Erotic Horror: Horribly erotic or erotically horrible?

[AMoveableBeast]

What is your take on erotic horror? How sexy should it be? How sexy can it be?

Is it a horror story with sexual elements, or a sex story with horrific aspects?

I've never written one--not truly, at least, though others might argue that my non-consent comes close. So, I'm trying one. But what I am ending up with is a good story, maybe even an exceptional one--it's hard for me to tell with my own stuff--that, without going into detail, I'm not sure anyone should read, or that I should have written. Somewhere in the process, the horror part outgrew the sexual part, like a laugh that went on too long, becoming creepier and creepier as it persisted.

I'm not sure it's erotic anymore, or even that it ever was, though, it is all about sex. I could see people being aroused by it, but I'm not sure I'd want them to be. In fact, the idea bothers me a bit. What a strange reaction to something I, myself, wrote.

Anyway, weigh in on this, please. I love the category, but I find it...confusing.

 

[PennLady]

I wrote one that I put in EH, but probably would have been better off in Sci-Fi. Cursed camera, that sort of thing.

Anyway, I think it is a somewhat confusing category title, but you can also make of it what you wish. Some readers will prefer emphasis on the sex, others on the horror. (Like with so many other categories .

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I like to make the sex into something that's an irresistible debauch, the characters don't wanna go there but their bodies and lust betray them. Theyre victims of the evil that's taking them over.

 

[lovecraft68]

I like to make the sex into something that's an irresistible debauch, the characters don't wanna go there but their bodies and lust betray them. Theyre victims of the evil that's taking them over.

Sounds like when I met my ex. She was hot, but.....man was she not worth it

 

[sr71plt]

Is it a horror story with sexual elements, or a sex story with horrific aspects?

Why does it have to be one or the other? (Tripping right along on this wondering why Literotica folks want to limit what a story can be.)

 

[AMoveableBeast]

PL, your opinion is much respected. I looked for your "Cursed Camera" story, the idea alone intrigues me, but couldn't find it. Has it since been taken down?

JBL, I am a fan of such tales, but in this instance I feel like there is something too sinister perhaps to be given in to. I love the absolution of corruption, the freedom moral abandonment can offer, especially when related to "social morality". But there are things that are perhaps too sinister to be given into. Perhaps I am just shrinking at the sight of my own pen. I suppose, it just doesn't feel...right, just, acceptable, even on my skewed scale of perversion.

Pilot, I am never about limiting myself. Truthfully, writing, to me, is all about pushing, both myself and my readers. I live to knock at the walls of my own boundaries, to snap at my chains, if you will. My issue is that the sex is not sexy, per say, but rather a further descriptive vehicle for the story. The characters might as well be skinning a deer--for all the guts and bile that the sex brings up. I would likely be more comfortable if they were skinning a deer, and I would change it, except the story demands the sex. It is about the sex, about perversion and need, but not in a way that is typically arousing.

 

[StrangeLife]

I did one a while back. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I think I killed about twenty people.... and a bird (felt sort bad about that one, but hey - Rowling killed Dumbledore, right?)

It's an interesting genre but you wont find a lot of stroke-stories over there....

 

[Hypoxia]

How about a HORRIBLE SEX category where nobody ever cums?

 

[StrangeLife]

How about a HORRIBLE SEX category where nobody ever cums?

Like a marriage?

 

[sr71plt]

Pilot, I am never about limiting myself. Truthfully, writing, to me, is all about pushing, both myself and my readers. I live to knock at the walls of my own boundaries, to snap at my chains, if you will. My issue is that the sex is not sexy, per say, but rather a further descriptive vehicle for the story. The characters might as well be skinning a deer--for all the guts and bile that the sex brings up. I would likely be more comfortable if they were skinning a deer, and I would change it, except the story demands the sex. It is about the sex, about perversion and need, but not in a way that is typically arousing.

I think what you asked for was a pretty straightforward either/or choice--which is what I reject.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think what you asked for was a pretty straightforward either/or choice--which is what I reject.

