Erotic Fantasy vs. Erotic Reality

[3113]

This topic came up in the incest thread and I thought it ought to have it's own thread.

Here's the scenario: as we're writing erotica, we've all created fantasies, I'm sure, to one extent or another. Maybe it was in the dream girl or guy we created for a stroke story who had, yes, the cliché 3D breasts or enormous cock. Or maybe it was that story about two virgins having a romantically perfect first time rather than fumbling around, dealing with discomfort and premature ejaculation. At the very least, I'm sure most of us have written an erotic tale or two where strangers hop into bed without thinking or talking about protection. It's assumed that our erotic characters are clean and that the woman is on birth control.

Why? Well, because we're lazy and don't want to bother, but also because we (and, we assume, the readers) don't want the heated, sexy, erotic action to be put on pause for something like that. It's an erotic "fantasy" after all and in this story or that (if not all the stories we write) we'll allow ourselves the liberty of "forgetting" about that little reality...one, I hope, few of us are foolish enough to forget about in real life.

Erotica-wise, there seems to be agreements between writer and reader on acceptable fantasies and not-so-acceptable fantasies, and these, of course, differ depending on category. It's acceptable to have a far-fetched situation in the incest category that gets a mother and son into bed, but not in the romance section. Likewise, it's acceptable in the BDSM section to have the most ridiculous instruments of torture used to elicit exquisite pleasure and pain (when used by the most fantastically perfect Dom), rather than a trip to the emergency room.

So here's the question: What elements of erotic fantasy do you find unacceptable--almost unforgivable no matter the type of story? What elements of reality do you feel essential to erotic stories no matter the category? What elements of fantasy do you feel are okay no matter the category? Why?

Putting it another way, what "unrealistic" elements in erotica really bug you no matter if they're commonly used or acceptable to a given category? Do you feel that the 12" penis is ridiculous and you don't give a shit if every stroke story on the planet uses it, it should be outlawed? Do you feel that non-consent stories should always include realistic, psychological repercussions, and gay male stories should always include a condom because to do otherwise would be irresponsible? Or do you feel that if it's erotica, anything goes and who cares if a naive reader with a 6" penis comes away thinking that he's woefully underdeveloped, or believes that a lesbian only needs to have forced sex with a guy to change her mind about heterosexuality? At what point, to you, is fantasy in erotica not acceptable and even a stroke story should try to be more realistic? Likewise, at what point should reality be chucked out the window and give way to fantasy because this is, after all, erotica, not journalism?

 

[gauchecritic]

I'll answer the realism question because the fantastic in fantasy is just opinion. (The fantastic in American Movies is another thread altogether)

When we're talking about writing it seems you and many others seem to believe that detail is the key. This is only true when used in conjunction with 'relevant'.

Because parts are missed out in stories doesn't make them unrealistic. A thread from many years ago asked the question 'Is every action in tea making necessary in a story even if the tea is a key part of the story?'. The answer, as I recall, was that in general if it isn't setting some kind of mood or background and doesn't move the story on, then it is irrelevant and needless.

The same is true of putting on condoms, chatting over lunch, trying on 14 outfits before a date and trying out your best line on 30 other women before you find the one that reacts.

It doesn't mean they haven't happened, it only means that they either didn't move the story along or were taken as read.

Stroke takes a huge number of things as read.

The only anal story I have at Lit. does mention condoms and their none availability. The single only reason for the anal sex is as birth control.

Did I miss out the risk of aids? Did I ignore the dangerous nature of first time anal sex? Did I take for read that all people naturally indulge in anal sex as birth control?

Actually no but the one thing that I did miss out was mentioning that the story is set in the 70s. Did it destroy the realism? Well going by a couple of the PC the realism was actually enhanced, but inadvertently.

This passage gave rise to a question/eeoow moment for at least two readers:

Storm slithered back and took hold of my cock in two fists, from root to head and I watched fascinated as the blood from her dripped through her closed fingers pinking in the rain.

In actual fact, I included the shock but left out the reason. The shock and assumption was from about blood from the girl. The blood wasn't from the girl but from the guy, a very slight tear in the foreskin.

But I was rushing to an hours away deadline and actually am usually written out by the time I get to climaxes (pun intentional) which take the whole of the story to arrive. I forgot. But the realism wasn't degraded at all. Well not for those two readers.

