The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 – New Anthology Release

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Adrea Kore, Anthology Release, authenticity in writing, BDSM, conscious sexuality, Desire, erotic fiction, erotica, Female Sexuality, Kinks, multiple orgasms, rope, sexuality, Shibari, The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2

Kink. It’s an interesting word, in terms of its etymology.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, defines it quite thoroughly:

1: a short tight twist or curl caused by a doubling or winding of something upon itself

2a : a mental or physical peculiarity : eccentricity, quirk

b : whim

3: a clever or unusual way of doing something

4: a cramp in some part of the body

5: an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something

6: unconventional sexual taste or behavior

 

I’m thrilled and honoured to have my story “Roped In” selected to feature in The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2, published by Cleis Press and edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

The overarching kink explored in this anthology is, as the title suggests, the act of submission. Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel asserts in the Introduction that there are “so many ways to be submissive” and these stories artfully reveal that the spectrum of submissive scenarios, desires, and behaviours are as broad, creative and as varied as human sexuality itself.

The anthology boasts an array of stories that delve not just into the heat and eroticism of the physical sex, but, just as importantly, the psyche, emotions and sensations of the submissive state, and the dynamics of the relationship(s) that make these experiences possible. These more complex layers, in many of the stories I’ve read so far, are executed with startling insight, imagery and intelligence.

To quote from a glowing 4.5 star review for The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 by blogger Bitches n Prose:

“… some of the things you can expect in the way of kink: BDSM (obviously), bondage, rope, training, power struggles, pet play, spanking, a host of different toys, affairs, pegging, role play, blades, gender play, tickling, different time periods, accents/language, food, and strangers. There’s bound (pun intended) to be something on this list that sets off your fires.”

As I’ve just begun reading the stories in my glossy, newly received author copy, I’ve been reflecting on these various meanings of the word “kink”, and how they can all apply to the concept of sexual kink: in physical, psychological, emotional and cultural terms. For example, there are depictions of the mental state of submissive desire akin to (1) “a short tight twist or curl caused by a … winding of something upon itself” in stories such as Sommer Marsden’s “Lightning Strike” and Anna Sky’s “Imago”; a twist that is only released when the desire is indulged or allowed.

Many stories expound on the emotional and psychological aspects of submission as (2) “a mental or physical peculiarity : eccentricity or quirk”, such as the eroticizing of shame in Jo Henny Wolf’s “Words” and the exhilaration that is felt when it is witnessed and accepted (or punished) by their Dominant partner. These quirks and peculiarities become portals to the submissive’s pleasure. As for “whims”, these are indulged aplenty; by following an erotic whim, many a story is born.

“A clever or unusual way of doing something”(3): If that “something” is sex, foreplay, the art of arousing another … then this definition is well and truly covered by the anthology as a whole.

Many of the characters experience their submissive needs for pain, humiliation, or domination, when unfulfilled, as physical pain, akin to “a cramp in some part of the body.” The story often unfolds around easing that cramp, releasing that tension.

For some people, knowing you have certain “kinks” can make them feel like they have a secret they have to hide, or that they themselves are (5) “an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something”. By “something”, read conventional society. Many workplace cultures. Conservative families. Anthologies like The Big Book of Submission create vital, permissive spaces for the exploration of alternative pleasures. And kinks.

As a sexual being, I’ve known I was into restraint for a long time. If I could pinpoint the first moment, it would be when I was 20 and my first serious boyfriend, a blacksmith and blues singer, tied me up in the four-poster iron bed he’d designed and made himself. Two decades my senior, he made very effective use of those four bedposts. The foreplay and the sex was electrifying, and I suppose (however unconsciously) it was then I discovered that a little restraint in the sex-play magnified both the intensity of my orgasms and the number of them.

One could say it was natural progression that I went on to blindfolding my next boyfriend, stripping him and tying him, limbs splayed, to my big kitchen table, before having my way with him. Ahem. Enough self-revelation.

These two experiences are way back in my past, before I’d ever heard of the terms “kinky” or BDSM. I was just exploratory and creative and enjoyed finding ways to enhance sensations or sensory experience – for myself and others. I say this to simply point out that even if you don’t identify as “kinky” or of alternate sexuality, you’re likely to find plenty to enjoy in this anthology.

So maybe my own brand of kink is version (3): “a clever or unusual way of doing something.”

I’ve written before that I don’t really relate to the terms “Dominant” or “submissive”, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t explored and embodied both states, in my life and on the page. Nor does it mean I can’t engage with stories employing this framework.

