“[We're] not sure if Erotica is the right genre. Erotica, from our point of view, is to titillate so we are uncomfortable with publishing this particular piece in that category. Would you be happy for me to change the genre to Contemporary rather than Erotica […]? Contemporary is for modern-day, generally realistic life stories, which can venture into bleak territory and confront controversial issues.”

This message could be taken in a variety of different ways, some of which I have since pondered. On the one hand, it seems to suggest that ‘controversial issues’ don’t belong in Erotica; that Erotica is closer to Romance in that it should deal with largely happy situations and sensual sexuality, and therefore my story of prostitution and rape does not conform to that framework. This view could be based upon the idea that people read Erotica in order to be aroused, and that ‘controversial issues’ are not generally considered to be arousing. This, then, makes assumptions about what people find arousing, and for me that poses two problems. First of all, it is difficult because everyone has different arousal triggers. For some that socially acceptable sensuality may genuinely be the gateway to their sexuality; but for others – myself included – the transgression and difficulty of those ‘controversial issues’ may be far more intriguing. Secondly, if Erotica is there to cause arousal and has no place confronting its readers with conflict, then I would argue that the term ‘Erotica’ has become almost synonymous with ‘pornography’.

But I want to step back from Ether Books, because I believe this question is much larger than one company making a decision about genre, and, in fact, it may be that they consider stories on a piece-by-piece basis, and that ‘For a Few Dollars More’, which is a particularly gritty story, is simply a step too transgressive for their idea of Erotica – which may still contain some conflict and/or difficulty. To know where they really stand on that issue I – or you – would have to read a lot of what they publish as Erotica.

I also want to point out (once again) that I do not believe that literary, or contemporary, or conflict-ridden (whatever term you wish to use) Erotica is any better or worse than pornography. Pornography is a damn fine tradition, and takes very particular skills to create. This is not a matter of quality, but a matter of definition.

When I replied to Helen I wrote:

“That’s absolutely fine. I actually agree – as the genre stands, very little of my work fits under ‘Erotica’. […] I would be delighted to be placed elsewhere as, I agree, my writing doesn’t really belong there.”

And I stand by that. I think, in this case, Helen is completely right. And the problems with the Erotica genre are not about any one publisher or writer, they are deeply ingrained in the genre, and as it stands, Erotica unequivocally misrepresents my writing – and the writing of many brilliant authors.

With Erotica now very much in the public eye – spearheaded by that trilogy we will not name – it has also become synonymous with terms such as “Mummy Porn”, seeming to highlight the kind of literature published by Mills & Boon, and other similar companies. Generally speaking, these publishers are not dealing with conflict; drama and obstacles, yes, but not conflict. And my writing sure as hell does not fit in with this kind of literature. In fact, I would argue that, in terms of content – I am not making qualitative comparisons – ‘For a Few Dollars More’ is much closer to Vladimir Nabokov and Angela Carter than it is to Maya Banks and Michelle Reid.

There was a discussion on twitter a couple of weeks ago about creating a new genre, but this is so rife with problems, and just seems to open yet another erotic genre to exploitation. So, for myself, I am more than happy to be put into a genre titled Contemporary, because it does not set up as many assumptions about content, or emotional or sexual response. It simply puts my work in with other pieces that are difficult to define. And that suits me down to the ground, because as it stands, I don’t think Erotica has space for conflict, and I have no interest in writing without that kind of difficulty.

Genres may just be another form of labels, but they certainly bear thinking about, particularly when eroticism and (perhaps) arousal – two very intangible subjects – are involved. Because we cannot know what our readers consider erotic, but it is the job of publishers to label your work; after all, that’s how you sell it.

• • • • •

Despite the initial uncertainty about Ether Books displayed in this piece I actually recommend them quite highly. They are friendly, professional, and (most importantly, to me) unlikely to censor you for dealing with difficult subjects. That alone is pretty rare, and therefore precious, in the publishing world.

In order to purchase ‘For a Few Dollars More’, download the Ether Books app, and find Harper Eliot under Authors.

