Word Sex

Burning Lotus — “I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.” ― Anaïs Nin

“The men in the room are all bent into interesting positions. A big blond stands on his hands, balanced and unmoving. Another dangles from rings. A third is leaning over a polished leather horse. Hadley McCarthy watches the men as she moves passed them–imagining that they have been put there for her pleasure, fantasizing that they will never move. Hold still. Stay that way,” begins Alison Tyler‘s novella, Tied up and Twisted (Harlequin Spice). In summation of the story is, Hadley – a domme turned sub – sets her sights on a trainer – “Trainer. In another world, in her other world, the word means something else. There, he’d be Dom. Here, he is Coach.” – while her former sub attempts to win her back. It’s a role reversal I haven’t read before. At least nothing that I found worth retaining. No matter what, a dominate never subs and a sub rarely knows how to dominate.

I could be wrong, though. I’ve only lived vicariously through stories by Alison Tyler (the writer, not the porn star) and anthologies complied by Rachel Kramer Bussel. I, however, never lived vicariously in anything written by E.L. James. Her writing is just terrible. English majors around the world wept with the first pages alone. And I think that’s the subject of this post – it’s surely not about that weird sex dream I had about an older woman I don’t believe really exists (hence the photo of The Burning Lotus [NSFW]). What?! You haven’t heard about her? Either you’re highly religious or dead (and I consider them same thing), but dude. Yeah. Check that out.

ANYWAY. I like erotica. No. Scratch that. I love erotica. Classy erotica – Anaïs Nin – and the current writers. There’s also the guilty pleasure of poorly written fantasies found on blogs and Literotica rip-off sites. Thanks to the ever evolving technology of the day, writers everywhere (good and bad) are publishing works. Thankfully, a nice percentage of these writers offer freebies and I download for my Kindle. Not all of them are good, mind you. And somehow Fifty Shades of Grey managed to slip by caused such a stir that I’m still recovering from the shock.

Am I glad Erotica is getting noticed? Yes. But it’s never been greatly ignored. The only reason this genre is getting so big is the technology. Trust me, it’s the technology, not because the book is a masterpiece.

I work in the Children’s department of a library. I can’t just carry around a book with a semi-naughty cover and read it during my downtime. Brows will lift.

DAMNIT, I’ve gone off topic again. As I was saying, I love erotica. And I’m glad that it’s in the public view (whether that’s because technology or not, should be saved for another post). However, it’s depressing that something so poorly written is the reason, when writers – real writers who believe in editing and revision – are ignored.

Example, when I first picked up Fifty Shades of Grey – before I quickly put it down again – I commented that I can’t see how this is the book that set off the spark. My co-worker turned and replied, “Have you ever read anything else from the genre? It’s pretty much the same.”

Oh. No. You. Didn’t.

Romance and Erotica might be sister genres, but they are not “pretty much the same.” While publishers like Harlequin are publishing both, I can’t see the where the confusion comes from. But Romance is sex word fodder. Erotica is word sex.

Gonna end this post because I’ve gone off topic. I’ll talk about the other thing later. A compare and contrast. Think of this as a rough draft. And the next post a revision.