Erotic Edutainment

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

Over the years, I've realised that a lot of the information in my head actually comes from reading stories here and being interested in writing my own. It sounds unbelievably silly, but it has been instructive and sometimes a story piques my curiosity. Some examples:

• The appropriate names for certain items of clothing.
• Different shades of colour, particularly hair.
• Obviously, knowledge about different sex acts, kinks and fetishes etc.
• Different perspectives on sex and sexuality (where those perspectives can be trusted as being authentic).

I'm sure there are also more technical things about cars, stock trading, construction, photography etc. that I encountered here, but those are a few I can name.

So, here's a double-question: do you ever include knowledge/jargon from your field of expertise in stories (or just knowledge peculiar to yourself)? And, have you learnt anything while writing/reading that you otherwise wouldn't have known?

I've listed a few in response to the latter. As for the former, I don't know how to incorporate conflict studies into smut, but I'm sure I'll find a way soon enough.

 

[oggbashan]

If you read some of my stories you might learn how to replace sash cords on a window; how to build well-drained gravel roads; How to maintain a car; etc...

But most of those details are NOT erotic...

 

[rescatooor]

Over the years, I've realised that a lot of the information in my head actually comes from reading stories here and being interested in writing my own. It sounds unbelievably silly, but it has been instructive and sometimes a story piques my curiosity. Some examples:

• The appropriate names for certain items of clothing.
• Different shades of colour, particularly hair.
• Obviously, knowledge about different sex acts, kinks and fetishes etc.
• Different perspectives on sex and sexuality (where those perspectives can be trusted as being authentic).

I'm sure there are also more technical things about cars, stock trading, construction, photography etc. that I encountered here, but those are a few I can name.

So, here's a double-question: do you ever include knowledge/jargon from your field of expertise in stories (or just knowledge peculiar to yourself)? And, have you learnt anything while writing/reading that you otherwise wouldn't have known?

I've listed a few in response to the latter. As for the former, I don't know how to incorporate conflict studies into smut, but I'm sure I'll find a way soon enough.

I'm an idiot, but I do like to throw in some cultural details. A story set in Italy would probably have a line or so in Italian. Street names, geographical locations that are real. Maybe even mention some famous local celebrity, food. Little things like that.

In one of my latest stories I had to try an explain that in an apartment building you might be able to guess the right door bell for an apartment, and in that way figure out the last name of the person living in it, so that you could leave them a postcard in their mailbox.

I remember once studying the term breaks in Canada and thinking up an explanation as to why a girl wouldn't be in school on Valentine's day. Still got a negative response on that story about that very detail.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I'm an idiot, but I do like to throw in some cultural details. A story set in Italy would probably have a line or so in Italian. Street names, geographical locations that are real. Maybe even mention some famous local celebrity, food. Little things like that.

There’s a series of what I guess qualify as travel guides that focus on dirty talk in different languages. Not as highbrow as including cultural touchstones, but it’s fun for sex scenes.

 

[rescatooor]

There’s a series of what I guess qualify as travel guides that focus on dirty talk in different languages. Not as highbrow as including cultural touchstones, but it’s fun for sex scenes.

Dirty talk, sure. But I couldn't for the life of me imagine most people doing the kind of pornographical verbal encouragement in most languages. Like a German girl shouting "JA JA JA" while being pounded? Somehow odd. And I live in Germany, I should have heard that stuff by now. Either they're completely quiet or it sounds like murder. At least that's my experience.

I think it has a bit to do with porn industry. I'm sure German-language porn still exists but I suspect most of the porn filmed in Europe is now in English.

 

[StrangeLife]

If you read some of my stories you might learn how to replace sash cords on a window; how to build well-drained gravel roads; How to maintain a car; etc...

Useful skills indeed! I definitely need to read some of those...

 

[TadOverdon]

I learned a bit about the European exploration of Polynesia...and then ignored a lot of it.

In our next book, I think we're ignoring the ethics and methodologies of psychological research.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmm... in some I do have my knowledge of police procedure, or what will and won't work as far as computers go. Also, a what I learned about science by reading sci-fi as a youngster and while not all of it came true, still no flying cars for everyone, most of it has.

And one of my biggest irks is how in the sci-fi world of movies and TV the space craft still fly like airplanes in a vacuum.

 

[NotWise]

The history and geography in my stories is researched.