The post Why What I Write is Not Erotica appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

And really, for those of us who have nurtured our love for Remittance Girl through novellas such as ‘Gaijin’ and ‘The Waiting Room’, and on short stories like ‘Click’ and ‘Pleasure’s Apprentice’ (the first story of hers I ever read), there is no denying that ‘Beautiful Losers’ is a departure. She has written pieces before that may be comparable in tone – the quickly written series ‘The Lepidopterists’ springs to mind – but really ‘Beautiful Losers’ seems to deal with a far less, for lack of a better word, mature set of characters than I usually expect from her. Her heroes and heroines often find themselves in emotional turmoil, but it tends to be over more immediate and more dramatic subjects, such as knife play or rape, whereas in ‘Beautiful Losers’ the reader is presented with a situation which may not be everyday, but is likely to be more familiar – and, perhaps, more desired – within our reality.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. ‘Beautiful Losers’ is the tale of two men – Sebastian and Jean – who bring, or attempt to bring, a single girl, Shira, into their relationship. Written from Shira’s point of view, the reader is taken through a series of emotional and sexual challenges as she delves into this new and somewhat unusual relationship.

In this excerpt, Shira joins Jean and Sebastian for breakfast after leaving Jean’s house, early, the morning after the three have first spent the night together:

It was called the Elbow Room because there was so little of it. Saturday mornings were almost impossible. You had to know someone who worked there to get a seat. Jean did: he was the food critic for the trendiest ‘what’s on’ magazine in town. His devoted readers had no idea who he was, or what he looked like. With Jean as the faceless master of culinary prose, I had made a number of off-colour jokes about the title of his weekly column, ‘Eating Out’.

Jean and Sebastian were perched on the chrome stools at the fifties-style counter with one empty seat between them. I handed my coat to a snippy waitress and made my way over.

‘Hi’ I said, hesitantly.

Jean glowered at me. ‘Sit down. We’re just an eensy-weensy bit upset with you right now. So just sit down.’

I did. Somehow, his bad temper made me feel better. Perhaps things were getting back to normal.

Or perhaps not. Jean snaked his hand into my lap and clasped it under the counter. ‘Why didn’t you wake us up, Shira?’

‘Give her a break. She was suffering from angst.’ Sebastian looked at me, dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin and smirked. ‘Isn’t that right, girl?’ he asked. After wiping his hands meticulously, he put the serviette down, grabbed my face in both hands and kissed me loudly, right next to my ear. ‘I told you I’d respect you in the morning, you luscious slut,’ he whispered, before swiping my cheek with the tip of his tongue.

This was a familiar sort of banter; it meant nothing. I tried to put on my most detached smile, but I know I didn’t manage it.

This may seem like an unusual excerpt for me to choose considering this is a novel situated, quite rightly, in the ‘erotic fiction’ genre, but anyone who has read Remittance Girl’s work before will know that she can write sex, and I do not need to show you just how well she does it. (For anyone who hasn’t read her work before, there is a plethora of stories for you to read here.) So I decided to find a section which displayed Shira’s narrative voice and the interaction between the characters. And really, this is where most of my struggles with the novel lie. The thing is, I have come to love, from Remittance Girl, a darker set of characters than these three, and phrases like “We’re just an eensy-weensy bit upset with you right now” do jar somewhat with my expectations. Furthermore, because Shira is our narrator, these kinds of playfully trivial phrases are littered through the text, not just confined to the dialogue. There is something, again for lack of a better word, immature about the characters and their interaction when I consider the novel within the context of Remittance Girl’s other work. Overall, it simply seems less eloquent.

But here’s why I struggled: although – I think! – the ages of the three protagonists are never made explicit, through their interactions and personalities I quickly drew them in my mind as being in their twenties. (Perhaps other readers will see them differently, but that’s where they sat in my imagination.) Given their youthfulness, the immaturity of the language seems entirely appropriate. We are seeing this situation through Shira’s inexperienced eyes, and for all my pondering over tone, I cannot deny that her voice is exactly as it should be. In fact I would describe this as a character-driven novel, and all three characters are impeccably drawn. I can find no fault, with their attitudes or tone of voice in the context of the story. Furthermore, through the course of the novel Shira, Jean and Sebastian encounter a series of struggles (over Shira’s emotional difficulty with being part of a threesome, and Jean’s hesitancy about anal sex, amongst other things) and as they move through these difficulties, the characters remain intact. What I mean is that whereas in other novels, characters are often thrown from their course and their own personalities by the things that happen to them, here they react and progress exactly as they should, and in precisely the ways we may observe in the real world. Okay, yes, there is something unusual and perhaps even a little wish-fulfillment-esque about Sebastian’s extreme wealth and the freedom that affords them, but this didn’t really bother me as it was incorporated seamlessly into the body of the story.

