Erotica Part Deux

It's amazing what you'll miss when you leave a thing alone for three or so years. Mucking about underneath the cover of darkness -- as creatures like myself are wont to do -- I stumble upon the big witch burning that took place not too long ago. By witch burning I mean the time period where publisher were removing indie erotic books from the marketplace. Considering I just spoke out for the erotic, I feel the need to address this issue--since I'm not sure whether it's over or not. I don't much care, honestly. I have always been a witch, from the moment I stepped foot into this. Nothing that is done in this realm surprises me anymore. I expect any kind of low blow or sleazy move. 

For me, it's just...interesting. I believe this happened around the time I put out Savage Love, but I was so busy trying to guard myself against thieves, land sharks, and other unsavory characters that populate the publishing world, I barely had time to note it. 

People's obsession with other people's sexuality has been a thing that has never failed to confound the living fuck out of me. It really is just kind of fascinating that the same people that want to censor other's have twenty year old mistresses, etc. They seem to me to be obsessed with sex far more than a person who sits down and writes such things for the pleasure of others. 

TRUE STORY:

A long time ago, I was fucking around on a website devoted to writing. The place has since changed its name, but it is still around. I met people there and got to know them pretty well online. I met a lonely, creative and talented woman (who happened to have a pretty goddamn good job in the field, actually. Well, beside the field anyway). She had a husband, but she was still unhappy. One day, she pissed me off in some annoying little way and I told her I'd write her into a story...a bad story...a wicked one. And she dared me to do it with an anticipation that truly intrigued me. 

I stayed up all night and created a man for her, a situation, a dream. 

This story was the first story of its nature that I ever wrote. 

I didn't write that for myself. I wrote that for HER. And she loved it. It made her happy. My time, my effort, that sexy ass man...all of it. 

I have never been so proud as when I received the email from her telling me how much she enjoyed that adventure, how it took her away, for a little while, from the things she felt were wrong with her life, how she found pleasure in it. 

__________

The level of censorship that took place during the 'witch burning' is less disturbing to me than it would be for an author who is not me--at least I hope so. I sincerely hope that no one else is being censored in the way that I am being censored on this 'personal' level. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. 

However, I question the cause of this censorship. I'm sure it's been gone over a thousand times by bewildered authors, so I won't bother stating the reasons that I believe caused such a thing. I will say this: In this world, it is always money. Who gets how much of the pie. 

As a person that gets none ... I'm only mildly disgusted. In a faux-moral sense, there are those who use their power and influence to pass judgment on others. I don't think there's ever been a time when that wasn't the case. Were the witch trials ever about burning honest-to-goodness-Satan's-Sword-Swallowing witches? Or were they about control?

I felt like I needed to amend my first post, considering I have come to understand something of why a company that promotes books would shun erotica--at least in the business sense. 

Also, someone be kind and tell me: Do frogs fuck?

I could Google it, but, you know...I'm using both hands to fap on all this erotica I'm writing, being depraved and all. 

Help me out?

Nine Inch Nails: Closer

This. 

Fuckin'.

Song.

Tho.

Erotica

e-rot-i-ca

noun

literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire

I write erotica and I take a great deal of pride in it. There is a beauty in writing sex scenes that people actually want to read. It takes a certain measure of skill to keep a reader interested in a sexual encounter--to make them care that the lovers commit the act of loving one another in a sensual and satisfying way. Good erotica is impossible to write unless you can make the readers care about the characters involved. I believe this is the critical difference between erotica and writing porn. While pornography is known is the visual. It can be written too, I've read it. But, if people love your characters and have come to care about them, then this adds an element to the writing that takes it from the realm of porn and into the realm of the erotic.

I am writing this because I received, a few minutes ago, a emailed package for a company that does books reviews--something that authors desperately need. Book reviews are particularly important to me because, since I stopped working to support whatever publisher that was currently pimping me like a two dollar whore, a book review is a hard thing for me to find. The company that sent me that packet would help find reviews for any kind of book available except the kind that I write: the erotic. 

Frankly, this pisses me off. With everything, there is a such a thing called quality. If a writer can write an erotic book with characters that are loving and lovable, why should that book lack promotion? It's like a judgement for writers like me. It is as if that company, and many others like it, are saying: your work is somehow flawed simply because of its nature. 

-Insert annoyed little sigh here-

I understand that there is a lot of bad erotica out there, but that is because a lot of writers get caught up in the act itself, instead of the people committing the act. I don't read that shit--hmmn--that's a lie. I read some of it and laugh my ass off. I have a fanfiction.net account that I cherish with all my heart. And still, among all the ratchetry that I've found there, I have still found some beautiful works of art. Mostly though, I laugh. 

My sense of humor is twisted, and, believe me, that's a good thing. Otherwise, I would have slit my wrists long ago for the level of unmitigated bullshit I've found while trying to make this writing thing a paying and satisfying 'career'. 

I had a publisher tell me once that using the words "dick" and "cock" in a story about 17th century England was ... crude. This person wanted me to change my book to suit their vision of what was right and correct. It was a real struggle to keep the thing the way I wanted it to be, but I managed...mostly. 