You're reading comprehension dwindles as your age and bitterness increases. He was asking people to weigh in with opinions.

Opinions are something you don't seem to understand because in other threads any one who gives an opinion, according to you, is telling the reader exactly how to write which isn't true.

If you don't understand the topics don't respond.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I think what you asked for was a pretty straightforward either/or choice--which is what I reject.

Perhaps I spoke too absolutely. I can see your confusion. I am prone to turning phrases and babbling on. I'm like the overly-loquacious evil nuns in "Good Omens"; it's a bad habit I have.

On principle, I agree with you. A story is not a limited artwork, easily constrained by some imaginary protocol or previously set out list of rules. Still, it helps one to at least understand convention before he proceeding to break it into pieces. It's only polite.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sounds like when I met my ex. She was hot, but.....man was she not worth it

FATAL ATTRACTION. Or LETHAL ATTRACTION I call it.

 

[JKendallDane]

Opinions are something you don't seem to understand because in other threads any one who gives an opinion, according to you, is telling the reader exactly how to write which isn't true.

I think he understands opinions quite well.

He is of the opinion that his opinions are the only ones that are ever correct opinions.

 

[oggbashan]

I have written several stories for Erotic Horror, a few when the category was new. I didn't know whether the stories should be horribly erotic or erotically horrible.

I don't think it matters. If you think the story is appropriate for that category - go for it.

I think these two:
http://www.literotica.com/s/three-graces-of-maidstone
http://www.literotica.com/s/hitchhiker-6
are my better examples of Erotic Horror.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think he understands opinions quite well.

He is of the opinion that his opinions are the only ones that are ever correct opinions.

And his opinion of your opinion would be that you are forcing your opinions on others who have their own opinions

I....think.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think he understands opinions quite well.

He is of the opinion that his opinions are the only ones that are ever correct opinions.

He's wrong, only my opinions matter. How self-absorbed can you be, PILOT!

 

[lovecraft68]

He's wrong, only my opinions matter. How self-absorbed can you be, PILOT!

Like Patrick Swayze says, Opinions vary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeglesB0qDk

 

[Handley_Page]

Like a marriage?

"Yes, Dear."

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I have written several stories for Erotic Horror, a few when the category was new. I didn't know whether the stories should be horribly erotic or erotically horrible.

I don't think it matters. If you think the story is appropriate for that category - go for it.

I think these two:
http://www.literotica.com/s/three-graces-of-maidstone
http://www.literotica.com/s/hitchhiker-6
are my better examples of Erotic Horror.

I've read some of your EH stories before, ogg. I enjoyed them, though not as well as your sci-fi work, which I adore. I will most certainly check these out. I don't like all of your stories, but by virtue of the size of your library alone, you have more of my favorite stories than perhaps any other author on the site. You always write with great skill, regardless.

I suppose that it is the erotic nature of the site that worries me more than anything. If this were a simple scary story, where the sexual elements would almost surely be seen as part of the horror, I think I might feel better. Maybe I fear what will happen once it is out of my hands, that people will take a character I revile and exploit him for their own sexual needs. Perhaps that is their right.

Furthermore, if the sex isn't intended to be arousing, is the story still erotic? Isn't eroticism defined by whether it induces desire or arousal? And if so, to whose arousal are we referring?

A man in a story likes to play the "this little piggie" game, except instead of having his toes tugged and jiggled, he likes them to be cut ever so slowly with a serrated steak knife, deeper and deeper with each progressive digit. As the cracks of his toes fill with blood, he wiggles them, the slippery sensation and the soft, squishing sound propel him closer and closer to climax as the cutting continues. Still, he can never finish. He believes that if his partner ever goes all the way, or slips and severs a toe, sending one of his piggies truly to market, that then, finally, he will be able to go "wee-wee-wee all the way home". He hopes each time for a mistake even as he dreads the complications.

