Cand it be too 'dark' to be sexy? [writerly thread]

[Vermilion]

With the Hallo'w'een contest coming to a close it's got me to thinking - can an erotic piece ever be *too* dark? So dark that it becomes pure threat with no erotic appeal?

For me this is an easy question to answer; any writing with an inclination towards the dark would lose its eroticism for me. I still read them, because I find them interesting and, sometimes, thrilling, but the fear-element will always take precendence over the eroticism for me, if that makes sense.

So, ladies and gentlemen, opinions please.
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[Munachi]

hm, difficult to answer for me. There will be things that I won't find erotic, because they just don't fit whatever my fantasies are, but they might by some be considered less dark than other pieces I might find erotic. I would guess the "darkness" of a story isn't something you can measure easily. There will defenitely be things that make me shudder, and at the moment I read them think they are too much - but strangely enough it is exactly those pieces that then later might suddenly creep into my sexual fantasies...

 

[jomar]

With the Hallo'w'een contest coming to a close it's got me to thinking - can an erotic piece ever be *too* dark? So dark that it becomes pure threat with no erotic appeal?

For me this is an easy question to answer; any writing with an inclination towards the dark would lose its eroticism for me. I still read them, because I find them interesting and, sometimes, thrilling, but the fear-element will always take precendence over the eroticism for me, if that makes sense.

So, ladies and gentlemen, opinions please.
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Depends on how you define dark. For some reason, when I read your post I thought of Ann Rice's vampire books. They were dark and laced with eroticism, though not sex.

I would think it would depend on how it's written and how the reader identifies with the characters. But yes, I think a threat of safety, injury, etc could override the eroticism, but not erase it. Does that make sense? I'm thinking of Hannibal (sequel to Silence of the Lambs) where he turned Clarise into a lover and accomplice - very disturbing, but erotic.

You might be interested in Pure's dark story thread over at the SDC:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=545219

 

[Vermilion]

I was actually thinking of an old one of (probably) Selena's when I wrote this thread. A girl gets a witch to put a curse on her old boyfriend, the witch does this by fucking him and his life goes down the swanney and eventually he gets trapped in a calendar or something. I know very vague.

Anyway, the sexual description was as hot and well-written as I'd expect from Selena (or it was a pretty good copy-cat if it wasn't Selena) but I just couldn't get turned on by it, because of the eery/threatening atmosphere that had been built up. I guess good tension will override good sexual tension in most cases.

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ps- hrrm, must go see if I can find a link to that story and see if it is Selena
No luck, i either hallucinated it or it's been pulled

 

[Darkniciad]

Whenever I write something dark like that, I'm aiming for that heat. Just a touch of black here and there to remind you that there's far more going on than the sex - and that things probably aren't going to turn out well. I'm trying to push those buttons, all the while thrusting dark reality back at you. To me, that adds to the disturbing quality of the whole.

 

[Vermilion]

Whenever I write something dark like that, I'm aiming for that heat. Just a touch of black here and there to remind you that there's far more going on than the sex - and that things probably aren't going to turn out well. I'm trying to push those buttons, all the while thrusting dark reality back at you. To me, that adds to the disturbing quality of the whole.

well maybe I should go read one of yours and see what I think - any recommendations?
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[cloudy]

Depends on how you define dark. For some reason, when I read your post I thought of Ann Rice's vampire books. They were dark and laced with eroticism, though not sex.

Yes.

Erotic does not always equal sexy, at least, not for me. I love dark stories, both reading and writing them. I haven't been in the mood to write for a long, long time, but I do have a Halloween story I was working on, and its very dark. Abs is pushing me to finish it. We'll see.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Cloudy is right. Erotic and sexy are not always the same.

I had started a rather twisted story about a group of people sitting down to a very late dinner on Halloween. It rather drips with Erotisism, but as the story unfolds, the reader discovers they are eating a trick-or-treater. I doubt I will ever finish it.

 

[Vermilion]

Post an extract...?
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[Varian P]

Personally, I think a story can go to extremes of darkness, and still be erotic and arousing; it just depends on how the darkness and the eroticism happen to twine together.

Done a certain way, danger, fear, pain, sorrow, loathing, and other dark elements can actually exacerbate eroticism, either by contrast or by creating tension. Done in other ways, eroticism can be built up to a fever pitch, and then the darkness can come in like a wave of ice water and wash the heat away in an instant.

Today I read Dr. Mabeuse's Halloween entry: The Church Without a God, and my feeling is that he masterfully used darkness as the main driving force of the eroticism in that story. It's precisely the guilt and shame and anguish that make the sex intense and arousing.

On the other hand, I've written a few pieces that have quite explicit sex, but are meant to dance along the line of being arousing and repellent, with the darkness ultimately tipping the scale toward the latter.

 

[Darkniciad]

well maybe I should go read one of yours and see what I think - any recommendations?
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Ebon Genesis is long ( 7 Lit Pages ) a black fantasy world tragedy with a lot of disturbing sexual situations and unusual fetishes. Not for the lighthearted simply for those reasons - let alone the horrible outcome of the story ( origin for the main villain in my core fantasy story )

My entry from Halloween last year, Harvest of Blood, is another dark one.

My favorite is Home by the Sea, though. I have an edit for it in the queue right now that should post in a few days, and I'm writing a real world version with different characters and different twists, possibly for this year's contest. That Genesis song always sounded like a twisted horror story to me, and I just had to write it - twice now, if the second storyline comes together.

Whether I accomplish what I set out to do is in question *laugh* I'm just a storyteller - hardly an author. That's what I'm aiming for, though. I'm trying to get that little hint of arousal, and then make the reader cringe because they felt it.