 

[sr71plt]

Shouldn't fantasy run in front of reality almost always (especially if it's going to fit in the erotica bin at all)? It's all about arousal, isn't in (and not just the genital parts--the brain and emotions as well)? Isn't the greatest arousal just beyond touch/attainability in real life?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Even in in the smuttiest of stroke stories, I try to have a semblance of realism. For one thing, I want to promote safe sex so the characters almost always use a condom for anal or vaginal sex. In anal sex, there are almost always several thrusts until full penetration is achieved, which I consider to be more realistic than some scenes I have watched in movies. They always use lubrication for anal sex, usually Aqualube, which was a name I thought I had made up.

If the man puts on his own condom, he usually just rolls it on. If the woman puts it on him, she usually licks him first, to make it easier to put it on the guy.

My protag in first person stories, George Boxlicker, is relatively old, and uses Viagara, and usually just cums once in a story. Younger men cum a couple of times, sometimes as often as three. Woman cum a multitude of times; usually I don't even try to keep track.

Usually the women are much better looking than avrage, and I often use BBW. I decry the Hollywood ideal of stick-thin women, and often write disparagingly of "Allie McBeal types". I make it very clear that most men prefer women with more substantial bodies than the Hollywood ideal.

 

[sr71plt]

Even in in the smuttiest of stroke stories, I try to have a semblance of realism. For one thing, I want to promote safe sex so the characters almost always use a condom for anal or vaginal sex. In anal sex, there are almost always several thrusts until full penetration is achieved, which I consider to be more realistic than some scenes I have watched in movies. They always use lubrication for anal sex, usually Aqualube, which was a name I thought I had made up.

My protag in first person stories, George Boxlicker, is relatively old, and uses Viagara, and usually just cums once in a story. Younger men cum a couple of times, sometimes as often as three. Woman cum a multitude of times; usually I don't even try to keep track.

Usually the women are much better looking than avrage, and I often use BBW. I decry the Hollywood ideal of stick-thin women, and often write disparagingly of "Allie McBeal types". I make it very clear that most men prefer women with more substantial bodies than the Hollywood ideal.

Well, now, although I often fit in the safe sex bit when convenient, I, as the writer of a piece, don't really find this sort of intellectualizing of what I should/will write at all arousing (nor do I feel when I'm writing porn I have an obligation for mankind to be clinically helpful--although I admit there is an argument to be had there to the contrary). If what I write isn't arousing to me, I don't finish writing it and don't expect it to be arousing to anyone else. If my readers are smart enough to figure out that we're at least toying with fantasy, I think they're probably too young to be reading it. I don't drop it in school yards to be read. Even my basically "true" stories skip a lot of the painful or just time-consuming set up parts so that they'll sharpen rather than dull the senses.

 

[3113]

Shouldn't fantasy run in front of reality almost always (especially if it's going to fit in the erotica bin at all)? It's all about arousal, isn't in (and not just the genital parts--the brain and emotions as well)? Isn't the greatest arousal just beyond touch/attainability in real life?

Not at all. Sometimes the greatest arousal is in reliving, via real details, something that you remember and have attached great emotion to. It's like smelling chocolate chip cookies and finding yourself back in the most wonderful moments of your childhood.

Ditto here. Often, if a writer can put in something real, like a lover bumping their elbow into the other lover as they try to get comfortable, the "ouch!" and the nervous laughter over it, the reader will flash back to doing the same thing with their first love and feel a wonderful swell of tender emotion and youthful, hormonal drive that nothing fantastic could have ever given them.

 

[sr71plt]

Not at all. Sometimes the greatest arousal is in reliving, via real details, something that you remember and have attached great emotion to. It's like smelling chocolate chip cookies and finding yourself back in the most wonderful moments of your childhood.

Ditto here. Often, if a writer can put in something real, like a lover bumping their elbow into the other lover as they try to get comfortable, the "ouch!" and the nervous laughter over it, the reader will flash back to doing the same thing with their first love and feel a wonderful swell of tender emotion and youthful, hormonal drive that nothing fantastic could have ever given them.

We crossed posts, but "come on now," I say, you don't write what is clinically absolutely and fully true and expect it to fly as erotica, do you? I have some stories in here that happened very, very closely to how I wrote it (except for all those buildup, in between, and let down logistical parts and the part where we had some trouble putting or keeping tab A in slot B). I mean, I've only included taking an enema beforehand once in a story that I remember. God, there's just a little bit of this process more than anyone shopping for porn is willing to take. Let's be real with the question.

