Story Discussion: October 20, 2024 - "Oh Suzie-Q!" by PrimalDual

[PrimalDual]

Hello! The Story Discussion Circle seems like such a great idea for a forum, but it is underused (to say the least). Here's an attempt to kickstart it again. I'd be delighted to get comments* on a story I published on Literotica a few months ago:

https://www.literotica.com/s/oh-suzie-q

I hesitate to say too much in advance about "Oh Suzie-Q!' because a great deal of my curiosity concerns whether the story "works". It's about 8000 words long, I think. Let me just say that it concerns inter-species sex, but that is apparent within the first few sentences - if such a motif is repugnant to you then of course you might as well skip it. But I will add that there is a good deal more I had in mind than just that - indeed I could have written it slightly differently so that it wasn't inter-species. Ah, even with that, I may have said too much. Heh.

Say, in order to move this forward, how about a deal: I'll read your story if you read and comment on mine. Heh.


* I know, I know - wouldn't we ALL be delighted to get comments. Heh.

 

[StillStunned]

We writers love talking about writing. Unfortunately, that's mostly limited to our own writing. On top of that, this forum has been a ghost town since before I joined. Your idea is sound, but I doubt it will get much traction.

What you could do is go to the Authors' Hangout and write a WIWAW. There was the WIWAW event during the summer, where we all posted in Reviews & Essays, but it all began with What I wrote and why: Fairytale of New York. I wrote it as a way to start a discussion about the craft of writing. It's been a while since we had any of those threads, so you might get some engagement.

Good luck!

 

[PrimalDual]

We writers love talking about writing. Unfortunately, that's mostly limited to our own writing. On top of that, this forum has been a ghost town since before I joined. Your idea is sound, but I doubt it will get much traction.

What you could do is go to the Authors' Hangout and write a WIWAW. There was the WIWAW event during the summer, where we all posted in Reviews & Essays, but it all began with What I wrote and why: Fairytale of New York. I wrote it as a way to start a discussion about the craft of writing. It's been a while since we had any of those threads, so you might get some engagement.

Good luck!

Fair points. I alluded to the long dry-spell and I accept the low odds. I still try to make the world a better place where I can, and this seemed like worth the investment of time. Instant gratification isn't the aim here.

My desire with the particular story I offered is not well served by a WIWAW, I'm afraid. I would want the reader to approach the story as a clean slate. IOW the WIWAW comes afterward, not as an introduction. I can understand if this comes off as arrogant or expecting too much. Especially in view of the difficulty in getting any traction in this particular corner of the forum in the first place! But obviously I hope for better.

NOTE TO READERS: if you do intend to read my story, please consider not reading further down in this thread - Beyond Here There Be Spoilers!

 

[shelleycat1]

Uncomfortable reading, which must be as you intended. Did you ever read Brave New World? Because there are some vibes from that too. I found the USA politics jarring and think it will date it while other references to COVID could take the timeline out somewhat further especially with reference to 107 being a usual age to die. It was well written but I found myself skimming the text because elements were getting horrifying. (That’s also partly because I have a cold and headache and cannot concentrate much.). Not erotic at all for me, just a look at a bad and possible future.

 

[PrimalDual]

Uncomfortable reading, which must be as you intended. Did you ever read Brave New World? Because there are some vibes from that too. I found the USA politics jarring and think it will date it while other references to COVID could take the timeline out somewhat further especially with reference to 107 being a usual age to die. It was well written but I found myself skimming the text because elements were getting horrifying. (That’s also partly because I have a cold and headache and cannot concentrate much.). Not erotic at all for me, just a look at a bad and possible future.

Shelly, thank you SO MUCH for your honest evaluation. I think I will hold off on doing a full What I Wrote And Why (WIWAW) for another week or two in case someone else comes along and also wants to read it fresh.

Meanwhile, would you be interested in nominating a story of your own, in a new thread under this same forum? I see that several of yours are highly rated, which might be good choices - conversely a couple of your stories have lower numerical ratings which might be interesting to talk about. Either way, if you're game.

Oh, and I promise not all of my own stories here are anywhere nearly this dire. You might try "Bob & Kristi" or "Tightly Constrained" in my "To Old Friends, Remembered Fondly" series.

It's been a long while since I read Brave New World, ditto for Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, but certainly I am tapping into the same dire look at the future as those stories. I take for granted that a lot of Literotica readers are well-read - probably better read than me. So they will likely be familiar with Hannah Arendt's timeless phrase, "the banality of evil." It is also perhaps a majority non-USA readership, which is why I felt a little comfortable injecting a specific political angle, although I hasten to protest that this kind of scenario isn't limited to one side of a political landscape. Whether it is a dystopian future or an alternate timeline, I am not fully decided, myself, but the point is that it didn't happen overnight - the Genetic Engineers were at it for a long while, on a scale that perhaps dwarfs what Arendt was writing about, if that is even possible. And to the degree you found it uncomfortable and horrifying then perhaps that means it intersects our own reality to that degree.

