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Thursday 15 November 2012

Writing Erotica: a family affair?

Over on Twitter my wonderful webfriend Ms Quote recently sent out a poignant question to her fellow erotic authors:
“Do your friends and family know you write erotica? If so, what do they think?”

I replied in a couple of tweets which Ms Quote later summarized on her blog. Here's what she wrote:
“Most of my friends know I write erotica,” Yasmin says. “My sister encouraged me to start, mom finds it amusing, and granny is none the wiser. My mom describes my erotic stories as ‘quaint,’ even the ones I think of as explicit. Hmmm. Not sure what she means by that.”
“Quaint”? Either Yasmin’s mom hasn’t read her books or maybe she’s more hardcore than Yasmin gives her credit for being.


Ms Quote is very perceptive. She's absolutely right: my mother is indeed worthy of the label hardcore. My sister Trish and I used to think of our dear Mama as open-minded, a genuine free thinker, like the hippy chick she evolved into in the 1960s, but hardcore is surely closer to the truth. How many women of her generation, I wonder, would gleefully read an erotic story - written by her own daughter - in which the main character was obviously herself. Yet that is precisely what she did, back in 2003 or thereabouts, when she was on the cusp of her sixtieth year.

The story in question is The Girl On The Bridge, one of my sister's fantasy tales about heroic female warriors in an imaginary land. It revolves around a beautiful senior lady with long, silver-white hair and a graceful figure. This character behaves flirtatiously with two handsome young men before interacting with them in a very intimate and totally inhibited way. As with most erotic fiction written by Trish the sexual scenes are very explicit, with all kinds of jaw-dropping kinkiness going on, but it is right up there among my all-time favorites.

Due to personal circumstances I didn't get to read The Girl On The Bridge until the summer of 2004, but I already knew of it from telephone conversations with Trish and our mother (whom we call 'Mama', rhyming it with 'La-Marr'). When I did eventually digest the story I really loved it, and I could see why Mama loved it too, and why she was happy to identify with it. Even the difference in age between the main character and her younger lovers reflected Mama's own relationship choices in the early years of the new millennium.

Without delving into too much detail, or breaking confidentiality, I can safely say that our mother has led a colorful life. It's almost like she never gave up the old hippy philosophy and chose a life with flexible boundaries and not many rules. I think both Trish and I followed in her footsteps, even if we plowed our own little furrows and went in different directions. Neither of us can be described as living a conventional life, at least not in the way such a life has a template or stereotype. It was inevitable that our mother would be a massive influence on how we turned out, because she was always a lone parent who raised us by herself without much help from anyone.

So, yes, I reckon our mother qualifies as hardcore, at least in terms of her attitude to the erotic fiction we write. The fact that Trish and I have always discussed the topic so openly with her, telling her about our latest storylines, probably makes us hardcore too. On a note of vanity, I am pleased to report that Mama's favorite story is my own Kath Personal, an oddball tale of voyeurism and bi-curiosity, which I've recently included in my lesbian anthology Smooth & Tight.

At the other end of the tolerance spectrum is our granny, whom I also mentioned in my Twitter conversation with Ms Quote. This venerable lady, still very much alive in her big old house, is my paternal grandmother, my dad's mom (Trish and I had different fathers). But she has always been 'granny' to both of us. I dread to think what she would do if she ever saw our naughty stories. Profound disappointment wouldn't quite cover it. Granny is quite a religious person and a staunch adherent of tradition. She goes into a mad frenzy if we walk out into the street without covering our heads, so I can barely imagine what she might do if she saw our names turning up on an erotic fiction website. I expect she would attack us with the antique cavalry sword she keeps in the basement!

And so we come to Trish, my sister, who is three years older than me. It goes without saying that she has no problem with my being an author of sexy stories. Her only gripe about my writing is my reluctance to explore heterosexual themes. She reckons my portfolio of fiction is too narrow to give full rein to my creativity. I understand what she means, but I really only want to write lesbian stories. This isn't because my lover is a woman, nor is it due to a lack of practical knowledge about heterosexual intimacy (my relationship history pre-2002 defines me as bisexual). It's simply a matter of personal choice. I enjoy creating stories about beautiful women making love with each other or indulging in kinky stuff like spanking and bondage. I don't feel any urge to create similar tales featuring male characters.

In my own past I've enjoyed moments of intense intimacy with men, but I'm unlikely to draw on these experiences when writing a story. I do, however, intend to share some of them on this blog, partly because I'm aware that not everyone who visits here is exclusively interested in Sapphic sex. This will meet with the approval of Trish, which is very important to me. In any case, I am sure she is right about the need to broaden the scope of my writing. Creating lesbian stories is what really turns me on, but blogging about my heterosexual experiences will be a kind of compromise.     

Incidentally, Trish reckons she wrote me into one of her stories, in the guise of a dancer called Liana who performs a sexy routine for the Three Vixens (a trio of scantily-clad female warriors who appear in a series of tales). Trish says she based Liana on me, because I was dancing professionally when she wrote the first version of this story in the mid-1990s. Personally I'm not convinced, because Liana is a pale-skinned redhead who looks nothing at all like me. My own theory is that she's a composite character, a blend of me, Trish and our mother, subconsciously created by my sister as a literary nod to the fact that all three of us worked in dance at various points in our lives. The story featuring Liana is called Dancing With Vixens and will appear in an e-book anthology I'm compiling at the moment. The Girl On The Bridge, previously mentioned, will be published as a free download on Smashwords.

My sincere thanks to Ms Quote for starting the Twitter conversation that prompted me to write this blogpost. Please visit her fab website A Good Woman's Dirty Mind and follow her on Twitter.

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1 comment:

  1. I've always thought of writing erotica and have written some but have always been nervous about releasing them online. On finding your blog and reading a few I find them most enjoyable.

    I would however like to share them with readers but unsure how to setup
    the blog disclaimer that the reader must be advised of adult content before entering.

    http://talesfromthedarkside.blogspot.ca/

    ReplyDelete