What I’m enjoying in these stories is that each author is defining what it means to be submissive for themselves, and through their characters. And I think this is one of the strengths of this anthology – all the more apparent because of the intent and vision of the editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Assembled together, the stories truly showcase the diversity of submissive experiences. And in reading them, it’s like wandering through a kink club, and being able to magically slip into the skin and sensations of many different bodies /genders in different scenes throughout the various spaces.

More recently, I’ve had a few experiences with the intricate and erotic art of Shibari (erotic rope bondage). I’ve been a rope model, as well as exploring using rope in a sexuality workshop. As a writer, I wanted to explore elements of the practice of Shibari and some of the seemingly indescribable kinesthetic reactions I’ve had to being bound. As my character Yasmin says, it felt “beyond words”: the writer in me wanted to find the words.

Much of the action of “Roped In” takes place in a sexuality workshop. For several years, a lot of my sexual growth and exploration took place in these kinds of workshops, as I was studying to be a Tantric sex practitioner. In fact, some of my peak orgasmic and sexual experiences happened in these groups. I wanted to “demystify” some elements of the sex-positive lifestyle by setting the story in a similar kind of workshop space. These spaces are where I learnt and experienced so much about my sexuality and sexual relating; I hoped to show my characters learning skills they could use to enrich their own relationship.

Below is a little preview to “Roped In” – from the opening:

I thought I knew what rope felt like. Hard, salt-roughed rope that rigged a sail. The chafe of hessian rope against thigh on a make-shift swing. And knots? Practical things. Functional elements that kept your shoes on.

But this; this seductive slither of an embrace, trailing around my neck, snaking over and around both arms, encircling my waist like a possessive lover, this, I am not prepared for.

He hasn’t even tied a knot yet.

You wanted me here. Wanted to experience more (how did you put it?) elaborate possibilities than tying my wrists to the headboard.

 

*  *  *

So, discerning reader, whether your “kinkiness” is something you explore solely on the page, or whether you dip your toes in occasionally to kinky waters, or whether you’re the 24/7 kind of kinkster, you’re sure to find stories that intrigue, arouse, and galvanize you between these pages.

A huge “Congratulations” to all 69 authors! And thanks to publisher Cleis Press and to editor Rachel Kramer Bussel for making this anthology possible.

UPDATE: I’m so excited by the news that New York’s Publisher’s Weekly has reviewed the anthology very favourably, and that my story merited a mention, alongside authors Zodian Gray, Angela R. Sargenti, Dr J, Anna Sky and Giselle Renarde. You can read the review below.

The Big Book of Submission: Volume 2 – 69 Kinky Tales

So Many Ways to be Submissive …

(Available in E-Book or Paperback – Click on the Image to go straight to Amazon, or other buy-links below)

 

Nook

Google Play

Audio Book available soon via Audible

Read the Reviews

Chrissi Sepe

Bitches n Prose

Publisher’s Weekly

 

Read More by the Editor

 

 

 

Re-Imagining Feminine Desire: A New Face for Myth and Fairytales

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Adrea Kore, Anthology Release, Desire, Erotic Fairytales, erotic poetry, Fairytale Re-Tellings, Female Sexuality, Feminine Rites of Passage, Greek Mythology, Lustily Ever After, Myth Re-tellings, Persephone, Published Poetry

Fairy tales and myths can still speak powerfully to readers, despite the distance between when they were written and where we are now, as a contemporary audience. According to writer Sanjida O’ Connell, recent research indicates that “fairy tales are ancient, at least one dates back to the Bronze Age, whilst others, such as Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin, are over 4,000 years old.”

Narrative is part of the human psyche, the way we explain the world to ourselves and each other.

How is it that a fairytale we loved as a child can still resonate strongly for us as an adult? One reason is that fairy tales and myths are dense with symbols and archetypes, elements which hold a multiplicity of meanings, depending on who is doing the looking, and from what angle. What engages us as a child and what engages us as an adult in the same tale, may be diferent elements. The tale grows with us, in a manner of speaking.

How a story is told depends on who is doing the telling.

A writer, intent on creating more relevant meanings for a contemporary female audience, may find the narrative and archetypal characters of many myths and fairy tales pliable to re-interpretation and re-attribution of meanings. We are not so far removed, it seems, from understanding Rapunzel’s isolation, or  Cinderella’s longing ffor love and social acceptance, but a modern writer might contextualize it differently, emphasise different elements. Sanjida O’Connell expresses this beautifully:

“Narrative is part of the human psyche, the way we explain the world to ourselves and each other.”

