I’m gonna regret many things about this blog post. I’m gonna regret, for a start, the title, and quite possibly, in a few words time, the content. But! Deep breath, let’s have a go…
So. Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s where this blog post began, and in many ways I resent the fact that I’m talking about it, since the whole world is talking about it and frankly, what’s left to be said? However, as the question is arguably bigger than just this one book, and as I’m getting increasingly annoyed by the whole conversation, let’s give it a go.
I’ve read some of Fifty Shades of Grey, while staying at a friend’s house in between shows. I give this context to make it clear that oh no, I do not own a copy, and thus fall into the first trap of the conversation, towit, people are still embarrassed to be caught reading erotica. Which it is. I was going to write ‘let’s not beat about the bush here’, but frankly once you even begin to think too much about erotica, everything becomes a dirty joke, and blood pressures rise and sentences become twisted and you start going but no, what you meant was, actually, what you were trying to say but oh dear and um is that the time and….
… and so on.
So let’s lay this out in sensible, academic terms. I do not, per se, have any problem with erotica. 90% of the time it’s harmless and if people wanna read it, then that’s fine. I find the idea of banning books far, far more offensive than your average bit of erotica, and would go so far as to say that Mein Kampf should not be banned as it is itself an important, repugnant primary historical document. Will nutters buy and read Mein Kampf? Quite possibly. Will people studying the past, seeking to learn from it and prevent it ever happening again, also read this book? Yes. And in it they will find horrifying ideas that shall be rejected outright, and good job too. The thinking is all. I hasten to add that I am not comparing erotica to the works of Adolf Hitler, because that could get really bad, really fast – merely to point out how much I object to saying flatly ‘this kind of book should not exist’. Books should always exist – we should just be sensible in our reading of them.
I would, however, like to take this opportunity to pick up on a distinction made by a semi-feminist podcast I occasionally listen to for reasons which befuddle me; towit, erotica is not porn. I grant you the line is thin and I haven’t made a personal study, but the fairly sensible definition I heard was this – erotica tends to be consensual, sentimental even, whereas porn tends to be about domination, almost invariably of men dominating women. So while I have no objection to erotica, I do get uneasy at the question of porn. Simply because I am not at all sure that you can put the tag line ‘no one was harmed by, with or from the making of this pornographic feature’ at the bottom of it.
There are those who argue that the rise of erotica in our society is, in many ways, a liberating thing. And certainly, if people feel more able to discuss sex and sexuality in a sensible way, then this could perhaps be a good thing, in that not talking about this stuff tends to cause more trouble than its worth. On the other hand, it’s not just two-people (of any gender) -meet-and-have-exciting-sensual-time erotica that seems to be kicking off at the moment, it’s bondage erotica. Look at any train in London and there’ll be an ad for a sub-Fifty Shades of Grey spin-off where the theme is whips and leather, and I dunno, call me a prude (and I’m sure some will) but I get a little worried by this. Because suddenly the sexuality that’s being discussed stops being about two consenting partners freely discussing their sexuality, but violence gets involved. Domination and subjugation. And not just sexually, but emotionally and physically. So fine, if you’re consenting freely, you’re possibly okay, but actually, the tendency seems to be for naive and diffident female meets dominating powerful male and gets whipped and I dunno, that just sets off alarm bells. As for the use of contracts – one partner signing a legally binding document consenting to various sexual practices – that sets off every alarm bell I have, as we immediately walk out of any sort of sentimentality and into harsh capitalist legalism, possibly the least romantic thing I can think of. And suddenly we’re on the edge of that cliff face where erotica becomes porn, and the consequences cease to be fluffy, empowering or generous to its characters, or readership.
Readers of my books will probably have noticed that I don’t spend much time in the way of romance. Actually, that’s not strictly true – I do tend to build in tension and relationships where I can, and it would be fairer to say that I don’t write sex. This is partially because, generally speaking, I think my characters are usually far too stressed and far too busy to pause for a quick snog and a romantic entanglement. Whenever my characters get a chance to breathe, they tend to spend that opportunity loading up on high-calorie food and catching five minutes of a snooze before the next disaster strikes. (This is a problem I’ve always had with certain types of thrillers – just how the hunky heroes find time to shoot five men and then sleep with the girl before storming into a showdown with a deadly baddie, I do not know. Nor why the girl would be relaxed enough, under these circumstances, to engage, is a mystery beyond me. Anyway…)
It’s also true that I don’t write sex in my books, simply because nine times out of ten, it’s just plain rubbish. Certain words I have a strict ban on ever engaging in the same sentence… ‘gushing’, ‘pulsating’, ‘throbbing’ and heaven help us, ‘manhood’ are all things at which I invariably roll my eyes. The temptation on reading passages where all these feature is either to blush with embarrassment or laugh out loud; certainly there’s no great sense of vibrant passions consummated. Do you truly share a character’s sense of blissful fulfillment after such a scene? I don’t. (And as someone wittier than myself once pointed out – where’s all the ‘ow, my arm’s gone to sleep’?)
