Is your work worth less because it's porn?

[SlaveMasterUK]

This may have been discussed before, but it was brought back to me today. On a totally unrelated forum (a motorcycling forum, if you must know) there was a thread along the lines of "things you're proud of."

Being unshy of the fact that I write and the sort of things I write, I replied something about my novel. I said I was proud that I wrote it, but the next step was to pursuade someone (anyone, my girlfriend, my friends, my colleagues) to read it, but nobody seemed interested.

Then someone replied "I'll read it, any spaceships in it?"

Now as a matter of fact, there are some spaceships in it. Whatever floats your boat, I guess... So I posted a link with a warning that it contains adult content.

Another user quoted me saying "warning: contains adult content" and then the tagline from the story "Female POW is put to work by a brutal race of aliens" (necessarily very short due to Lit restrictions) with a single smiley that didn't look too different from

I don't really know what to make of that. I'm tempted to think that when my potential reader saw the "adult" content warning and the quick-fire tagline, he thought "cheap porn flick"

I don't consider my story to be porn. I consider it a story about sexuality and slavery, about love, and about the weakness of the human mind. Yes, in some small (and rather insignificant way) it's about spaceships, aliens and galactic warfare. Yes, it has some extremely graphic sex scenes, it has detailed descriptions of arousal and orgasm. It has scenes of humiliation and domination and pain, (which would be evident in any non-erotic story about slavery). I feel that all of these are important, if not essential, to the atmosphere and the basic plot of the story.

During the 8 months of evenings it took me to write, I estimate I spent 2 or 3 whole days researching various scientific aspects (something I've never done before) involving anatomy, spaceflight, drugs etc.. Numerous scenes were deleted. Editing alone took me a month, in which there were 4 on-line drafts and 3 hardcopies (which are now a pile of scribbles in my studio). And I know I'm not alone in this, because I think the majority (if not all) of us here take pride in our work and do everything we can to put together a story that we're really pleased with.

Now I may be totally wrong here... But even so, it makes me wonder, do "non-authors" think that amatuer writers write porn because they're horny, or because they have some sexual desire to write about sex? Do they think that in some way, that cheapens the material they write? Are we passed off as amatuer junk-writers simply because we choose to include erotic or sexual material in our stories, even if it's essential to the development of a greater underlying story?

Your views are welcomed

ax

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Would you read an article in Penthouse letters with the same eye you would one in Scientific American?

The obvious answer is no and while the comparrison is spurious, it is cheap and easy to make. Mediums that deal with the public shoot for the lowest common denominator. When we deal with the public, intentionally or not we are also dealing with the lowest common denominator. To the mind of that lowest common denominator if you put a pussy in the story then it's porn. How many times in recent years has the religious right tried to or succeeded in baning classics because the author alluded to sexual conduct?

Your average reader from the beat off booshelf crew would toss my works in disgust. So too would the average member of the moral majority. For opposite reasons, too much sex for one group, not enough for another.

Mainstream book stores are begining to carry erotic works in an adult section. In a few years maybe even the sexually explicit works we post here might make it into the fringe of the main stream. Until that day we will be thought of with less reguard than struggling writers of Sci-fi, fantasy or detective novels. That snide curl of the lip from "average" folks is part and parcel of writing something controversial.

-Colly

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I don't think I would have been so surprised by the reactions you received, but admit it does suck when thoughtless presumptions are made. I wouldn't be surprised because when I was a teenager, the only thing I was interested in reading were romance novels. The same snide remarks were made about these novels not having any literary merit and were mainly read for the sex fantasies they alluded to.

But I've always railed against such things, because in many of the books I read I learned quite a lot about the era and other such things. I've always liked the historical stories based in Scotland or early England. These time periods are but a figment of my imagination without some well researched information to back them up. And if I'm not interested in a non-fiction account of what growing up in a Clan, or being debuted to English Nobility was like then why shouldn't I find out the same thing in a fictional tale. Just because it didn't really happen, doesn't mean that it isn't based on things that really did happen.

Additionally, of all the things I've read about the Titanic and its fateful demise, one of my favorites came from a Danielle Steele novel. It is a rare occasion that I am made to shiver at descriptions of bitter temperatures and freezing waters. Yet as I read No Greater Love, I was literally freezing my ass off and agonizing over what that night might have been like for those aboard. All fiction, but very very real to me. The James Cameron movie didn't even come close to evoking that, nor did the many non-fiction publications that I used in researching the tragedy for a college paper. Wouldn't my professor love to know that what evoked a passionate response and very well written paper had much more to do with a fictional account of what happened that night?

I think your question is best answered by pulling the words 'non-authors' out and letting it stand alone. It is easy to criticize things when you are blissfully ignorant of what it took to create them.