Or as surrealist Elizabeth Lenk described this sense of timelessness in myth and fairytale, “the walls between time periods are extremely close to one another.” I like this idea; that as women writers, we might put our ear to a metaphorical wall and hear the story of Bluebeard’s wife or Persephone as if it is going on in the next room, as if it is close to us. Hearing only fragments, we create different interpretations, that speak to contemporary readers.

Although I adored and devoured fairy tales as a child, it’s hard not to look at them now through feminist eyes. When I read myths and fairytales now, I feel as if I am searching for clues, traces of the older, oral versions between the lines. The versions that women told to each other, mother to daughter, around the hearth. Writer Cate Fricke reminds us that “as rife with violence as they are, fairy tales are in fact women’s stories, and always have been.”

As O’Connell asserts, though the tales “may begin in such a cosy way, make no mistake – fairy stories are dark tales of misogyny, social climbing, child abuse and infanticide.” Many traditional myths and fairy tales tend to ascribe very traditional, polarized roles to women. They are often either the “good” woman:

• wife
• mother
• virgin
• daughter

Or the bad, trouble-making woman:

•  outcast / beggar
•  nagging wife (harridan)
•  witch
• temptress.

Additionally, the play and power of female sexuality is often submerged or sidelined, hidden behind the desires and needs of male characters in patriarchal worlds. One of my favourite collections of re-imagined fairy tales is Angela Carter’s  The Bloody Chamber, in part because she found ways to make the themes of  female sexuality more explicit and central to the narrative than in the originals, and wrote them in a way that questioned the roles of women in patriarchal societies and the limited choices they had, often creating new paths of action and possiblility for her female characters.

Another significant difference in these modern re-tellings is they are often narrated in first-person – the central female character is not mute or passive; she has her own voice, tells her own story, rather than it being recounted by an impersonal, authoritative narrator.

From an introductory essay to a volume of science-fiction and fantasy stories written by women (She’s Fantastical, Sybylla Press 1995), writer Ursula Le Guin observes:

“In the last thirty years or so, as women have taken to writing as women, not as honorary or artificial men, it’s become clear that they see a rather different world, and describe it by rather different means. The most startling difference is that men aren’t at the centre of it …”

Chords of Desire (Erotic Fiction Excerpt)

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Adrea Kore, Cello, Creative Process, Desire, erotic dreams, erotic fiction, Female Sexuality, Fiction Excerpt, Inspiration, short story, women writing sex, Writing Process

Lights up.

There are two bodies, up here on stage.

One is of cool flesh, lavender-scented. Sleek, dark hair, parted perfectly in the centre, is pulled back into a chignon, revealing the white arc of throat, the shadow formed by the sweep of her jawline as she bends her head in concentration. Black silk accentuates the pale sheen of her skin, her dress cut wide against the shoulders to reveal her collarbones, and the stretch of her swan-like throat. Slender hips cradle a spine which draws itself, erect as a candle-flame, towards the ceiling. She has arms of alabaster, impossibly long, arms of a conjuress.  Her eyes are closed, her nostrils open. She breathes music into her, as if it were all she needed to exist. All senses are focused on this other body, gripped between her thighs; this body of violent swells and curves so different to her own.

I am smooth and gleaming, the light from the chandelier creating honeyed ripples on the surface of my flesh, flesh of maple.  I am shaped to hold secrets. I am hollow, yet fecund.  Bodies such as mine are made for the fervent embrace.  Flesh such as mine will not erode easily, even from the rituals of the most devout of lovers. 

My senses are so exquisitely honed that a flutter of fingers at my throat forges fire in my womb. I feel the strength of the thighs which clasp my hips, the tender determination of her hands upon my spine.

I cannot but yield up my music.

Is this how I was born into consciousness, the bow keening across my strings, animating them with music? My cords, through which I sing and speak, and feel. She calls me Seraphine, her burning one, her angel. No matter where we are in the world, I feel as if I am always here; caught in light, cradled in her arms, pivoting on a single point of pain like a ballerina, poised between grace and chaos.

She makes love to me each night on stage, each performance a fresh seduction.  Together, we weave sound and silence into incantations which bewitch and benumb those who listen.

Those who come to sit in the dark and watch are nearly always men, no matter if we play in the theatres of Paris, New York or Cairo.  It is when the lights are directed away from them, when lulled into the roles of mere observers, that the truth of their lives is revealed in their faces, all yearnings and disillusions.  Men with hungering eyes and lonely mouths.  Men with laden wallets and leaden hearts.  There, in the embrace of the illuminating dark, they become my performance.

