Can Erotica Be Literate?

There are many genres of writing and many subcategories within each genre.

Even a genre like “mystery” has several categories. I love all kinds of mystery stories, and some more than others. If written well and if a story has enough of a plot, I can enjoy a good “cozy” as much as a “thriller” or “suspense.” In other words, I am captured as much by the technique and uniqueness of the story as I am the genre.

Those of us who read and write in the erotica genre know that there are as many subcategories of that as of anything else. We can find everything from “sweet and romantic” to “kinky as hell.” Erotica is nothing new and we find it as far back as Ancient Greece and Rome. Sex will always sell because both women and men enjoy being titillated.

So here are a few of my questions about the genre of erotica:

• Why do so many people write erotica today with no story or plot?
•  Why do writers think they can get away with poor grammar and bad spelling?
•  Is it just the sex act they are trying to portray?
• Why is some of it even just bad sex?

In my own jaded way of thinking, I want the erotica I read to also give me more than simply “insert A into B and wiggle.” Is it just because I’m a female? Don’t men enjoy good literature as much as women?

Tie her up, give him a blowjob (yes, that’s all one word, not two), play at BDSM, do whatever you want to each other (at least anything that is Safe, Sane, and Consensual), but please, please give me a good story to go with it. Use spell check and grammar check, use a Thesaurus to find new and intriguing words, read good books on characterization and plotting, and be as creative as you can be. There may be nothing new in this world of sexuality, but it can still be fun, fascinating, and literate.

I will be publishing a few of my own stories soon, and I hope you will call me on it if you think I’ve written something that is nothing more than a technique for masturbation. I’ll let you know when my imagination is ready to be made public.

I blow you a kiss ~ ~

Fanny Jane Lucette