Is this story erotic? Certainly not to me, but to the character it is very much so. I would find this story horrific, as many find categories like incest or non-con. To a man with a toe-severing fetish, it might seem otherwise. The question is, where, in God's name, do you draw the line when it comes to horror fiction, a genre that is built upon splashing such lines with dark crimson?

 

[slyc_willie]

I have a few written for EH, with nearly all of them placing the emphasis on the situation, with sex scenes added in primarily as part of the "shock value" of the situation. In Shock Radio, for instance, there are two sex scenes, with an implication of a third, in which the sex is used to intensify the horror of the scenario. The scenes were not written with the idea that anyone would actually get off while reading them.

But I've also written a series in which the sex scenes were included as snippets of the lives of those involved, and were intended to inspire arousal. But they were not integral to the story as a whole. I could easily have taken out every sex scene in TnT and the story would still be there. But it was posted in EH because of the overall horrific aspect of the story.

It's my opinion that most readers who go to Erotic Horror do so looking for something horrific first and erotic second. I could be wrong. It's just an opinion, but it makes sense to me and when I write for EH, I have that opinion in mind.

 

[MSTarot]

Are we talking Horror or gore? To me those are very different. I have written a few that are in or should be in EH.

I tend to go more for disturbing. I want the "not going to sleep with the lights off" type of horror.

I don't tend to watch a lot of new horror movies, to me they are not scary. The gory don't gross me out in the least.

I saw a short indie movie recently where a woman clicks off the light in her hallway and there is a human shaped shadow at the end of the hall. She clicks it back on and it's gone. Back off, it's there. On, it's gone.

Then off, it's closer. Then closer. Then right in front of her.

She leaves the light on but goes to bed. Then the light turns off in the hall.

That I liked.

MST

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Willie, thank you. You helped a lot. Perhaps I need to embrace this idea of horrific sex without the intent to get the reader off. Maybe that is my sticking point.

I agree with you on gore, Ms. T. Most modern horror movies are an assortment of camera tricks, food coloring, and corn syrup.

I favor psychological creepiness over scare tactics. I love the things in horror stories that are most human; they are the most frightening to me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What is your take on erotic horror? How sexy should it be? How sexy can it be?

Is it a horror story with sexual elements, or a sex story with horrific aspects?

I've never written one--not truly, at least, though others might argue that my non-consent comes close. So, I'm trying one. But what I am ending up with is a good story, maybe even an exceptional one--it's hard for me to tell with my own stuff--that, without going into detail, I'm not sure anyone should read, or that I should have written. Somewhere in the process, the horror part outgrew the sexual part, like a laugh that went on too long, becoming creepier and creepier as it persisted.

I think readers in EH are fairly broad-minded. The only EH story I've posted is about 5 Lit pages and only has about two paragraphs of sex, plus a couple more paragraphs that look like sex until you realise what's going on. Granted, sex and desire are very important to the story, but it's not remotely a stroker. It was received quite well; I daresay some people would've quit before the end, but nobody showed up in the comments to complain, and it doesn't seem to have hurt the votes.

But it sounds like the issue for you isn't just "not much sex" but that you're uncomfortable with the way the horror element's turning out? That's a difficult call. I love horror, I think it can be harmless recreation or even a social positive, but sometimes it drifts into encouraging viewers to identify with the torturer and get off on the victims' suffering (think 'Saw'/'Wolf Creek'/'Hostel' etc), and that's not something I want to be a part of. So there are stories in my head that I won't write down, because I don't want to give people those ideas.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

but sometimes it drifts into encouraging viewers to identify with the torturer and get off on the victims' suffering (think 'Saw'/'Wolf Creek'/'Hostel' etc), and that's not something I want to be a part of. So there are stories in my head that I won't write down, because I don't want to give people those ideas.

Very insightful, Bramblethorn. Yes, I believe you've hit the nail on the head, so to speak. That is exactly my issue, I think. But the story is a good one, I believe. It's hideous, but captivating.

What to do, what to do...