~lucky

 

[Guest]

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

Colly, what you've written makes a lot of sense, and takes all those random thoughts I was thinking and puts them in order. I also like the idea of being "controversial"

I've noticed that a lot of modern sci-fi (which is my genre) includes some sex. Iain M. Banks is my favourite for this, because sex is one of the main pasttimes in the universe he has created, and is encountered in his Culture novels quite a lot. He manages to make things erotic without ever drawing graphic detail, which is possibly where I should be aiming if I ever want my work to go mainstream.

It is my belief that things will open up further in the future. Sex is becoming more and more "mainstream" in public media and art (it's no longer people do only in their bedrooms with the curtains drawn ) and we're going to find more and more graphic sexual content in mainstream bookstores.

An additional point, an author can write a horror with exceptional amounts of blood and gore and terror, to deliberately disturb or nauseate the reader, like a slasher horror film. An author can write a story about someone losing someone dear to them, with lots of in-depth detail about the emotions of grief and loss, deliberately to make the reader upset and hurt, to evoke those emotions of his characters in the reader. An author can write a story about false imprisonment, and use descriptive emotional verse to evoke the feelings of anger and oppression in the reader that his imprisoned character would be feeling as he watches his life waste away in gaol.

I wanted to do the same with sexuality, and feel I've done that with my story.

ax

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The reason mainstream lit looks down at porn is because the effect porn seeks to achieve is relatively easy to achieve. It just doesn't take much skill to write something that's sexually titillating. It's only when your porn tries to do something beyond provoking sexual arousal in the reader that you have a right to consider yourself more than a pornographer.

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, what you've written makes a lot of sense, and takes all those random thoughts I was thinking and puts them in order. I also like the idea of being "controversial"

I've noticed that a lot of modern sci-fi (which is my genre) includes some sex. Iain M. Banks is my favourite for this, because sex is one of the main pasttimes in the universe he has created, and is encountered in his Culture novels quite a lot. He manages to make things erotic without ever drawing graphic detail, which is possibly where I should be aiming if I ever want my work to go mainstream.

It is my belief that things will open up further in the future. Sex is becoming more and more "mainstream" in public media and art (it's no longer people do only in their bedrooms with the curtains drawn ) and we're going to find more and more graphic sexual content in mainstream bookstores.

An additional point, an author can write a horror with exceptional amounts of blood and gore and terror, to deliberately disturb or nauseate the reader, like a slasher horror film. An author can write a story about someone losing someone dear to them, with lots of in-depth detail about the emotions of grief and loss, deliberately to make the reader upset and hurt, to evoke those emotions of his characters in the reader. An author can write a story about false imprisonment, and use descriptive emotional verse to evoke the feelings of anger and oppression in the reader that his imprisoned character would be feeling as he watches his life waste away in gaol.

I wanted to do the same with sexuality, and feel I've done that with my story.

ax

I have an advantage of sorts. My stories all involve two women meeting and falling in love. Even if sex goes mainstream my work will stay controversial. I try to tell stories that have merit beyond just sexual titilation. In some more than in others, but in the end it is explicit and thus will remain outside the main stream. I could make the butch partner into a man, and tone the explict down to merely provocative, but in doing so it wouldn't be my story, it would be a rip off of my story and I would be the scurvey scalawag who was ripping it off. I prefer to stay true to myself and I choose to write explicit sex because I choose to write about characters I want to be real and real people fuck.

My works have plot, characterization and a lot of imagination. If someone or a lot of someone's choose to look down on my work as inferior because I am honest it's rreally their loss. My stories and characters have things to say and by not reading, or reading with a jaundiced eye they will never know what it was that was being said.

-Colly

 

[NoJo]

I've noticed that a lot of modern sci-fi (which is my genre) includes some sex.

SMUK, yes, Sci Fi has a long tradition of sex.

One of my all-time favorite Sci Fi authors is Robert Sheckley. His work originally appeared in the 1960's in "Playboy" magazine, and was very sophisticated, very sexy. You just have to read him if you haven't already -- he was really ahead of his time, anticipating Douglas Adams and the modern cyber-dreck by at least two decades. Sheckley founded the ill-fated "Omni" magazine in the 1970s.

He wrote "Can you feel anything when I do this?" -- about a "smart" vacuum cleaner that falls in love with, and hilariously seduces a housewife -- nearly forty years ago.

Again in the 1960's , the stories of William Boroughs was at least outrageous and sexy, but in my opinion unreadable drivel.

Even Brian Aldiss, the best british Sci Fi author of his time, wrote "The Primal Urge" back in '61, about a gadget worn on the forehead that indicated precisiely how sexually attracted people were to each each other. How prescient of the swinging sixties could you get?

But let's go back even further, to Jonathan Swift -- if you get hold of an unbowdlerised version you'll find poor old Gulliver being used as a dildo by the giant maidservants of Brobdingnag.

 

[minsue]

Would you read an article in Penthouse letters with the same eye you would one in Scientific American?

Nope, I read the Penthouse letters with much more enthusiasm.