I am of wood, yet something of me is woman.

 

I love my mistress. But she has a heart made of wood. She does not respond to the caresses of love. It is only music that makes her soft, Bach that brings fire to her cheeks, Schumann that coaxes a languorous curve from her lips. Only for Brahms does her body quiver, her sex yielding to the vibrations of the notes through my body, becoming moist with desire. But for what? Strangely, it is I who long for the touch of a man, I who am fashioned from the finest of maple wood.

Perhaps, one night, whilst playing me in a frenzy of passion, she transferred her heart to me.

There are stories woven into the sinews of my strings. My mistress slices her bow along them like a scalpel.

But there are stories and there are secrets. The secrets I keep deep in the hollow of my body. These she shall not have.

I love my mistress. But equally, I love desire itself, the sensual energy that dances between two beings.  And if I cannot be completely fulfilled myself, then to invoke desire in others is what I will do.

 

* 

‘A dream, like trying to remember, breaks open words for other, hidden meanings.’

Rosmarie Waldrop

This is a curated excerpt of a story that was seeded in my psyche sixteen years ago, when I had an incredibly erotic dream. I was a cello, being played to an audience of only men, in tuxedoes. I could feel the music pouring out of me as if they were physical sensations, my whole body was full of this incredible cello music, and I woke up in the middle of some intense krias (a Tantric word, describing the movement or release of orgasmic energy through the body). I had woken up my boyfriend with my sounds and writhing, and I could still hear the music in my head, as I described the dream to him. The telling of the dream had an erotic effect on him too, and we umm … didn’t sleep for quite a while.

Over the next few days, I wrote about three pages of what the dream had evoked for me. It was the beginning of my first erotica story, and the words felt as if they were pouring out like streams of melody – but I couldn’t tie together the passages. Flash forward sixteen years, with several attempts in-between. I finally finshed it recently. Interestingly, I used almost all of the original material, but found my way into the “narrative gaps” to write a more fully-formed story.

Around the writing of a story, are often other stories.

Plots are something I used to struggle with, as a younger writer. That, I believe, is what hindered me from shaping the “scenes”, moments and characters I so strongly envisaged into stories. So, I am developing my “narrative muscle” with each story I work on – and complete.

To develop a strong sense of resilience and healthy writer-ego, I believe the completion of one’s creative ideas is crucial. Half-finished ideas have a terrible tendency to haunt you.

The defintion of a chord is:

Three or more notes that combine harmoniously.

And Chords of Desire is actually told from the perspectives of three characters: three characters that sound their own unique note on the exploration of desire, three characters bound together by its power. This excerpt is just after a short prelude that begins the story, and is from the cello Seraphine’s perspective. That initial dream, the surreal fact that I was the cello, and could think and feel, always meant she was going to be a sentient character. She could be said to embody feminne desire. Inevitably, this story weaves elements of magical realism into its narrative.

I’m still searching for a home for this story – if any editor or publisher reading it feels it might resonate with their publication, or indeed if any writer knows a place that its style would be at home in, please do feel free to comment or write me here. The full version is around 4000 words. Paid publication leads only, please.

As always, this writer very much appreciates reades who take a moment to let to me know their thoughts on how the story has connected with them.

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Dangerous Curves: Erotic Flash Fiction by Adrea Kore

Tags

Adrea Kore, BDSM, Desire, Femme-Doms, Flash Fiction, Published Fiction, sexual fantasies

The text said she had to see him. Now. He drove the coast route, tyres squealing, taking the curves way too fast.

That’s what she’d told him the first time.

“Slow down, kid. My curves are the scenic route kind.”

She’d slashed with her whip, millimetres from his cock. Bowing his head, he’d kissed her boots, begging for forgiveness. Jade.

From then on, he was hers.

What will be her pleasure tonight, he wondered. Last time it was candlewax. Dripped hot on his nipples. Take-away noodles forgotten beside him, he strokes his keyring, a miniature jade riding crop.

“To remind you to jump, like an obedient stallion, when I want you,” she’d teased, dangling it cool against his testicles.

Her tiger-clawed fingernails had inscribed welts in his back, her sex flowing like the Mississippi by the time she’d finished taunting him, and allowed him to fuck her.  Jade …

Finally at her doorstep. Mouth dry with anticipation, his tongue felt wound in wool as he announced his arrival over the intercom.

“Your stallion is here, Mistress,” he rasped.

The Lover’s Playground: Friday Flash #9

Tags

Adrea Kore, Desire, Flash Fiction, Friday Flash, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, sexual relating, sexuality

It had become their sweet mid-week ritual.

