Do You Read Erotica?

Until three years ago, I posted on this blog regularly, then decided I needed to take a break. As I promised on January 1 of this year, I plan to continue posting to this blog – at least until I need another break.

Every November, there is an event called “NaNoWriMo,” which means “National Novel Writing Month.” The idea is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. At the end of that time, you “copy and paste” your entire novel into their word counting machine. The website assures us that no one reads the novel and that it is destroyed after counting the words.

This past November, I managed to write 50,243 words on a novel. At this point, I need to do a fleshing out of what I wrote, hoping to make it into a novel worth reading.

What I wrote ended up being more erotic than I planned at the outset. I don’t mean that it is pornographic in the sense that it has graphic details of the sex act, but it does contain some of the kinkier sides of relationships.

Evidently there isn’t anything wrong with writing (or reading) kinky novels, as we can see from the recent roaring success of the Fifty Shades of Gray series by E. L. James. Yes, I read all three, and liked the fact that it contained what many consider “kinky” within a romantic relationship.

Nearly thirty years earlier, Anne Rice (writing as A.N. Roquelaure) had written the Beauty series based on the fairy tale of “The Sleeping Beauty.” This trilogy was definitely kinky, and many of us wrapped it in brown paper to read it. Anne wrote other books (under the name “Anne Rampling”) that were considered “edgy” or forbidden, and yes, I enjoyed those as well.

Some of us were not new to kink, but to see it in print by a well-known author was certainly different. There was a chat group online in the late 70s that explored kinky issues such as BdSm, D/s and more. I met someone in that room that is still a dear friend today.

Several of the women in the Human Sexuality class I teach were discussing Fifty Shades and one had brought her copy. They were embarrassed that I happened to see it. I told them I had read the series and they were surprised, although they have no idea this is a blog I write.

So why am I embarrassed about writing a novel that includes Swinging and Domestic Discipline, and anything else I could throw in? Why has this become so popular, and yet be thought so naughty? How many of my readers think it is time we came out of the closet, so to speak, about our interest in reading or writing literature that contains a bit (or a lot) of kink?

I welcome your comments!

Fanny