Nevertheless, and perhaps this is simply a reflection of my own preferences, whilst I was in the midst of the action, I didn’t feel as rapt as I did when I was reading (for example) ‘Gaijin’, because the characters weren’t dealing with a situation as dramatic or difficult as the protagonist in ‘Gaijin’. Every now and then there was a small part of me that wished Shira could just come to terms with the situation and fully give herself to the pleasure of being in a relationship with two men. Equally, there were moments when I felt that Sebastian slipped into the slightly unrealistic; that is not to say he ever dropped his attitude or character, but simply that I found some moments less believable than others.

However, without giving anything away, I do need to take a moment to discuss the end of the novel. Endings can be extraordinarily difficult to write, especially when it comes to novel-length fiction, and it is very rare that the end of a story will change how I feel about the story as a whole. But the ending of ‘Beautiful Losers’ did. The events that close the novel, whilst not wholly unexpected, do change the situation dramatically, and it was the way in which Shira reacted and dealt with this shift that really brought home for me how exquisitely these characters are drawn. For me, the characters found their redemption in this ending by reacting with quiet, but honest emotion. And that really was striking to read.

‘Beautiful Losers’ is an extremely well written novel, and it may be that any reservations I have about the tone of Shira’s voice and her interactions with Jean and Sebastian are wholly subjective, and based on my own preconceptions; but truthfully I doubt this will be a novel that I revisit in the way I have revisited Remittance Girl’s other work. It simply doesn’t speak to me on the level that ‘Gaijin’ or ‘The Waiting Room’ do. However, it would be remiss of me not to point out that I am only comparing ‘Beautiful Losers’ with Remittance Girl’s other work; if I consider it in the wider canon of erotic fiction, it is something of a masterpiece. Remittance Girl is an exceptional writer, and for anyone who can find a deeper affinity with Shira, Jean and Sebastian I would expect this novel to have a far more profound effect.

Although not without its flaw, ‘Beautiful Losers’ is a heart-rending portrait of three people trying to navigate the difficulties of an alternative relationship. And, if I’m honest, I didn’t really want to put it down.

• • • • •

‘Beautiful Losers’ is currently available as an ebook from Amazon UK and Amazon US. If you would like to read more of Remittance Girl’s work, you can do so on her site: remittancegirl dot com.

The post Review: ‘Beautiful Losers’ (Remittance Girl) appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

The one thing I felt was missing from last year’s Eroticon was a chance for all us writers to read our work, and share it with the other delegates. So when Ruby asked me to organise an evening of erotic reading for Eroticon 2013, I was delighted.

I had a lot of interest from writers wanting to read their work, and paring it down to nine was a tough job, but I think what we have now is a group who will deliver a lot of filth, a little romance, and some diversity from the world of sex writing.

I am also very excited to announce that I have procured the compering services of burlesque and cabaret performers Miss Glory Pearl and Miss Maybe. These two lovely ladies are the producers of Wanton Words & Burlesque Bombshells which is “a unique cabaret night featuring author readings of erotic fiction with comedy, sketches, [and] lashings of burlesque”. They say “ it’s guaranteed to make you laugh, quite likely to make you blush”. They are bringing to us several sketches, a touch of comedy, and an audience competition.

And to top it all off we have an excellent venue in the “spacious yet cozy” Lock, Stock Bar – “once known […] as Bison Bar [it has been] renamed in honour of its cameo appearance in Guy Ritchie’s cult films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” – which can be found just two tube stops away from the Eroticon venue on Coin Street. Here readers and audience members-alike can purchase alcohol (or a drop of dutch-courage, if necessary).

The Lock, Stock Bar is located on the ground floor of Journeys London Bridge Hostel, which offers very cheap accommodation if anyone is still looking for a place to stay! and of course, if you haven’t bought your Eroticon ticket yet you’d better do it soon! as we are now less than three weeks away.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me – Harper Eliot – on harper (at) itgirlragdoll dot com. I look forward to seeing you all at Eroticon!