Pasta at their local trattoria, served in huge parmesan-laced bowls, with a shared bottle of red. Their legs, under the table, intertwined like strands of tagliatelle.

Afterwards, they’d stroll three doors down for gelati, choosing their cool palette of pastel flavours, sampling from each other’s cups as the sweet mounds softened in the summer-night air.

They’d walk home through the quiet back-streets, taking slightly different routes, yet always arriving at the playground.

Carrie had come to think of it as their playground. Their twilight play-time world, after all the children were gone for the day.

Along the back of old wooden palings separating a back yard from the playground, the words “Love is Love”, in florid spray-painted flourishes, always made her smile. They had joked that the graffiti artist was no philosopher.

Chris would settle her on the swing, seat generous enough to cup the ample curves of her very grown-up buttocks. Standing behind, he’d wrap his arms around her, swaying gently, allowing the swing to take their gravity. Then he’d start to push her, sending the little girl in her skyward, squealing, higher and higher.

Carrie had come to think of it as their playground. Their twilight play-time world, after all the children were gone for the day.

One night, while she was still dizzy from the swing, he knelt in front of her, running his hands up the inside of her thighs.

“You haven’t got any underwear on.”  He gripped the chains, pulling the swing towards his waiting mouth.

“Too hot …” she murmured, as his tongue delved into her depths. Head back, gasping, she swallowed stars.

Striking Chords of Metaphor in Fiction-Writing (I)

Tags

Creative Process, Desire, erotic fiction, Figurative language, Inspiration, Metaphor in Fiction, On Writing, Take Pen in Hand

I am fishing. Trying to lure an idea, hook it, pull it to the surface. I want to cut it open and see what’s inside. I want to show what I know about this slippery, incandescent, underwater creature.

In writing this, I use the very thing I want to write about as my way of writing about it.

Metaphor.

Defined as “a figure of speech in which one thing is identified with another”, the word metaphor originates from the Greek word metapherein – meaning “to transfer“.

So how do I write about this creature, this chimera, that has kept me connected to the miracle of words and stories ever since I could first absorb a story whole, and breathe out wonderment? Ever since I first felt the power of story to transfer my senses, my very being, to another time and place? How do I write about this element of language that to me is like alchemy? (That’s a simile, by the way; when one thing is likened to another.) String a sequence of discrete words together and suddenly it’s possible to create meaning, magic, metaphor. Alchemy. Yet only certain sequences of words will speak and sing to us in this way. Some remain firmly in the realm of the mundane and in plenty of instances, that’s all that’s required; to get a character out of a room and into a forest, to indicate where the gun is kept, or how the dress is unzipped.

But I want to talk about the other use for sentences – when they transcend their form and boundaries, and become more than what they appear at first glance. Although i feel I know more than a little about how to weave metaphor into writing, I know less about how to extract it out of the writing process, to hold it up to the light and discuss it in a way that may reveal something to you – the writer-as-reader. This may be my first attempt. I’m sure it won’t be my last.

Why write with metaphors? Paradoxically, describing one thing as another may be the best way to acquaint your idea with your reader. Metaphors can create a sense of the universal in the particular. Your reader may never have gone sky-diving, but when you describe it as being suspended, weightless, swimming through clouds, they’ve probably floated in some kind of body of water before, and experienced that sense of weightlessness.

Metaphors may shine a light onto the obscure; open doors and windows onto an experience deemed impossible to write about. Finding the right metaphor(s) may help you find the right audience.

Look at Patrick Suskind’s Perfume and his intriguingly complex metaphor of the power and impact of scent; scent as the purest expression of life-force, scent as obsession. Suskind immersed us in Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s perspective right from the opening; describing eighteenth-century Paris via its melange of smells. Why did this work so well? Firstly, because it was an original departure from the predominant tendency for writers to describe setting in visual terms, and secondly because nearly every being on earth has experienced the affective and arousing power of scent in some instance in their lives.

Without this web of metaphor as a driving force in the main character’s psychological and physiological drives, which in turn heavily influenced the narrative action, this story may have been little more than a macabre and unfeeling account of a perverse, amoral serial killer toward which readers may have had little sympathy. Without this evocative use of metaphor, Perfume may not have found its audience.

Having just written two (rather long and significant) short stories that were both rich with metaphor in less than a month, the process left me reflecting on the role of metaphor in my writing; how I harness what might, in initial drafts, be an instinctual (and sometimes random) wielding of them, and develop their presence in subsequent drafts. I also try to harmonise the selection of metaphors I use. This is why the image of metaphors as chords occurred to me as I was searching for a title for this series. The concept was also on my mind, as one of my new stories is about music and was called Chords of Desire.