Ultimately it could be that Literotica isn't the right place for this kind of story, but my stories have too frank an exposition of sex for other sites I might come up with. But regardless of the venue, if you wound up skimming then that's an indication of failure on my part. Probably the lack of a character to root for or identify with is a cause. 1984 had Winston Smith, after all, even if the ending is tragic - Orwell knew how to write. My protagonist/narrator is kind of an everyman too, but is thoroughly corrupted already - maybe Winston Smith's nephew or grandson, LOL. Possibly this little story (vignette, really) would better serve as a prologue - to a longer, more hopeful work I will never attempt, that would redeem Randy. I can think of one way to inject a sympathetic character into the present framework, but as I said above, I'll defer more of that until a later day. Stay tuned, and thanks again!

 

[shelleycat1]

. But regardless of the venue, if you wound up skimming then that's an indication of failure on my part. Probably the lack of a character to root for or identify with is a cause. 1984 had Winston Smith, after all, even if the ending is tragic - Orwell knew how to write.

I don’t think you can try to tune a reader’s experience so they won’t skim. I do try to put important stuff at the top and tail of paragraphs because I expect they will. That is a skill I’m still working on. I was very aware, as I said, that with a bad headache I was reading badly.

I agree about the lack of a sympathetic main character. I didn’t see any good routes out for anyone, which of course added to the feelings you were writing. The banality of evil. Yes, a good phrase, and very accurate.

(As an aside, I’m beta reading for someone, and a comment I made was “Please tell me that you have a happy ending for the heroine.”)

I’m going to skim for two reasons. One bad, one good. The writing is so bad I’ve lost interest. A bad habit of mine, but I’ve spent 40 years working skimming technical manuals for the relevant stuff. Or, I’m so engaged I need to find out more now. You were the second reason, so that is good. I’m still thinking about your story a day later, so that says it is a good story.

About my stories, the links are there. I started writing because someone made a world that so interesting, to me, that I wanted to explore how that world might work, societally, commercially, and legally. So ‘A drone remade’ is that. It was the first story and I think the second ‘Good afternoon Alison’ in a similar world is better technically. If people are going to read them look at the tags; I do appreciate that reading out of one’s preferences is very hard.

I remember that Brave New World didn’t end well either.

 

[PrimalDual]

I don’t think you can try to tune a reader’s experience so they won’t skim. I do try to put important stuff at the top and tail of paragraphs because I expect they will. That is a skill I’m still working on. I was very aware, as I said, that with a bad headache I was reading badly.

I agree about the lack of a sympathetic main character. I didn’t see any good routes out for anyone, which of course added to the feelings you were writing. The banality of evil. Yes, a good phrase, and very accurate.

(As an aside, I’m beta reading for someone, and a comment I made was “Please tell me that you have a happy ending for the heroine.”)

I’m going to skim for two reasons. One bad, one good. The writing is so bad I’ve lost interest. A bad habit of mine, but I’ve spent 40 years working skimming technical manuals for the relevant stuff. Or, I’m so engaged I need to find out more now. You were the second reason, so that is good. I’m still thinking about your story a day later, so that says it is a good story.

About my stories, the links are there. I started writing because someone made a world that so interesting, to me, that I wanted to explore how that world might work, societally, commercially, and legally. So ‘A drone remade’ is that. It was the first story and I think the second ‘Good afternoon Alison’ in a similar world is better technically. If people are going to read them look at the tags; I do appreciate that reading out of one’s preferences is very hard.

I remember that Brave New World didn’t end well either.

Thanks again for the additional feedback. I reply with the understanding that at some point you will opt out of further exchange, so please don't misinterpret my continuing the dialog as more than simply reacting to your thoughts.

There's a third kind of skimming, which it feels like you were doing: engaged to a degree but highly skeptical or concerned, and skipping ahead to see if there is a payoff to reading the parts in between, or if it just gets worse. Few people like getting squicked. One can always go back and read the skipped parts to fill in, if there's reason to think it will be worth it. I'm curious if you remember where in the story you decided you'd had enough and wanted to skim.

Oh, as long as I'm asking: sometimes I am terrible at coming up with story titles, and on this one I just went with the most straightforward one I could think of. If you have a better idea I'd like to hear it.

Happy endings. There is of course the slang meaning to that, which is naturally prevalent in the stories at this site, LOL. Actually that is a criticism I receive of the stories I post here - I often end my story at a crisis point, where the continuation could go in two or more different directions, and it's before the slangy "happy ending" has occurred. Indeed this particular story ends exactly in that way, for reasons that are clear in my own mind but perhaps would not be so apparent to a casual reader who just wants gratification spelled out.