Finally, there’s the big bugbear I have as a writer. Naturally, all writers resent the success of others, and I’m no different in this regard – I look at Fifty Shades of Grey‘s sales figures and feel a tug of pure envy. Made all the purer, I have to confess, by the fact that we are taking it seriously and we are having conversations about it. I am by no means a ‘purist’ about books – I think they can raise the mind up to explore new ideas, push the boundaries of imagination and understanding, challenge empathy, question humanity – and they can also be tonnes of good fun and this is absolutely vital and important. But the simple truth is, I would rather people read bigger, better and more exciting books. I would like to hand out copies of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, to distribute the works of Roger Zelazny to commuters on the underground, to say to strangers, ‘have you tried Raymond Chandler?’ and to invite commuters on the bus to marvel at the foresight of Aldous Huxley. There are amazing books out there – so why are we getting so wound up about this?
6 comments
Bereft says:
September 5, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC 1 )
I could do little but laugh when you said manhood. I wonder where hentai would fall on the erotica/pornography scale? Most surely it is porn, correct? But I truly see the “erotica is not porn” argument as more of a potato potatoe dance.
MidwestJoe says:
September 6, 2012 at 2:22 am (UTC 1 )
To be honest I don’t like authors who write “full blown sex scenes”…I prefer those who merely…allude to it occurring…oh what is it they say, the journey is more important than the destination the thrill of the hunt is better than the capture we all love a little mystery in our lives? Disguising it behind similes and metaphors and descriptive visuals like: “And as we lay down, the stars seemed to pulse in unison with our hearts, and for some reason, they burned all the more brightly in our eyes that night”…mind you I just made that up right now but you get my point right? It’s why we still have strip clubs….the illusion of the possibility of sex is what sells…granted there’s some downright raunchy erotica out there, (I was only looking!), and it has it’s place and its crowd but…truly good books don’t need the full blown sex scenes. The illusion and the fantasy that an author creates…that makes us finish the scene for ourselves that makes us wonder and smile and giggle to ourselves in the library while reading…but then again like you pointed out, not everyone is into the whole “lets read good literature!”. Sometimes you just want to have a burger and fries and to hell with what others think, which is why Fifty Shades of Gray sold so well…we all needed a burger and fries….a straightforward book about just sex in the modern world. Because I think, there are a TON of people out there who “claim to know everything but know nothing”…and the book opens up discussion about the topic of sex and the modern way of life. You’re right, it makes us question who we are and what we enjoy and what motivates us and I think it’s a good thing. But it gets boring after a while though…all the “grunting” and “pulsating” like you said…it just…too much of a good thing maybe..and I think most people will go back to lighter fare where they can at least…”Pretend” just a little…and let their imagination flow, instead of having every detail painstakingly burned into their minds by an author (possible exaggeration, not all authors have mind burning machines).
I like wonder and fantasy and mystery and just…the stuff dreams are made of in my books…I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I like books that make me ask “And then what happened?”…and if I can figure out what happens next, what’s the point, so I’m glad you don’t write run of the mill been there done that here we go again sex scenes at all in your books…I prefer the mystery and the subtleties that most of us readers try to figure out between all of your characters…how does such and such really feel about this or that or why did they do this around that person…it’s great…but this comment has gone on far far too long, in conclusion…there are many types of fantasy and sex is one we all have in common, that’s why erotica is still around. Someone who likes Stephen King can talk about Fifty Shades of Gray with someone who loves Keith Laumer….it crosses genres and society has finally at long last decided “hey we can talk about this stuff cool!”..so books like this will probably pop up every now and again with more frequency.
Great blog post, have a great day!
AdrianH says:
September 6, 2012 at 11:04 pm (UTC 1 )
Excellent piece, Kate, I’m with you pretty much all the way here. I most definitely have not read ‘Fifty Shades…’, but a good friend has, and finished it, just to get an objective view on what the fuss is about.
She isn’t impressed at all, saying the whole thing is just so unlikely, the characters very unrealistic, and the writing very poor.
I don’t mind sex being used in a story, but context is everything; in general literature there are many books where sex is the main gist of the story, for example Lady Chatterly, and Anïïs Nin wrote erotica, and very well too, but generally in fantasy it’s intrusive, as you pointed out very well. About the only examples I can think of where sex features as an integral part of the story are the Kushiel series of books, but there sex is almost as much a weapon itself, it’s not very erotic.
