As 2012 draws to a close, the world is – once again – becoming reflective. Of course, the difference between channel 4 and I is that I am not so much considering the Olympics as I am considering Eroticon, and Radiohead at the O2; but basically the urge to summarise and evaluate the year is comparable. Still, I won’t bore you with the fine details of my year, or pretend to be an expert who listened to all the new albums over the past twelve months – no. In fact, the topic of this article is something that has only been brought to the forefront of my mind in the past few days.

Back in October, when Skyfall was released in UK cinemas, Simon Mayo read out a listener review  on Wittertainment in which the film was described as a roller coaster “with bits coming out of it like what James Bond’s parents were called!” I’m paraphrasing a little, but that was the measure of it. At the time I laughed and nodded in silent agreement. In theory I have no problem with this: there is certainly space for big, exciting blockbusters with pleasing addenda. There is a quiet kind of shared satisfaction when a film relates to the minutiae of characters’ lives, or subtly refers back to a prequel.

However, this kind of film making is not without fault. Taking a moment to think back over this year’s biggest films – Prometheus, Avengers Assemble, Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises – none seem to be plot- or character-driven. Despite all its promotion and hype, I’m not really sure what Prometheus’ driving force was; I suppose you could argue that Avengers Assemble is character-driven, but only in the most cynical way; Skyfall seemed to be more about “rebooting Bond” and celebrating the 50th Anniversary; and whilst The Dark Knight Rises certainly had a tale to tell, it would be naïve to ignore the seven feature length Batman films that preceded it and how lucrative they may have been.¹ But, for me, things didn’t really come to a head until this Sunday just gone, when I made my way to the cinema to see The Hobbit.

As I’m sure is true for many people, Tolkien’s first novel was an important part of my childhood. Compared with The Lord of the Rings’ three, hefty volumes, The Hobbit is far easier for parents and children to cope with. Until The Fellowship of the Ring was released, as far as I was concerned, The Hobbit was the important part of Middle Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Lord of the Rings, in all its grandeur and excess, but even then, at the age of eleven, I had a strong sense of how its many intertwined plot lines and complex enormity miss The Hobbit’s very particular charm. The Hobbit may lack the magnitude of the battle at Helm’s Deep, and compared with Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring, Bilbo’s adventure is a fairly light-hearted affair, but whilst The Lord of the Rings may be bigger, it is not, necessarily, better; and this is precisely what I feel is missing from modern film-making: the beautiful, fine, delicate art of constructing one, compact, exquisitely woven story. In less than three hours, thank you very much.

I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that after three epic films, Peter Jackson might embrace the chance to take on something simpler; but no such luck. I am not even cynical enough to believe that the torturous lengthening of The Hobbit was a purely finance-based decision. From an interview with Jackson, I gleaned that this decision was based on a change in consciousness. Filmmakers no longer feel that audiences will be satisfied with something small or simple, and, on the whole, they are probably right.
In retrospect there is still a lot of appreciation for simpler films. Between cinema trips this year I also saw Black Narcissus, The Philadelphia Story, and Some Like it Hot. Each one is a perfect example of an entire story arc, beautifully constructed in one two-hour film. None of them play to the gimmick of having “bits coming out of” them. None of them have been stretched and decorated to create something longer. As I say, in its place, ornamentation and grandeur can be wonderful – The Lord of the Rings is, really, exactly what it ought to be – but in other cases films – such as the The Hobbit – have sorely suffered at the hands of this trend.

Of course, films are not restricted to these two forms. There is plenty of space in cinema for experimentation, character-driven plot lines, and stories that leave the viewer with an intangible sense of dissatisfaction. But, understandably although regrettably, I don’t think many people flocked to see Holy Motors this Autumn.

However, there is another genre of film that takes the simple story arc very seriously and uses it consistently: children’s cinema. Whatever else you might say about Disney, they know how to construct an engaging story and tie it all up neatly, and if you aren’t partial to supporting Walt’s legacy, Pixar do it very well too. But surely, when we think of Black Narcissus and Some Like It Hot, it’s clear that reserving this kind of cinematic film making for children is something of a waste. And letting stories like The Hobbit slip past this trick, is even more of a waste.

I don’t mean to preach and moan about change – although I’m also one of those people who despises 3D for being nothing more than a fast-selling gimmick – and I will proudly say that I really did enjoy The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall; but I also miss the beauty of simple stories, immaculately executed. And I do think that amidst the clamour of films made to fulfill the desire for gimmick and effects, we are losing sight of story telling, not to mention generally good film making. Surely there is space enough in cinema for both fast-paced blockbusters, and precise art.

1. In addition to the films I have listed Breaking Dawn pt. 2 and The Hunger Games were also released this year. Since they are both based on popular books, it may be the case that they somewhat buck the trend of the others, being plot- and character-driven, although I do wonder if Breaking Dawn might have been undermined a little by being split into two parts. However, I have yet to see either of these films, so I am ill-equipped to comment on them.

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Sex sells. There are no two ways about it. It’s why Bond girls adorn the opening credits in, at most, skintight catsuits. It’s why Sophie Dahl caused such a stir posing for YSL (above). It’s (at least in part) why The Sun is Britain’s biggest selling paper. It’s why this blog – at it’s highpoint – got 32 comments per piece, and my other blogs are lucky to get 100 views in total. Per month! I have hugely benefitted from this simple human truth. In fact, when I was starting out as an erotic fiction writer a good friend suggested I take part in HNT to boost my readership – and it worked like a charm.