As for technical details, I've only included them in one story I can think of. Even there I mostly watered them down because they were too far outside most people's interests.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

There’s actually something I have been getting technical over in a (currently unpublished) story… Guns.

I know firearm people are quite particular and I’ve only ever fired a gun once, like ten years ago. So, I keep asking a friend of mine who is a proper aficionado for information. I suppose it’s not critical to the story, but I want the characters who make a living using firearms as a tool to look competent.

 

[MillieDynamite]

There’s actually something I have been getting technical over in a (currently unpublished) story… Guns.

I know firearm people are quite particular and I’ve only ever fired a gun once, like ten years ago. So, I keep asking a friend of mine who is a proper aficionado for information. I suppose it’s not critical to the story, but I want the characters who make a living using firearms as a tool to look competent.

I wrote a story which had a genius that supplied the hero with her tools and weapons. One particular neat tool was a matched set of automatic hand guns. They custom made, on the plans for a particular module of berretta. The guns fired 40call S&W auto shells, but the gun for the left hand was mirrored and ejected the shells to the left.

The reasoning on this, (well you'd know if you ever fried an semi-auto pistol left handed) the casing tend to hit you in the chest, face, or the bend of the elbow when fire lefthanded. It's been a standard thing since firearms were first manufactured, everything is for righthanded people.

I'm right handed, but my dad is ambidextrous and I first realized the issue when he was teaching me to shoot and showed me how to shoot lefthanded hand. The first casing hit is face, the second landing in the bend of his elbow. He was shooting on the move, it isn't as big a problem if you are stationary, but still can happen.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm sure there are also more technical things about cars, stock trading, construction, photography etc. that I encountered here, but those are a few I can name.

So, here's a double-question: do you ever include knowledge/jargon from your field of expertise in stories (or just knowledge peculiar to yourself)?

Most of my stories involve STEMM nerds, so they tend to include some sort of Educational Moments, whether from personal experience or stuff I've researched for the story. Some of the ones in mine:

- astrophysics, in particular neutron stars
- container transport/warehousing logistics
- HeLa
- Parasitic wasps
- Redheads' atypical opiate receptors
- Various machine-learning concepts (upcoming story)
- Discovery of helium
- 1890s art/poetry world

I'm currently reading a romance where the heroine is fascinated by megalodons, and the love interest is coded as Mr. Right by being the only person who wants to hear her talking about Megalodon Facts. I have never felt so much kinship to a protagonist...

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I can't help putting cool info in my stories, though often I take half of it out again. Science, history, food... Several of my stories start as attempts to see if I could write distinguishable voices, usually various UK dialects, so I know where they grew up and their class and educational levels even if it's never stayed.

I had a kind editor for my story Turkish Delight who didn't want to read m/m sex. So I redacted the 17k story to about 5k, and it worked remarkably well as a travelogue piece about Istanbul, which had been my intention.

 

[PennameWombat]

I never set out to educate with any stories here. That said, I guess certain readers might learn something now and again because I do try to ensure that “real” items are realistic. A number of “Mel’s Universe” stories turned on rather precise calculations of orbital mechanics for satellites around Earth. They also discussed how to do nighttime astronomical high-resolution and long-exposure film photography. Those stories also contain lots of details around computers and programming.

I was careful about how much detail I put in the actual text. Although I’d worked out the orbital mechanics and the photographic techniques in detail. Just didn’t want to bore anyone .

If I have characters travelling, I like to provide enough detail a reader could follow along on maps.

Works in progress involve novel computing hardware and materials and methods for forging edged weapons.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have yet to include details or information from my own personal/professional background in my stories. There's a story I've been working on slowly for a few years that includes some of this, but I have no immediate plan to finish and publish it.

I learn from stories I read at Literotica, but not in the way the OP is suggesting. The main thing I learn from reading a lot of erotica here is how to do a better job writing erotica. I get ideas about storytelling tactics, writing style, character development, etc. for my own stories. There's no question that over 15 years of reading stories at this Site has had a big influence on the way I write.

 

[lovecraft68]

I've never set out to either educate or preach in my stories they're fantasies, some are fun, some do have some series conflict, some are very dark, and maybe there could be something taken from them as far as a point made or a message, but that would have to be the reader discovering that in their interpretation, its nothing I set out to consciously do.

However, thinking on it, the one thing that might be described as educational is in my BDSM work of a few years ago(I haven't written much of late) I always went out of my way to stress everything, no matter how batshit wild, was with full consent because its important to me, personally, that there is always consent.