I can write anything. I have a passion for horror stories in particular and am writing one right now for free and under the pseudonym that gets me that addictive thing I need -- which is feed back from reader on their enjoyment of the worlds I create for them. This is something I rarely get when I use Raquel Taylor to publish something. But erotica is just my...thing, despite the negative connotations that come with writing it. 

If I had any advice to give an erotic author, it would be this: Make sure that you love your characters, build them well and strong, make them people, not just caricatures and just let them love each other. It will flow like a river is you do it right. Love is most important, if you build that, all other things will follow. 

...or so I have found. 

Also, for those who judge erotica:

Seek therapy. You might have some issues with your Puritanism. Or your sexuality. Idk. 

People have sex. So do birds, bees, frogs, dogs...

Calm the fuck down. 

Damn.

__________

Sidenote: .(if you are a reader and are just over here checking up on me, then this sidenote is not for you, please ignore it, and have a lovely day).

I don't bake no motherfuckin' pancakes. And my life is not an imitation. 

Yes, bitch. I'm talking to you. 

In Defense of Donald Sterling

 

  

Everyone is all up in arms about what Donald Sterling, something-something-i-hate-basketball of the Clippers, said and/or did. Everyone is screaming racist like they've never seen one before. Apparently, Mr. Sterling is some kind of isolated incident of ignorance and he should be bullied and beaten and fined and fired for his thoughts. I think I might be the only person in the world that thinks this is...funny. At least, according to the news reports on the incidents and the reactions of people around me. 

Donald Sterling paying a fine isn't going to make him think any differently. His network of 'friends' who didn't want his mistress being seen around black people aren't going to change. The beat will go on like it always has. Nothing changes, nothing gets better, humans are still super selfish and super stupid and I still lament being one of them. We are capable of great beauty. We have created things from our imaginations that are stunning and magnificent--whether it's a story or an airplane. We have such tremendous potential, and we are squandering it. 

I don't give a fuck what Donald Sterling thinks of this race or that one. I don't even care that his filthy rich friends share his view. This is all commonplace for me. Next month, some other asshole will express something similar to what Donald Sterling said and everybody will freak out about that too. 

Hell, if I was one of them, I'd say something nasty just to see everyone running around gaping and staring and pointing and acting like damn fools for a little while. Wanna see my players change their socks from white to black and turn the jerseys that I payed for inside out in ineffective "protest". 

Meanwhile, what I stand for would still be firmly in place. Nothing really changes for me. I'm out a little pocket change out of the bazillions that are my assets (but I am the ignorant fool laughing stock...riiiiiight). A few people give me the stink-eye every now and then but not really as I have enough money to set them on fire in the streets and not do a day in jail. And I had a good time...

Somewhere in Africa, a truck pulled up to a boarding school, several trucks in fact, and a group of men got out. They walked into that school with guns and took up to three hundred female children. They burned the school down and loaded these young girls into those trucks and they disappeared into the mist. 

Do we think they took those kids to Candyland? Are those children, right now, sipping on honey-lemon rivers and eating cotton candy clouds in various shades of brilliant rainbow color? Is their laughter echoing through the boughs of licorice trees and chocolate mountains?

No, those kids are being raped and sold and tortured and abused. While everyone is worrying about what Donald Sterling thinks about in his off time with his mistress, children are being abused. Everyone knows it happened, and no one cares. 

That is what is really wrong with the world. What Donald Sterling said is a big deal. The rape of  three-hundred little African girls is not. 

Why pretend to get angry with Donald Sterling when, at least a part of the best of you, must share his belief about the subject he was ranting about? 

They say the proof of the pudding is in the taste. Let's see if that's true, shall we?

Mr. Sterling said: "Fuck 'em" ...

I can assure you that is what is happening to those missing children, so he's right there. 

Mr. Sterling said: "Feed 'em" ...

Well, if you buy a little slave girl, you kinda have to feed her, right? At least enough to keep her alive so you can honor Mr. Sterling's first thoughts on the subject. 

Mr. Sterling said: "Just don't promote them" ... 

Granted, he was talking about Instagram and Facebook and what not, however, this still holds true. There hasn't been a lot of news coverage on these missing children. Outside of the local police force in the place where they were taken from, no one is really looking for them. Isn't that a lack of promotion on the scale of what Donald-Dear was talking about?

So, where is he wrong? What did he say that was incorrect? Why is everybody yelling up at his lofty and palatial mansion again?

If the Clippers really want to protest the commonplace thoughts in Donald Sterling's head, I have an idea that would work. At least I think so. How about each one of the players donate ten thousand dollars to hire a small band mercenary thugs to go in there and get (at least some, but hell, ONE of) those kids?

How about all the players on all the basketball teams?

In retaliation for Donald-Dear's so-called immoral, disgusting, totally-out-of-the box-oh-shock-oh-horror thoughts...

I have no idea how much a small band of mercenary thugs costs, and the idea is probably ludicrous. But it's a start to thinking in the right direction, and it would definitely make something Mr. Sterling said incorrect, because, honestly, as it stands right now, the man is fucking right. 

Leave him alone.