 

[Guest]

Nope, I read the Penthouse letters with much more enthusiasm.

She said with the same "eye", Min, not your fingers .

Perdita

 

[Weird Harold]

Another user quoted me saying "warning: contains adult content" and then the tagline from the story "Female POW is put to work by a brutal race of aliens" (necessarily very short due to Lit restrictions) with a single smiley that didn't look too different from

I think part of the problem is that a large percentage of authors who write "adult content" aren't concerned about the quality of their work.

I can't count the number of times I've been told that my comments on how difficult a story was to read because of technical problems were anal-rententive and didn't apply because, "It's just a porn story."

One of the reasons I came to Literotica and stayed is because Laurel and Manu won't accept trash that's "just a porn story."

Still, if many authors of Porn don't respect the genre why should we expect the average person to respect it?

You might have gotten more respect if you had called it a "Science Fiction Romance" but I doubt it -- as noted above, Romance oesn't have much more respect than Porn does.

However, the opinions of people who haven't read your novel don't mean squat -- if the person you refered to your story reads it and likes it, then that's what counts.

(It wouldn't surprise me if the person who disparaged it went and read it and liked it -- even if he won't ever comment on it or admit he's read it.)

 

[bearlee]

The reason mainstream lit looks down at porn is because the effect porn seeks to achieve is relatively easy to achieve. It just doesn't take much skill to write something that's sexually titillating. It's only when your porn tries to do something beyond provoking sexual arousal in the reader that you have a right to consider yourself more than a pornographer.

---dr.M.

I like easy-I guess I write porn and it ain't all that good really so I proudly proclaim myself "less than pornographer"!

Actually-I agree with everything Colly said

 

[sweetnpetite]

I like easy-I guess I write porn and it ain't all that good really so I proudly proclaim myself "less than pornographer"!

Actually-I agree with everything Colly said

I agree with Bearlee- I just right porn.

So not only is my work 'worth less' it's downright worthless!

 

[shereads]

You people write pornography?

 

[Icingsugar]

You people write pornography?

Njet.

According to this place, "pornography" comes from the old greek "pornographos", meaning "writing about harlots".

I don't write about harlots.
Um, what exactly is a harlot? *flips dictionary*

Oh wait. I did.

/Ice - occacional pornographer

 

[lucky-E-leven]

You people write pornography?

What is it exactly that you thought you were reading? Or is the Shereads handle all show and no go?

~lucky

 

[Guest]

Porn, like real sex, becomes unspeakably dull when there's no style, orginality, imagination, or engagement with the characters.
I tend to prefer a surprising, but satisfying ending, too.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Porn, like real sex, becomes unspeakably dull when there's no style, orginality, imagination, or engagement with the characters.
I tend to prefer a surprising, but satisfying ending, too.

 

[bearlee]

I agree with Bearlee- I just right porn.

So not only is my work 'worth less' it's downright worthless!

 

[Octavian]

oh dear!

Originally posted by Josh Greifer

Porn, like real sex, becomes unspeakably dull when there's no style, orginality, imagination, or engagement with the characters.

Oh well! back to the drawing board!

Octavian

My Stories

 

[Guest]

note on VISUALS

 

[snooper]

Well it may be worth less, whatever "worth" means, but it sells rater better than "serious literature", and nearly as well as crime writing.

 

[banditman]

is rock and roll worth less because it's rock and roll?

it's just as easy to write great porn as it is to write a great Chuck Berry tune.

(that's irony, btw)

either can be a fun way to spend a Saturday night.

 

[KarenAM]

Slave Master UK said:

I've noticed that a lot of modern sci-fi (which is my genre) includes some sex.

This is interesting. There is sex in Science Fiction, but also an astonishing puritanical streak. This limits the genre, and is one reason I write about the things I do, because I hate being limited. Most of my work is also Science Fiction, and one of the things I try and do is write with the same quality in my erotic stuff that I read in the highly literary material I love (like Steinbeck or Atwood). I haven't gotten that good yet, but I keep trying.

I dream of a day when my slave girl stories are read alongside Hemingway in college classrooms. Hey, we all fantasize, right?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

is rock and roll worth less because it's rock and roll?

it's just as easy to write great porn as it is to write a great Chuck Berry tune.

(that's irony, btw)

either can be a fun way to spend a Saturday night.

Well, for one thing I think it is pretty easy to write a great Chuck Berry-like tune. Jagger and Richard have made a career if it.

And no, it's not easy to write great porn. But it is easy to write mediocre porn, and have it be just as effective as the good stuff. Isn't that what Literotica is all about? I mean, could you imagine a free site like this with as many stories if it were devoted to muder mysteries or science fiction? No, because most people know they couldn't write that kind of stuff. But porn is like poetry: everyone thinks they can do it, and most of them are right: they can. Whether it's good or not is another matter, and that's why porn gets no respect.

---dr.M.