Chords are defined as three or more notes that combine harmoniously. The notes are melodic in themselves, yet re/sound more intricately when played – and heard – together. In writing, one can work with metaphors in this way, too. The selection of metaphors can create cumulatively harmonious meanings throughout your story. I’ll be discussing the crafting of metaphor, using my work on these stories, in more detail in the second post in this series.

Using metaphor feels instinctual to me. Yet I do encounter work almost entirely devoid of metaphor, or work where the use of metaphor is clumsy or inconsistent; where it appears contrived, or pasted over the top; dislocated from the heart of the story.This suggests to me that using metaphor in writing is innate to some, and not to others. It also suggests that it’s a skill, a way of seeing, that can be developed and deepened. Mark Tredinnick, author of The Little Red Writing Book says this of metaphor:

“But make sure nothing you do just decorates your writing. It should serve your subject matter (by getting at its nature and it soul); it should help your readers (by pleasing them in itself and by making the reading more than a merely literal experience); it should animate your sentences (by giving them colour and attitude and music).”

Earthing Eros : the Makings of Erotica

Tags

Anais Nin, Delta of Venus, Desire, Eros, erotic fiction, erotica, Female Sexuality, Peek Hour, sexuality, Taboo, Tobsha Learner, Transgression

I sometimes get asked by readers and acquaintances new to the erotica genre what makes a piece of fiction “erotica”?  What distinguishes it from other fiction genres? And recently, some other erotica writers and I have been mulling over the question in a forum. Considering the diversity of erotica out there, the answer appears difficult to define.

A story can contain sex as an element, and yet not be erotica.

A story can be erotica, and yet not have an obvious sex scene in it.

“What?” I hear you ask. “Well, how do you know if it’s erotica?”

It is my observation from both reading and writing erotica that there are three primary elements present in a piece of fiction that place it within the genre of erotica: framing, focus and intent.

 Framing – The Erotic Gaze

In erotica, sex is the lens through which the character, events and themes of the story are framed. Effective erotica does not negate crafted story-telling – author Tobsha Learner in The Zipless Read reminds us that “like all good writing this does involve setting up the attraction, the obstacles, the psychology … of the characters”. This lens is then kept tightly focused on what occurs or is revealed through the characters’ sexual desires, thoughts, feelings and actions.  These elements are the vital components of the story, not merely floral embellishments; they are central to the plot, themes and character development. Remove the sexual elements, and the story collapses in on itself, disintegrates like the average short-term sexual-romantic relationship. Remove the sex or sexual elements, and there simply won’t be a story.

In non-erotica fiction genres such as mystery or historical drama, if there are sexual elements, they are not core to the central theme of the story. Sexual elements may illustrate an aspect of the development of a relationship, or the end of one, and be part of a sub-plot. But the main spine of the story is not the sex. Character growth and plot development might be mapped through depicting a descent into madness, or the recounting of a road trip, or the unravelling of a mystery.

So, what about romance? Doesn’t this genre have sex as a central element to the story? Along with emotional and psychological imperatives, yes, undoubtedly it does. But here, we move onto the element of focus, and see that the focus on sex in erotica differs in ways both subtle and substantial to romance.

Focus – Eros Up-Close

I spent half a semester at Uni studying the romance novel in a subject on popular culture, and I’ve retained very little of it. Except as an opportunity for feminist analysis, romance novels bored me,  and my discovery of interesting writing about sex such as Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus was a couple of years away. But I do recall that Mills and Boons novels are written to certain plot formulas – the desirable Mr Aloof must be introduced by page 7, the first obstacle to their union must occur by page 43 – that sort of thing. The formulaic approach alarmed my inner creative writer, and also disturbed me, because I believe fundamentally in the individuality of the reader and what the reader brings to the text. This is not an academic analysis of the romance novel. But I will draw some comparisons; how the focus on sex  achieves differing functions in the two genres.

Erotica, in comparison to romance, is generally far more explicit about the sexual acts and aspects. The remnants of ejaculate drying across the belly are as worthy of focus as the delirious intensity of mutual orgasm. Where romance revels in painting in pleasing sunset hues and sweeping brushstrokes the gloss of ‘perfect’ sex with perfect or almost-perfect people, the “erotic gaze” permits both this, but also the grainy close-ups, the incomplete orgasm, the portrayal of scars and flaws of the body and psyche as sexy.