 

[Liar]

It's acceptable to have a far-fetched situation in the incest category that gets a mother and son into bed, but not in the romance section.

Probably because not many close-fetched (?) situations would get the mother and son into bed.

 

[sr71plt]

Sorry, but I don't know of any erotica category that is more fantasy based overall than Romance.

 

[3113]

When we're talking about writing it seems you and many others seem to believe that detail is the key.

No. I don't. Detail is not the key. The RIGHT detail at the RIGHT time is the key. Taking for example here Hemmingway, the master of generalities, who only puts in certain details at certain spots for maximum effect and intensifying the realism of a moment.

I may like to write details myself, but that doesn't mean that I think a reader should be inundated with them or that being heavy with them works for all writers and stories. I think too much detail can hamper the realism of a story as much if not more than too little detail.

The same is true of putting on condoms, chatting over lunch, trying on 14 outfits before a date and trying out your best line on 30 other women before you find the one that reacts.

It doesn't mean they haven't happened, it only means that they either didn't move the story along or were taken as read.

All well and good...if the story isn't so sequential that the reader has difficulty buying that it's happened when they weren't looking. If it seems like each moment for moment was accounted for, especially during a hot sex scene, then the reader has every right to assume that the couple did not put on a condom while they were clicking to the next page. Now, of course, if the condom is not important to the story (to it's realism or whatever else you're going for), fine, leave it out. That I can understand. If it IS important to the story--for whatever reason--then leaving it out because you assume the reader will put it doesn't really make sense to me.

Your example shows this: the fact that the blood came from a torn foreskin didn't interfere with what you were after, the effect of the scene, so leaving it out didn't change anything. But if it HAD been important to know that it was the foreskin that bled, leaving it out would have been problematic, because that description isn't likely to lead a reader to that assumption. They won't fill in that blank on their own.

 

[Varian P]

I write incredibly distilled, nearly allegorical lust/love/sex. At the level of premise, most of my stories are so far-fetched as to invite laughter, e.g. man becomes obsessed with a virginal young woman who writes erotic fiction via her stories, kidnaps her, and makes her every fantasy come true.

Often I include safer sex practices--condoms, closed polyamorous relationships, a fictional future in which STDs have been eradicated--but I shamelessly strip away ninety percent of what's real in sex and relationships: no one is ever bored, too tired to feel frisky, left unsatisfied, jealous, or bitterly disappointed. The phone never rings at an inconvenient moment, there are no crying children interrupting the act or the mood.

I distill everything away until I am left with the pure ingredients I need to explore the things that interest me about the story I'm writing: the blurry line between a fantasy of domination, and rape; fear of giving into dark or taboo wants; reclaiming one's sexual identity after a devastating illness; survival of the group versus individual liberty, etc.

However, I do my best to muster a sense of reality in my far-fetched tales, mostly by trying to ensure that every character's drives arise from real wants, fears, goals and the like, and making it so readers can identify with their emotions and actions.

So, I don't think stories have to be realistic to feel "true."

However, I'll click out of any story that's populated with a cast of cardboard porn stars, all twelve-inch cocks and platinum waifs with DD hooters, and any story where every person feels like a puppet being yanked into position for whatever sexcapades the writer seems to be wanking to as s/he pens the tale. I have to believe in the fictional world on some level, unless it's parody.

 

[sr71plt]

However, I do my best to muster a sense of reality in my far-fetched tales, mostly by trying to ensure that every character's drives arise from real wants, fears, goals and the like, and making it so readers can identify with their emotions and actions.

This, yes, that the emotions and what underlays a character are accepted by the reader as valid (and connected to themselves, the reader)--or sometimes even better, turn out to be plausibly valid despite the reader having been led to assume they were something else altogether.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Those physical details - 12" schloz, size eee breasts, etc. - bug me. It's lazy, and who cares?

The element that I find critical to the successful fantasy is a taste of forbidden fruit. Stella and I were laughing together onetime that neither of us could write straight sex fiction because it's so "whitebread." I know (and I'm sure Stella does) that that's unfair - straight sex scenes can be rip-roaring hot and have their own kinds of forbidden-fruit tang*, but it captures what I mean by the above.


*Even non-fiction ones can: Angela's description the other day of getting fucked hard by her husby, legs pushed up, wrists pinned behind her head - yowsah! (I will note that a hint of forbidden fruit in the offing is apparently what inflamed him, however. See Angela's recent thread.)