But my consciousness of this fact has changed. Where at eighteen I was keen to take advantage of eroticism as a selling point, feeling that taking control of my sexuality empowered me, and that I was somehow more evolved than my peers, it is now obscuring my intentions.

Within the fact that sex sells there is also another problem, which I would like to touch upon briefly. When it comes to Bond girls, and Sophie Dahl, and The Sun, and, well, me, there is a painful imbalance. It would seem that our only recognised sex symbol is female. Whilst I can appreciate the beauty of the YSL advert – as a photographer and as a designer – and may have found it intriguing as the naïve 10-year-old I was when it appeared on a billboard near my house, being a (mostly) straight female it is not actually a sex symbol that appeals to me. This is an extremely important point, and as I make the move into publishing my work, I will certainly be fighting for covers that don’t perpetuate this imbalance. But for now I will leave it to others to expose and discuss: Zoe Margolis expounded upon this with her talk Under Cover: Erotica and Sexism at The Lost Lectures (which you can watch in full – and I highly recommend that you do – by clicking the link).

But I digress.

It is widely accepted that mainstream publishers, and film production companies, etc. look down upon erotic art. Every day I read about erotic artists struggling against these attitudes, but rarely do I see a discussion that talks about why this is. Elsewhere in the world this may have much to do with religion and the stronghold it has on so many nations, but in the UK that is far less true. Whilst many people living in the UK are religious, it is not so pervasive that we won’t elect an atheist Prime Minister, or that we swarm to church every Sunday. It’s different here. Perhaps our prejudices are still based in a religious background, spanning thousands of years, but I believe a large part of the reason we reject sexuality from the mainstream now is that there is an idea that an aroused mind is a less cognitive mind. And to a certain extent, I agree.

When we seek to indulge our arousal, we are rarely looking for something that will stimulate us intellectually. In fact, I can speak to this from personal experience: I’ve been known to visit Literotica (which holds possibly the worst sex writing available) because it is easy to find the subject I want there, and when I’m aroused I don’t care as much about the quality of the writing. When we have sex and when we masturbate very few of us – I believe – are using this time to consider the financial crisis, or the state of the music industry. And why should we? Part of what makes sex so wonderful is the fact that it allows us to escape from the humdrum of our daily lives. The fact that this state of arousal is looked down upon by so many is utterly unfair. It is a large and important part of human experience, which ought to be explored with open minds.

But what happens when we do actually want to deal with sex critically? More often than not it is sold as titillation, taking us right back to where we started: setting up reader/viewer expectations to no more than material for sexual arousal, and if arousal makes it hard to think objectively, then that puts erotica amongst the most difficult arts to view critically. This then becomes a whole other issue, seeping into the huge problem we have with the vast amount of poorly written erotica and badly made pornography. People rarely complain about something that makes them come. (Additionally, even when sex is discussed by the media in cases of rape or abduction it is often done with a tone of sick fascination, playing to a similar type of arousal, which really displays the worst in human nature.)

It is an argument I have with myself at this time every year. With less than 30 days until National Novel Writing Month I am story plotting and character building and part of the NaNoWriMo form asks you to choose a genre for your novel. For the past three years I have used NaNoWriMo to write fiction that involves a lot of eroticism and for this reason I have felt compelled to put my novels into the Erotic Fiction category. However, the public perception that erotica is written to arouse makes this genre seem rather exclusive, and when I am writing novel-length fiction, eroticism is not the only thing I want to explore. Given that my plans for this year’s NaNoWriMo appear to be in a similar vein, the debate continues.

But my problem runs deeper: I do not write erotic fiction to arouse and it does not arouse me to write erotic fiction. For me, writing erotica is a way of exploring sexuality through my chosen media – literature. I long ago embraced the fact that my writing arouses people. I am not unhappy with the fact that people enjoy my work as something to get off to. However, nothing pleases me more than a response to my work that is reasoned and intellectual and opens up a discussion. It is through those conversations that I feel we learn the most about sexuality. In fact, I would go so far as to say that often I write pieces that push people’s boundaries in the hope that they will be too much for my readers’ arousal and force them to consider it critically rather than sexually.

In the extreme, the fact that sex sells not only pervades my work as an erotic author, but also me as a human being. Via email, in comments, on twitter, I am bombarded with sexual innuendo and come-ons as though the fact that I write about sex makes me available and eager to take part in others’ sex lives. Of course, I am the only one who can control the way I present myself, and I am the only one who can take action against the way I am perceived – and I won’t deny that I do on occasion provoke those reactions. But even when I don’t do it directly I am still subject to these kinds of responses and so I think it bears mentioning.

There is nothing wrong in creating with the intention to arouse. In fact, with more and more marriages ending due to a lack of sexual fulfillment I feel we now, more than ever, need porn and erotica that opens people up sexually. On the other hand, this trend makes it very difficult to engage critically with the erotic arts and for me, at least, this is a real problem. The one thing that everyone seems to be able to agree on when it comes to Fifty Shades of Grey (and, actually Twilight as well) is that the cover (above, right) is brilliant. It is not at all explicit, but if you know anything about the book – and everyone now does – it is still appropriately erotic. Whilst we cannot dictate what will arouse people and what will not, covers and promotion and advertising do play a huge part in setting up consumer expectations, and so perhaps this is the first step in creating a sub-category of erotic fiction which deals with its subject critically, rather than using it to arouse. Because I cannot be the only one who feels this way.

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