The post Aural Sex at Eroticon 2013 appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

What is particularly striking about the time at which Gli Asolani was published is that Venice in 1505 was truly at the heart of the Renaissance, and the Renaissance was really the point at which our modern world and our modern way of thinking began. Before that, in the Middle Ages, we still had feudalism and chivalry: but with this rebirth came a kind of enlightenment and a desire for invention. So it is understandable that anything that was born or heralded during the Renaissance period was likely to have a long-lasting impact on the world that came after it.

With all of this in mind, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to suggest that perhaps Gli Asolani may in some small way be responsibile for the way sex is blushed and smirked over in the modern world. It at least bears thinking about; and maybe some further investigation might be worthwhile.

This article is meandering a little as the topic of rebirth does not offer particular evidence to any argument I might want to make. However, it not only seems extremely poignant at this time of year, but also lends itself beautifully to a handful of things I’ve been meaning to mention. Furthermore, I am between two pieces of coursework this week so, for myself, a chance to let the reins loosen on form and structure is a welcome breath of fresh air. But don’t be alarmed! I will still tie this article up at the end by referring you back to Bembo. Never you fear.

Over the past two weeks I’ve read many articles about turning over new leaves and making resolutions; about reflecting on what has gone before and planning what is yet to come. Funnily enough I’ve probably read more articles pointing out that the author is “not the kind of person who makes resolutions”. But one thing seems clear: for the vast majority of us, whether we like it or not, the sense of rebirth, as 2013 begins, is in the air, and we are aware of it. As for myself, I actually love making resolutions, but have found that making them purely because it’s the beginning of the year is a surefire way to meet with failure. So I make resolutions as and when they feel necessary. For example, in May 2012 I decided to stop lying and began to make a concerted effort to always be open and honest, even if that meant being honest about the fact that I have some secrets I am not willing to tell. All in all, I succeeded, and will continue to endeavour to be honest because, on the most basic level, it makes life simpler.

To anyone who has known me for a year or more – me, Harper, that is; or Lady Grinning Soul, as I was formerly known, – it will come as no surprise that I thrive on the concept of rebirth. The very fact that I changed my name, and my website is proof enough. Making such a huge transition comes at a cost, but one I was willing to pay for the excitement of renewal. Add to that the fact that I more recently deleted all my short erotic fiction from this website and heavily edited the non-fiction content, and I’m sure you can see a pattern emerging. There is something extremely addictive about wiping the slate clean and starting again. Speaking of which, I will give a moment’s nod to the fact that I am now ‘out’ as a sex writer and I’m hoping the effects of outing myself will provide some interesting topics later in the year. As yet I am still waiting for the fallout or, in fact, any reaction whatsoever from my family and school friends. Watch this space.

(Another point worth making, and worth researching: with the new year and (if you make them) new resolutions, come new projects. A handful of people have begun or renewed 365 projects – myself included – and others have taken on the more dramatic Day Zero challenge, so the new year also offers the opportunity for new inspiration and new projects to follow.)

But back to my starting point. The Renaissance was actually about the rebirth of antiquity; it was to do with retelling and recreating the stories of Ancient Gods, and great heroes. The idea that the common man is worth artistic attention is, in fact, a fairly recent one which, despite having some exposure in theatre beforehand, wasn’t really considered worthwhile until the birth of the novel in the eighteenth century. However, I think it would be fair to say that, despite its long-standing prevalance, our reverence of antiqutiy has not, actually, lasted until today. It has fallen a little short because of world-changing events like the second world war. Furthermore, if we look at rebirth on a smaller scale, and I’m talking, again, about those new year’s resolutions, they don’t seem to last either.

So – and here’s where I wrap it all up, ever so neatly and eloquently – perhaps Bembo isn’t really to blame for our outdated attitudes to sex, after all.

The post Prosa Sparse: On Rebirth appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

Last year I found that one of the many benefits of studying literature is that as I read and discuss and study, ideas for my own writing organically rise to the surface of my consciousness. Art spawns art. This is has proved to be less true in my second year, but every now and then I’ll come across something that I’d like to try.