 

[sr71plt]

The moment you start picking details out of the scene you are presenting, you have moved into fantacizing the scene, have you not? Fantasy isn't just the addition of exageration--it's messing with it any any way to "enhance" the effect beyond reality, isn't it?

 

[Varian P]

What elements of erotic fantasy do you find unacceptable--almost unforgivable no matter the type of story? What elements of reality do you feel essential to erotic stories no matter the category? What elements of fantasy do you feel are okay no matter the category? Why?

Gosh, I already made one horribly verbose reply, and now I have another answer.

I may be in the minority on this, but I can't take a story where everything is roses and gold pieces. Maybe stroke stories are, by definition, supposed to be free of complications, but I'm not having it.

I need at least a smidge of angst, of conflict, of suspense as to whether things will go well or badly.

If a story is about gorgeous, opulently wealthy people in designer clothes in their shiny mansion having the best sex in the whole wide world, the end, I'm wondering how to get that twenty minutes I lost back.

 

[sr71plt]

Gosh, I already made one horribly verbose reply, and now I have another answer.

I may be in the minority on this, but I can't take a story where everything is roses and gold pieces. Maybe stroke stories are, by definition, supposed to be free of complications, but I'm not having it.

I need at least a smidge of angst, of conflict, of suspense as to whether things will go well or badly.

If a story is about gorgeous, opulently wealthy people in designer clothes in their shiny mansion having the best sex in the whole wide world, the end, I'm wondering how to get that twenty minutes I lost back.

Well, if conflict isn't included, it's technically not a story. (Of course there seem to be a lot of stories here--and story readers here who don't require it to be a story.)

 

[gauchecritic]

Well, if conflict isn't included, it's technically not a story. (Of course there seem to be a lot of stories here--and story readers here who don't require it to be a story.)

Yeah... but if there's sex, there's conflict.

 

[sr71plt]

Yeah... but if there's sex, there's conflict.

Unfortunately, not necessarily, in a badly written work. (And still some readers don't care).

So are you conceding that you can't do anything but the dull clinical with erotica and avoid making it some degree of fantasy--or are you still mulling that?

 

[Varian P]

Well, if conflict isn't included, it's technically not a story. (Of course there seem to be a lot of stories here--and story readers here who don't require it to be a story.)

Indeed--I actually meant to put that disclaimer in my reply. At that point, it's just an erotic scene, not really a story at all.

And, as you say, there seem to be plenty of readers who are satisfied by such pieces. But I'm not one of them; self-contained boffing scenes do nothing for me.

 

[sr71plt]

And, as you say, there seem to be plenty of readers who are satisfied by such pieces. But I'm not one of them; self-contained boffing scenes do nothing for me.

Well maybe on Tuesday and Thursday for me--but most certainly not Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday (Never on Sunday, of course). Fridays I'm looking for something "special."

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm sure some people here get the horrors just thinking about writing anal sex without lube 'cause of me!
It is incredibly difficult for me to write unsafe sex. So much so, that I was never able to finish writing my "Around Midnight" contrib, because I don't want to promote unprotected sex between men. The only way I can do it, is by setting the story pre-1970, and then I usually set it about two hundred fifty years earlier...

 

[Boxlicker101]

Indeed--I actually meant to put that disclaimer in my reply. At that point, it's just an erotic scene, not really a story at all.

And, as you say, there seem to be plenty of readers who are satisfied by such pieces. But I'm not one of them; self-contained boffing scenes do nothing for me.

You probably wouldn't be interested in what I write, because that's about all that most of them are. Not all, but most.

 

[Oblimo]

I don't like using the word "realism." I like to think in terms of suspension-of-disbelief and that sorta stuff, so I use terms like "believability" and "verisimilitude"

That said, I wanna see believable characterization regardless of the level of fantasy. Even if the story is pizza-boy-gets-jumped or other porn-archetype fantasy, it can be a fun read if the characters are consistently motivated and reacting authentically to the situation.

 

[Oblimo]

So are you conceding that you can't do anything but the dull clinical with erotica and avoid making it some degree of fantasy--or are you still mulling that?

I sense a slippery slope approaching -- that is, it sounds like any fiction requires some degree of fantasy.

 

[sr71plt]

I sense a slippery slope approaching -- that is, it sounds like any fiction requires some degree of fantasy.

Yep. I didn't pose the question.