But when I wrote it, it was more for me, like I needed to make sure I never crossed a line in a story because I wanted to be sure I was being true to myself and a lifestyle I embraced heavily in my younger days.

Now I see it more that those stories, in this time, could be educational to the asshats who now insist consent is not needed in BDSM or anywhere else and rape enabling is just fine.

So in that regard my intent hasn't changed, but because of the descent into shit that genre is experiencing maybe they can now be seen as "this is how it should be."

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

James Joyce called both didactic and sexually exciting works improper art. So, I guess one shouldn’t combine the two by making preachy smut.

With that said, I think it is quite interesting to compare the old with the new. If we’re talking purely 'educational' instead of informational, then I suppose the thing I’ve learnt most about is changing attitudes on sex. It’s strange when you revisit a story you’ve got fond memories of and it just hits different ten years later because the world has changed.

Consent is one of those areas.

 

[jsmiam]

I throw in subtleties of the computer industry, but superficially, small enough to fit in part of a sentence.

I almost always briefly make reference to the rule, don’t touch a vagina with the same penis/finger/tongue that’s just been in or around an ass, as a PSA to those who learn by bad examples from porn.

And although there’s rarely ever a way to know for sure if someone claiming to be female really is female, and although odds are they aren’t (excluding AH members who have proven/distinguished themselves), and even though I haven’t been converted into being into it, I’ve seen touches of seemingly legit perspectives on why people are into being tied up, spanked, etc.

And my main goal for trying my hand at writing here, was becoming a better writer in real life (mainly technical writing and manuals). In that perspective, mostly rules of style, I’ve improved too.

 

[lovecraft68]

James Joyce called both didactic and sexually exciting works improper art. So, I guess one shouldn’t combine the two by making preachy smut.

With that said, I think it is quite interesting to compare the old with the new. If we’re talking purely 'educational' instead of informational, then I suppose the thing I’ve learnt most about is changing attitudes on sex. It’s strange when you revisit a story you’ve got fond memories of and it just hits different ten years later because the world has changed.

Consent is one of those areas.

I don't know if this falls under educational, but one thing coming here to both the stories and the forums-especially fetish and BDSM-is that at one point I was fairly certain that in any given place I would probably be the kinkiest person in the room.

I quickly learned that although I'd never be confused with a prude, there are things out there that never even crossed my mind. Now I know if its a thing, then it is someone's thing.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I don't know if this falls under educational, but one thing coming here to both the stories and the forums-especially fetish and BDSM-is that at one point I was fairly certain that in any given place I would probably be the kinkiest person in the room.

I quickly learned that although I'd never be confused with a prude, there are things out there that never even crossed my mind. Now I know if its a thing, then it is someone's thing.

I’ve realised the same. Still, I think I count as the kinkiest person among my immediate circle.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I’ve also learnt dozens of synonyms for penis, vagina and asshole. My least favourite of which is 'cunny', however, I’m probably not above using it at some point in the future.

 

[lovecraft68]

I’ve realised the same. Still, I think I count as the kinkiest person among my immediate circle.

One place that really sticks out is I joined the local author's association, 350 members but maybe a couple dozen show up at the monthly meetings. I'm the only erotica author there-I'm the black sheep

But when I talk to them and hear them talk and see how they act I find myself wondering if some of them have ever had sex at all.

 

[lovecraft68]

I’ve also learnt dozens of synonyms for penis, vagina and asshole. My least favourite of which is 'cunny', however, I’m probably not above using it at some point in the future.

On that note I remember at some point "Johnson" was term for penis, but does anyone ever use that anymore? I don't think I've heard it in years.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

One place that really sticks out is I joined the local author's association, 350 members but maybe a couple dozen show up at the monthly meetings. I'm the only erotica author there-I'm the black sheep

But when I talk to them and hear them talk and see how they act I find myself wondering if some of them have ever had sex at all.

I’ve got a similar situation in that I had a religious upbringing and most of my friends are deeply repressed. I’d like to think reading and writing here has given me a healthier outlook on sex because, wowza, they say some crazy shit about sex every now and then.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

On that note I remember at some point "Johnson" was term for penis, but does anyone ever use that anymore? I don't think I've heard it in years.

I may be totally off base, but wasn’t the term linked to LBJ (literally) swinging his dick around in the White House?