Tobsha’s article observes that readers want to be “in the skin” of the protagonists, feeling “the aching frustration and longing and then the blissful release of orgasm, both in the emotional, physical and sometimes spiritual sense.” This kind of interiority begets a particular focus to the writing, a focus on the sensory and emotional realms. A focus on relating to the world and to the lover through the detail and delight of all of the senses. Language gets textural, sensual and becomes finely attuned to the smells of different skins, the sounds of arousal and orgasm. As Nin passionately declares about erotic writing in the preface to Delta, “how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships that change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities.”

Language gets textural, sensual and becomes finely attuned to the smells of different skins, the sounds of arousal and orgasm.

Erotica delves into the ambiguous, the taboo, the grotesque. Romance does not. It is comfortable with portraying these things alongside the sensual, the ecstatic, the celebratory elements of sex. Delta of Venus contains stories that explore bestiality, incestuous desires, paedophilia, and non-consensual sex, as well as more socially conventional themes of mutual seduction, virgins deflowered, and sexual awakenings.

Erotica can have a sense of humour about the messiness and awkwardness of sex, whereas romance takes itself very seriously.

Erotica can explore the eccentricities of human sexuality. In Tobsha Learner’s The Man Who Loved Sound, audiologist Quin falls in love with women via the tones and timbres of their voices. In Peek Hour I turn the misogynist tables and create a female voyeur character with an unrelenting case of penephilia (love of and enthusiasm for the penis). Romance sits within the narrow spectrum of normalcy – it is homogenised and pasteurised desire. It is also by and large heterosexual and monocentric, whereas erotica permits the exploration of alternative sexualities such as polyamory, kink, gay, queer and open relationships.

In this genre named after him, Eros can possess both god-like attributes and the frailties of humanity. Sometimes he misfires his arrows. Sometimes he refrains from flying, and takes the train.

Sex as a focus in erotica can be simply for its own sake. It can explore excessive, subversive, dangerous and addictive sexual behaviour without rancour. It can, but does not have to situate sex as a bonding activity, unlike romance. The characters that have sex do not have to live happily ever after. They do not even have to enjoy sex, depending on the intention of the writer.

Which brings me to the final aspect of erotic writing – that of intent. But, as it’s my intent to have your company for a little longer … that will be a whole other blog post.

Coming soon …

 FOR WRITING TIPS & INSPIRATIONAL TWEETS  

‘Just a Fantasy?’ – Honouring Our Sexual Imaginations – 1

Tags

Adrea Kore, Desire, sexual fantasies, sexual fantasy, sexual relating, sexuality

“It’s just a fantasy, but …”

How many times have you said this to yourself about a dream or imagined scenario, then tried to dismiss it from your mind? You’ve tried to dismiss this image,  scenario or compelling thought that got you hot, made your eyes sparkle, and gave you – even if for a few moments – a feeling of vitality, or perhaps even power. Then you’ve dismissed it from your mind, and got on with the important business of rational, everyday living.

Or perhaps you’ve had someone close to you say this (a lover or close friend), then divulge something they find hard to express? And their words have seemed cloaked in a tone of shame, embarrassment, or wistfulness.

Why are so many of us conditioned to give so little attention to our sexual fantasies, to not see them as important? As important, say, as that great idea in that last business meeting that got the bosses’ attention, and on following it through, got us a promotion.

The slippery world of advertising is constantly trying to sell us things through tapping into common elements of sexual fantasies, but these ‘packaged dreams’ will never be as unique as your own.

Reframing our ideas about sexual fantasies can bring us into more positive relationship with our “secret sexual selves” – those aspects we may hide from ourselves and others, feeling that they are shameful, unacceptable or taboo. Yet unearthing and expressing these fantasies often hold the potential to re-connect us to our sexual aliveness and authenticity.

A sexual fantasy can be about:

          What we are doing.

          What is being done to us

          OR both.

It can be about imagining experiences, sensations, or scenarios in which you are directly involved, or watching –or both.

Fantasies can be about pain or pleasure or both.

And what one person perceives as pain may be another person’s version of pleasure. Flogging, spanking, neck-biting, nipple-clamping … these are just some examples of activities that individuals may have vastly different responses to. But is anyone wrong for fantasising or not fantasising about these elements? No.

This is the nature of a sexual fantasy: like a signature it is unique to you, and tells a story about you. Where you have been, who you are right now, and where you desire to go.

So what might be ways that we can “give voice” to our sexual fantasies, allowing the whole of our sexuality to speak? I’ll be exploring this more in the next installment of this post, as well as other questions around acknowledging and exploring sexual fantasies.