I find it impossible to imagine any kind of sexual encounter in your books, although having the BEA’s manifest themselves at a ‘crucial’ moment could be highly amusing…
Anna_Wing says:
September 7, 2012 at 4:58 am (UTC 1 )
You make a good point about the lack of breathing space for sex in your books. Not to mention that having Matthew Swift as a lover (or friend, or acquaintance) would be disconcerting in the extreme, and on past form very bad for the life expectancy.
It is the same problem that I have with erotic fanfic of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. For most of the story the characters are chasing or being chased by the forces of evil, hiding, fighting, arguing, arguing about fighting and staggering starving across a hostile wasteland gradually being driven mad by the Ring, so really, I cannot imagine any of them having remotely the energy or the inclination.
Tracy St. John says:
September 8, 2012 at 12:15 am (UTC 1 )
“But the simple truth is, I would rather people read bigger, better and more exciting books. I would like to hand out copies of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, to distribute the works of Roger Zelazny to commuters on the underground, to say to strangers, ‘have you tried Raymond Chandler?’ and to invite commuters on the bus to marvel at the foresight of Aldous Huxley.”
How do you know people don’t read both the greats of literature and erotica? I certainly do. Under several different names I also write and publish nonfiction as well as fiction, including … gasp … erotica. And while it’s my non-erotic works that receive the awards, guess what allows me the luxury of being a fulltime writer with an income that exceeds most traditional jobs? Yup. Erotica. Specifically, BDSM-oriented erotica. Apparently, one woman’s ‘rubbish’ is another woman’s mortgage payment.
Fifty Shades simply put the spotlight on a very lucrative and popular genre that has been around for quite a while. Not that I’m in it for just the money; I greatly enjoy the work I write, as do the readers that follow me from slightly over 100 countries at last count. And while the general public’s ceaseless (and yes boring) conversation over the 50 Shades phenomenon will eventually fade, erotica’s success will continue, albeit more quietly. And shockingly enough, some of it is full of some of the best writing out there, throbbing manhood and heaving breasts aside.
“… the tendency seems to be for naive and diffident female meets dominating powerful male and gets whipped and I dunno, that just sets off alarm bells.”
Many are forgetting that a substantial amount of popular BDSM erotica has a female dominant as the heroine with the male being submissive. Yet this isn’t being debated as possibly violent and abusive as well. You poor boys in the leather harnesses are on your own.
“Because suddenly the sexuality that’s being discussed stops being about two consenting partners freely discussing their sexuality, but violence gets involved. Domination and subjugation. And not just sexually, but emotionally and physically.”
At the risk of glazing your eyes over with boredom, I’d like to make one point that for me is important in this discussion. It is the misconception that the female submissive is a victim of violence. What many don’t understand about typical and healthy (yes, I said healthy) BDSM and the books that accurately portray it is this: the submissive is the partner who is in complete control. Before play ever begins, her limits are carefully outlined. Dominants do not cross the boundaries, and they constantly check on their sub to make sure she is not being truly harmed — physically or emotionally. And if a sub uses her safeword, the action stops immediately. This kind of interaction requires a lot of trust in your partner, more trust than is required in a ‘vanilla’ relationship. There is a lot more to BDSM than tying people up and spanking them. Unfortunately, this misinformation is the biggest disservice Fifty Shades has served to the reading public.
Jo says:
September 11, 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC 1 )
Hi
I can see where you are writing from, but I think you mentioned that you hadn’t finished reading fsog? I did. I couldn’t face the sequels, but I made it through the whole book, and was left scratching my head. For a piece of ‘erotica’ 500 pages long, it had remarkably little sex. The contract in a bdsm relationship is unenforceable (although the non-disclosure agreement is). The story actually felt more like a lukewarm romance than the amazing, shattering, erotic, take-the-world-by-storm novel it is being hailed. I have read better books. And worse. The thing that impresses me most is that it walks a fine line between several pitfalls; bald erotica, M&B frill, modern romance, hardcore bdsm. It skirts them all, sits in a middle ground and manages to appeal to a VAST audience. Impressive.
Your view about sex in novels is something I heartily support – for novels which have plots where action and plot swamp the likelihood of sex or romance. However, in a book written as romance or erotica, where one of the goals is to produce romantic or erotic sympathies (cough) in the reader… well, sex is pretty much obligatory.
Oh, and I am definitely envious, both of the success of fsog, AND of Tracy St. John. I wish my writing was lucrative. Of course, what I really wish is that I could write what I like and get paid well for it. That hasn’t worked for me yet.
It really boils down to pleasure.
Did the author enjoy writing the book? Did it warm their cockles to lay those words, one after the other, hour after hour, day after day? Did their characters live inside then grow as they were born on the paper?
Did the reader enjoy discovering the story? The characters? The emotions (even the tingly bits)?
If so, The book was worth writing, worth reading, and the world has been enriched by that pleasure.
Of course, the author has been greatly enriched, in cold hard cash.
Did I mention I was jealous? Grin.
I just don’t want to write that subject matter.