depending on your tastes) incest story. I'll say right now, for the record, that while I appreciate that some would love thirty chapters of Twoo Wuvv between Aragorn and Arwen - and I'm not opposed if it's well-written - such is not my interest, because there's no drama in it. Finduilas/Túrin/Gwindor is much more fertile territory (so to speak). Hot sex is hot sex, but I find narrative trajectory and character development much more interesting.
All that said, what I actually find most interesting is what Tolkien seems to go out of his way to avoid writing. The gaps in which there was almost certainly fornication…or at least there would have been were the characters not so damned noble and sexless, and were the author not such a prude (which I don't actually mean as an insult; he was who he was)…but that we are forced to imagine from either whole cloth or a mere scrap of thread.
Though it's a particularly unpleasant example of what I mean, consider Celebrían. We know she was abducted by orcs, rescued by her sons, and found her ordeal so horrible that she abandoned her husband and children to pass, prematurely, over the Sea. The entire story, aside from the detail of a poisoned wound, is reduced to "torment" in the text. While I'm sure that's true, her subsequent decision is extreme and somewhat unprecedented.
Now think about this: Tolkien wrote a somewhat similar tale of familial abandonment into the story of Míriel (mother of Fëanor). Remember what came of that? The event and its consequences are directly faulted for both Fëanor's domineering, intransigent personality and much of his familial strife. And what came of that was, eventually, a condemnation that subjected Fëanor, all his descendants, all his followers, most of the Noldor and any Elves that never went to Valinor, all Men, and a whole lot of Dwarves to unending defeat, despair, and death, as depicted in chapter after depressing chapter of The Silmarillion.
You know…no big deal, right?
So Celebrían leaves her children, all three have pretty gosh-darned happy endings (not that kind, though on the other hand…), and she gets away scot-free. Her torment must have been pretty awful for her to be forgiven so easily, when the majority of mortal and immortal inhabitants of Middle-earth were eventually forced to suffer for Míriel's choice.
No modern reader would fail to guess what form that torment must have taken. A more interesting question is whether or not Tolkien actually had it in mind. I tend to think, for all his purity, he must have, given how easily he let the character and her descendants off. He would likely have found what happened to her the worst possible form of perversion. Others of a more prurient inclination might find it a subject ripe for a particular sort of story, and for the exact same reason. (George R. R. Martin would have written half a book about it and then killed a Stark at the end, just because.) Either way, the point is that it's hard to imagine that there wasn't a sexual component - no matter how violent - involved in what Tolkien reduces to "torment."
Dialing back the horror for a moment, consider the story of Lúthien, which is more fully described than any tale of the First Age, save perhaps that of Túrin. I've already noted that her relationship with Daeron could be viewed as strange, disturbing, or even somewhat kinky, depending on one's imagination. Who really knows what those crazy kids were getting up to while they played the Sindarin version of "hide the flute?" Notably, Tolkien is also awfully evasive about when she and Beren finally got it on. Obviously they did at some point, and I hope more than just once (when they conceived Dior), because they went through an awful lot of hell if they only banged that one time.
But delve deeper. Though it's more explicit in earlier versions of what eventually became The Silmarillion, Tolkien definitely hints at a lust/seduction angle as Beren and Lúthien penetrate (sorry) deeper (still sorry) into Morgoth's lair. And then what happens? Lúthien belts out a few tunes and gets the better of Morgoth. Easy, right?
But wait…didn't she do the same thing to Beren? She sang, and poof: he was in love. That little performance resulted in the Second Great Interspecies Mating (after her parents'…and what is it with this family?), the Greatest Love Story Ever Written, and so forth. So when she pulls the same musical trick on Morgoth, we're supposed to assume that the most powerful of the Vala, the self-styled ruler of everything, the unbeatable embodiment of Evil, the one who's just been imagining a defilement to trump all other defilements, just gets really, really sleepy whenever someone launches into a power ballad? Maybe it didn't go down like that. Beren was kinda entranced himself, after all. And while he was out, maybe Lúthien thought her case might be made more convincingly via other means.
You see what I'm saying.
Later in the story she sings to Mandos and, again, gets extra-special treatment. That little songbird sure gets around. Hot Elf-on-Master-of-Death action! Don't fear the reaper!
The point is: I've no doubt that Lúthien's true love was Beren. But who's to say Lúthien was above a little groiny action on the side to get what she wanted? The narrative implications are far from clear (and no, I don't think Tolkien intended any of this), but neither are they dismissible out of hand if one posits a world in which people actually have sex.
So that, at last, brings me to the existing universe of Tolkien-derived erotica. Some's good, some's mediocre, some's bad, like everything else. But aside from the canon pairings, which are obvious things to write about…Aragorn and Arwen live Lustily Ever After, Galadriel and Celeborn have Really Splintery Sex in Trees, Sam and Rosie Conceive a Child Every Single Time They Screw…most of what's out there is highly arbitrary "my two/three/seven favorite characters get it on" without much fidelity to the text.
Well, okay, maybe "fidelity" doesn't apply…but alternate universe interpretations are, by far, the majority of the settings; Arwen runs off with Legolas, Gimli runs off with Legolas, Legolas runs off with Legolas, Legolas is magically cloned over and over so he can have an orgy with himself…well, you get the point. To which I'd also add: a lot of it, from both the tenor and the date of publication, seems very much derived from the movies rather than the books, and more based on the actors therein rather than the characters they play.
(Oh, Orlando Bloom; if only you'd had looser morals and an affection for moonstruck teenagers, you could have gotten yourself into an awful lot of trouble….)