I’m a relatively new fish in the big blogging pond, but in reviewing my blog stats today, I noticed that my two or three ‘sexual fantasies‘ tags on this blog brought sixteen people to my blog in the last month. That’s a search every second day. That’s quite a lot of curiosity around one particular subject …

This isn’t surprising at all to me. Becoming an erotica writer has increased my ability to pay attention to this part of my imagination. And strengthened my belief that this aspect of ourselves has a vital connection to increased self-awareness, creativity, sexual fulfillment – and healing.

“The erotic can never be restricted to the body alone; the imagination always plays a part.”

Margaret Reynolds (Erotica Anthology)

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting more on this topic. Recently I ran a workshop at a weekend festival around sexuality on this very topic, which I’ll also be drawing some observations and material from. I’d love to hear your thoughts on sexual fantasies, too. Come on – let’s make it a conversation … I hate monologues.

Stay tuned, and meanwhile, sweet, sexy dreams …

Sex & Eroticism on Film

Tags

Anais Nin, Betty Blue, Desire, erotic arts, film, Film Reviews, sexual fantasies, Shortbus, Story of O, The Hunger

Reading can inspire me creatively – but so can art and film. I’m a very visual person. So immersing myself in an exhibition on ‘The Nude’ or a compelling film that emanates eroticism are also ways to get ideas flowing. And other things …

Film as a medium has to do so much more to succeed in being sexy or erotic; moreso than a story, which is reliant soley on language (and its connection with the readers’ imagination) to establish erotic atmosphere. There are the elements of script, casting, cinematography, editing, lighting, settings, costume. Pacing (an editing factor) is also crucial, I think. The pace has to match the mood, the subject. And all of these elements have to work together to form a cohesive whole. It only takes one aspect to be sub-standard (acting or dialogue, for example) to undermine the effect of the whole.

Finding and waching erotic films, and compiling my own list of ‘must-sees’ is one of my little life pleasures. And it’s a wonderful thing to introduce someone to, as well. Add red wine, a comfortable couch and a fire and you have a VERY sexy night in… So – here is my list – my top Ten Erotic Films that I’d recommend. In no particular order. Over time, I’m going to add a review to each of these. Welcome to my virtual Cinema of Sensual Pleasures … Please sit back, relax and enjoy ..<3

‘Best Enjoyed Hard’ – Ripe Ideas & Fruity Poetry

Tags

Adrea Kore, Creative Process, Desire, erotic poetry, Little Raven, On Writing, sexuality

It’s not that I’m not enjoying
the soft fruit of your kiss
the luscious suck of lower lip
It’s just that I hunger for harder

I hope you’ve enjoyed my series of Posts this week focusing on erotic poetry. Perhaps something has inspired you to try penning your own, or you’ve discovered new authors through some of the erotic poetry I’ve featured, such as Adrienne Rich and Sappho. I’d love to hear from you with what you liked, or how any of my posts this week inspired you.

A poem can start with the smallest of ideas: an image in your mind on the edge of sleep, watching a petal drop from a flower, or a phrase mid-conversation.

This one started in a conversation with my partner, as we were assessing whether our bananas were ripe enough to add to breakfast. It got me thinking that yes, although most fruit is better when soft and ripe, with some fruit the opposite is the case.

Perhaps by then, I wasn’t really thinking about bananas.

So, diligent writer that I am, as soon as I had a moment I hastily sketched an image of a pear in my notebook, and wrote the words: “Some varieties of fruit are better consumed hard.” Like many of my ideas, I had no idea what would become of it at the time. Perhaps a female character would suggestively say it to her male lover at the right heated moment in a short story. Perhaps it would just stay in my notebook and rot.

And then, I let time mature, and (pardon the pun), ripen the idea, until a few months later, after meeting up with a few other erotica writers for drinks, the poem emerged later that night at home. It seemed to be a fusion of my first idea and the conversation that night around fruit as sexual metaphors. And – other things.

Creative process, like fruit, sometimes needs time to reach that point where a more complete idea is ripe for the plucking.

So once again, I’m delighted to be a Featured Writer with erotica publishers Little Raven, with my poem Best Enjoyed Hard. For your delectation …

Please Pick the Pear

Best Enjoyed Hard

Thanks for reading – would love to hear your thoughts. How did it make you feel? Did it remind you of a time when … ? Did you love or hate the imagery? Did it make you want to go and eat … fruit? Or write an erotic poem to your amour? Whisper in my virtual ear …