When I was in the upper school I spent a month of each of my four years studying the history of literature. By looking at a variety of texts from Gilgamesh to Oedipus Rex to The Tempest to the Lyrical Ballads to Riddley Walker, I was able to gain a rather comprehensive overview of the evolution of literature, and one of the main things I remember from these classes is writing poetry. Whatever era or subject we were studying, we were encouraged to write poetry in a similar style. So I wrote sonnets and villanelles; I wrote in iambic pentameter and trochees; I wrote quatrains and free-verse; and I often enjoyed the freedom of subject juxtaposed with the structure of the form. I also very much liked the way in which I now, in a contemporary setting, I am free to pick and choose from past forms and find one that will fit whatever poem I would like to write.

However, since leaving school, I haven’t written much poetry. There are a few poems on this site, and even one I am quite fond of, but for the most part they’ve been written quickly and without all that much care¹. Poetry is by no means a dying art – there are plenty of poets out there if you care to look for them! – but it is less in the public eye, and has been somewhat usurped by the rise of the novel.

It’s ironic really: when the novel first appeared (around the beginning of the 18th Century), it was looked down upon as a lowbrow form of literature, not fit to sit on shelves besides poetry, romance and epics. Novels were printed to be read once and thrown away, like we might do with a newspaper. Yet now the BBC covers the Man Booker Prize every year, extensively, and I can’t even call to mind the name of a poetry prize – although, again, there are plenty of them.

But I digress…

The reason, I suppose, that I haven’t written much poetry lately is that usually my creative ideas are narrative ideas. Of course, I could write narrative poetry, but it was never my preferred style. My ideas seemed to lend themselves far better to prose. However, given my lack of narrative inspiration, I thought perhaps now would be a good time to return to looking at poetry. This realisation is, of course, heavily influenced by what I’m currently studying – Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer) – and a lecture I had the other night on Early English Poetics. The guest lecturer himself – whose name I wish I could give you, but for privacy reasons I can’t – writes modern poetry in the style of early English poetry. Whilst there are various different forms, I was particularly interested in the structure used in Caedmon’s Hymn, which I looked at a few weeks ago.

Given the structure of this poem and the difference in language, writing in this form using modern English is no small feat. In Old and Middle English (OE, ME), the stresses in words are not standardised, as they are now. For example: in the word ‘genius’ we naturally put the stress on the first syllable – ‘genius’ – and it would sound strange if we were to put it on the second – ‘genius’ – or the third – ‘genius.’ However, in OE and ME, the stresses are flexible, and can change depending on the context and how they are spoken. Therefore OE and ME lend themselves very well to poetry, and when early English poetry was being written, the language was often changed and manipulated to serve the form itself.

The structure used in Caedmon’s Hymn is thus:

• 4 stresses/emphases per line
• 3 alliterations per line
• A caesura² in every line

In terms of the length of the poem and stanzas, there are no hard and fast rules, and in fact, even the above rules are often subverted; for example, some of the lines in this poem use two or four alliterations.

Interestingly, due to the fact that the earliest poetry comes not from written word but from the oral tradition, in the early manuscripts poetry is often written without line breaks. Therefore, modern scholars have used the alliteration to work out the lines.

Using the style of Caedmon’s Hymn, I decided to write a short stanza and test how the form would work in modern English. (The following was written purely to illustrate the form):

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

Perhaps the easiest part of early English poetry to recreate is the alliteration:

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

Although it may pose some challenge when writing with a more intentional subject, and I have done it rather crudely, it is not something alien to us, and is used often in modern poetry.

Of course, writing in modern English it is extremely difficult to have only four stresses per line. However, given the clear form of the poem, we can see where the emphases should perhaps be:

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

I have also inserted commas to illustrate where the caesura would be, although some editors choose to print early English poetry with a physical break between lines to show the importance of the caesura:

Sing to me o’ muse                bring forth my words
And let the meaning             lilting from this
numb mind                            measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables             I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress             as I make the break,
Running without reason       against the rest.

This has quite a dramatic effect on the way the poem looks on the page, and modern poetry is definitely concerned with its appearance as well as its meaning and its sound, but it perhaps says more about the editor than it does the poet.

You can see how many challenges are posed by this mix of old and new, but I think it has the potential to produce some interesting pieces, and to change the way I, at the very least, approach and feel about my work. And hopefully, over the next few weeks, I will feel inspired to write something slightly more interesting than the above.

1. Except for the “one I am quite fond of”, The Minotaur, which is the product of many careful hours’ work.
2. A break in the middle of a line.