I find this vaguely dissatisfying. Not Orlando Bloom's sex life (which I'm sure is perfectly serviceable) but alternate universes. It's mostly a matter of taste, and it's not because I don't appreciate alternate universe settings. After all, they're not a whole lot more unlikely that what I will write.
But here's my question: what if Tolkien's actual characters had sex in the universe as Tolkien wrote it? What if they had sex in the same complex, conflicted, imperfect, sometimes regrettable way that everyone else has sex? Even if they just happen to live in a world with very short people who can't figure out how to make shoes, and goofballs who caper about in brightly-colored boots collecting water lilies and that are in desperate need of a wake-up call concerning their sexuality?
Or, more seriously:
What if one leaves everything that Tolkien wrote as intact as possible, but fills in the naughty bits?
There are several problems to confront. One is that Tolkien's schedule, at least in The Lord of the Rings, is painstakingly rigid. It might be fun to watch Frodo pay his long-standing mushroom debt to a Dominatrix Mrs. Maggot in a much more tactile way (I am supremely Not Turned On by this idea), but the fact is that there's no time during the hobbits' shortcut to mushroom-shaped organs. One could write it (for all I know, someone has), but one has to break the story to do it.
Dream sequences can be used. And I embrace their use in certain limited circumstances, but the whole thing can't be a Bob-Newhart-appears-in-Pamela-Ewing's-shower joke on the reader. There has to be some plausibility to the dreams, and they have to be deployed sparingly and with caution. I think, for example, it's entirely reasonable to use a "story based in non-temporal reality" (euphemisms for the win!) when someone is under magical influence or dangerously ill. Or, y'know, asleep.
But that exception aside, I prefer to start with "this could actually have happened without changing the story" and then allow our poor, afflicted characters to actually get laid once in a while. Or a lot. Or really a lot. Or so much so that it's surprising they can lift a (non-flesh) sword the next morning.
Of course, this brings us to a second and more fundamental problem: if I'm actually considering fidelity to the text, very little of this would actually have happened. This derives from the premise with which I opened this essay: Tolkien's characters, unless they're evil, would not do most of the things they're more or less compelled to do by the demands of erotica. To turn Gimli into the rampaging defiler of other-species poontang that he was always meant to be, one has to turn Gimli into someone very different than the Gimli that Tolkien wrote. (Again: I am seriously not writing that story. I think.)
To this I respond: Tolkien ain't driving this bus. He programmed the GPS, but I'm paying for the gas, and I'm the one filling the seats. (Though I disclaim responsibility for that noisy troll orgy going on in the back seats….)
While we're on that subject (authorial intent, not troll orgies), a word about content. Some of what I've been moved to write is pretty dark, and at times well outside my own personal interests and kinks. Sometimes it's beyond what I consider acceptable. I haven't exerted tight control over content for a good reason: the stories need to go where they want to go.
What interests me, in erotica, is a story. For me, the best stories involve conflict. Jeopardy. Actual danger, even if not the physical kind. (And even physical threat is, if used sparingly and with care, a valid tool in Tolkien's universe; a universe that may be sexless, but is somewhat staggeringly violent even though he doesn't describe it with the pornographic glee of some of his literary descendants.) There are very bad people in Tolkien's works, and there are good people who do bad things. I don't see why completely normal and entirely canonical nuances of character shouldn't also apply to those characters' sex lives. People make huge mistakes, and as long as there are consequences - or at least learning opportunities - that's okay.
I don't mean that I want to strip all the good from the "good" characters; I'm not about to turn Pippin into The Dungeon Master of Tuckborough, with Goldberry on a spiked leash and Diamond of Long Cleeve on his…well, never mind. I'm not actually interested in good characters turning evil…at least not permanently…but I'm extremely interested in good characters doing unwise or even bad things until they learn to be better. I'm also interested in allegedly bad characters doing, by intent or otherwise, good and/or beneficial things. If those things happen to involve orgasms, all the better.
Ultimately, a character isn't interesting because of how they're described, a character is interesting because of what they do. There has to be setup, crisis, climax (yes, yes, I know), and conclusion. Or non-conclusion, if that's what the story demands. This is, by the way, precisely why I'm not all that interested in writing "Galadriel + Celeborn 4EVAH!"…because where's the story in that? Galadriel + Treebeard, on the other hand….
(I'm not going to write this. Tentacle porn and its arboreal analogues: also not my thing.)
(Though I suppose Treebeard has no problem maintaining wood.)
(I'm so very, very sorry.)
(I am now much more likely to write the above story than I was when I used it as an example of what I would never write. Because: hilarity. But I think it's more Old Man Willow's type of kink, don't you?)
If the story I'm writing at the moment - the first, and unquestionably the longest - doesn't exhaust my interest and the limited set of non-absurd synonyms and adjectives for the male sex organ, there might be others. Some will be lighter, some will be darker. I think more, though, will be the latter, for reasons that I tried to make clear earlier in this essay. Tolkien's sexual world, even when undescribed (which is almost all of the time), is full of the potential for, and the suggestion of, darkness. The orcs didn't bring Celebrían flowers and ask permission to torment her with tickling. I don't see how you write Gwindor's metaphorical impotency out of a story about Finduilas and Túrin…if you're writing erotica, I don't see why you'd want to…and I don't see how you make that story a happy one, especially given how it ends. "Finduilas is torn between two love interests, then orcs capture her, and even though they're dragging this really hot Elf through the forest for days and days, absolutely nothing nonconsensual happens because no one is better-known for their sense of sexual propriety than orcs, and then one day she accidentally comes over with a severe case of being dead. The end."
In other words, that's not how it went. I don't even think Tolkien thought that's how it went. He'd just never say so.
And so, here's a world in which Tolkien's characters are pretty frequently naughty. Why would I want to write such things?
The question answers itself, really.