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This problem is not exclusive to erotic fiction; you can find people citing fiction as the author’s opinion across all genres of writing; I recently saw someone cite Wordsworth’s The Prelude as Wordsworth’s beliefs, and no one who read the article questioned this assertion. When I started studying Chaucer one of the things I had drummed into my head was that Chaucer’s narrators are always unreliable. Whilst we can speculate that perhaps a particular character might represent the author – Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest springs to mind – we, as readers, can never be certain that this was the author’s intention, nor that he is representing himself correctly. When reading novels we really do have to remember, at all times, that we are reading fiction. Certainly, writers may use fiction to forward their own agenda, or to make a wider point, but still we can never safely place our trust in the voice of our narrators. (It is also notable to remark that many of the greatest narrators are highly unreliable; and that this unreliability really has no impact on the quality of the writing.)

Of course, it is near impossible to say that no narrators reflect their creators’ true feelings, but there is good evidence to show that writers by and large are not writing from their own points of view: first of all, writing candidly as yourself is extremely difficult. There will almost certainly be something a writer will wish to obscure or change about himself. Then of course there is the fact that most authors write in a variety of different voices through many characters during their careers, which makes the idea that narrator and author are one very difficult. Furthermore, anyone who has written for a significant amount of time will know that the desire to inhabit and speak as someone other than himself is almost synonymous with the desire to write itself.

In any case, it seems highly likely that most writers of transgressive fiction have pondered how it will be read, and worried that their fiction might be cited as their own views; I certainly have.

The saying “write what you know” might be a good suggestion for beginners and for those struggling for inspiration, but it would be extremely naïve to assume that all writers are writing what they know. The truth is that, like everything human, the best we can do is observe trends, and carefully cite generalisations on these kinds of things. What seems perfectly true to me is that a writer does not have to be twisted to write a twisted story; he doesn’t not have to be female to write from a woman’s perspective; he does not have to have experienced torture in order to describe it. (In some cases it might help, but it is not necessary.)

But the belief that writers write what they know and from their own perspective means that often, when erotic fiction is read, the reader understands what is written as either something the author has experienced, or something the author wants to experience. What many readers fail to discern is that a writer may be challenging himself. Recently someone suggested to me that writing something you never want to do is a very good exercise. In fact, when I consider my own writing, the only time I wrote pieces which I would have liked to live out in their entirety was when I was a virgin, because at that point most of my writing about sex was aspirational, but even that is a dangerous generalisation as not all the pieces I wrote as a virgin were aspirational.

Perhaps I am selling readers a little short; there is also a very good argument for the idea that erotic fiction authors are writing to arouse and thus their writing must be something they desire; this goes along with the argument that a writer must be aroused by what he is writing in order for it to arouse anyone else. Perhaps erotic fiction is a genre wherein there is a higher percentage of writing written out of the author’s own desires and experiences. However, this is only true if we A) believe that a writer must be aroused by what he writes in order for it to arouse others, and B) that a particular writer’s intention was, indeed, to arouse. These assertions are also difficult; more often than not, neither are true when it comes to my own writing; I receive extremely sexual/aroused feedback on pieces it did not arouse me to write, and I rarely write with the intention to arouse. Having said that, I know writers for whom both of these facts are true. What I am trying to pinpoint is the unreliability of reading on these assumptions.

For the most part it seems that the confusion between author and voice is due to a lack of awareness and a willingness to be carried, thoughtlessly, through the narrative. It would seem like a stretch to say that readers, for the most part, read erotic fiction and, through in-depth thought, come to the conclusion that the writing is autobiographical or aspirational. It seems far more likely that readers simply don’t question the ‘I’ in relation to the author.

Unfortunately this problem shows no signs of abating, and personally, due to the nature of some of my own erotic fiction, it is probably the main reason I choose to remain anonymous. If we, as writers, could be sure that all our readers would accept our words on the assumption that they are probably wholly fictional and the understanding that a writer can be a perfectly reasonable, sensible and even happy human being and also write extremely dark and transgressive stories, I for one would be far more open about who I am and what I write. As it is, the fact that someone might read any one of my more transgressive stories and assume that what I’ve written is what I want, is worrying. Worse still if someone then used that assumption to falsely represent me. Of course, putting anything you create into the public domain means you will be scrutinised whether you wish to be or not, but I feel that the least we as creatives can do is contemplate and attempt to marginalise the damage it may cause.

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