But that's not what you meant, and I also have to admit that happy endings in the normal sense are often difficult for me. Virtually every story I put here started out as a relatively simple wank story. Battle-tested, in fact, if I may push the boundaries of your patience a little. But, once I like the scenario, I become intrigued with the time-line, at both ends - how did the participants wind up in this particular scenario? and what are the possible outcomes from having participated? And, sad to say, I wind up taking a pessimistic outlook in a lot of those cases, once I really think it through. Twue Wuv is rarely the answer I come up with, as the characters' motivations. Writing it up with those details (implied, usually) makes the story more real, but may detract from the erotic impact for a reader on first sight. This story at hand is maybe a little more extreme in such regard. It started out with a wank about actually buying a sex partner, a successful wank I might add, but the ramifications of what kind of society would actually support such a relationship took a pretty dark turn in my mind afterward, and you read the result. Take out the social commentary and focus on the sex scene itself, and it becomes a fairly standard BDSM scene where this Dom knows what needs to be done in order to establish dominance but he chooses to shortcut it to his own "happy ending" - back to the slangy sense of course - and the submissive partner has her own needs but is willing to go along. He's already teased her to arousal and she wants him. It's just... all the baggage of understanding the social constructs - and the EXTREMELY unequal power dynamic - makes it very ugly.

Hah! I just realized, the technique of starting with the ending to the story, strictly the physical scenario and making it a little hotter, and then telling the majority of the tale in flashback and tying the two ends together at the close, MIGHT have improved the erotic aspect for the reader. It might have gotten across better why I as the writer considered it in the realm of erotica. Still, for a lot of readers, the social constructs could be more unpleasant than they're willing to bear. (Update: I went back and re-read the last portion, and none of it is nearly of the right form for that, so a large re-write of that part would be called for.)

This story is hardly unique for me, in that regard to happy endings or lack of one. Often I come up with back-stories where the outcome is very harmful to one of the characters going forward, because I infer some sort of mental instability or else a shameful irresponsibility in one of the characters. It's not that the harm itself is erotic to me - quite the opposite - just that the ramifications of the eroticism could tie into other things that end up tragic or whatever. In other words, I found afterward an overly moralistic tone in some of the stories I wrote - the writing process has been going on for decades and I'm finally publishing the backlog at bit at a time. Not all of them have been posted here at Literotica, and I'm beginning to think the rest may remain on my computer disk only, unless I can adapt to the expectations here. But in some cases I decided to rewrite the ending to provide the reader a more positive outcome so as to make the read more worthwhile. That is the case for both of the two "series" I've put here - the final chapter of each was originally a good deal more dire (the accidental death of a secondary character in one case, the descent of a character into acceptance of an abusive relationship in another), but I was repulsed enough by the second draft in each case that I made major changes. (Neither of these two other series had any of the installments put up for publication here until I had good-enough working drafts of ALL the installments, so that I could make minor modifications in any installment so as to have a consistent character portrayal. Even then, I ran into a snag or two while trying to make final edits on installment #7 or whatever., with prior installments already committed to publication here.)

Heh, you didn't ask for this outpouring - just the tip of the WIWAW iceberg - but your mentioning that you preferred to know there is a happy ending on the horizon brought these related aspects to mind. I had independently reached a similar conclusion, that my usual style is off-putting to many. Thanks again. (Again.)

 

[AG31]

Hello! The Story Discussion Circle seems like such a great idea for a forum, but it is underused (to say the least). Here's an attempt to kickstart it again. I'd be delighted to get comments* on a story I published on Literotica a few months ago:

I was invited to try to help revive this forum even though the author suspected the story would not be inside my area of interest. He was correct in that, but I do enjoy discussions about writing and thought I’d undertake to discuss this story to explore the act of analyzing something I don’t particularly warm to. AND to revitalize this forum. PrimalDual suggested that I start my own thread and I do have an idea for that. Stay tuned.

On with Oh Suzie-Q!

PrimalDual wants to know if the story “works.” Difficult challenge for me, as I suspect, from the get go that it won’t work for me as I don’t often warm to sci-fi stories (although I used to read a lot 65 years ago).

Random Thoughts (turned into a stream of consciousness).

I’m starting with random thoughts because I don’t know whether or not to settle into plain old editing mode. Rhythm of sentences, repetitions of words, etc. Maybe I’ll have some helpful things to say about whether it “works.” We’ll see. I have decided to read it once through without making editorial notes. Usually I just plunge in, hoping to help the author make a story I like as effective as possible.

I hadn’t noticed the “non-human” category when I began, so my initial reaction was confusion. I couldn’t tell if it was a person talking in metaphor or some sort of primate. I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to settle on a conclusion. Actually, after reading further, I realized that the speakers were probably human… Will report back after reading even further.

Before Suzie is introduced to the story I get that our narrator is a mildly nice guy living in a world of the future and have developed some curiosity about how he’ll deal with these creatures for sale. After Suzie is introduced to the story my curiosity increases. I’m hooked. So I guess it’s working.

What’s a Kiev-type skin show????? Urban dictionary doesn’t know.

This is a clever way to delve into objectifying women. I hope it has a twist at the end. That’s what I’m waiting for. If not, I suppose I have to say it probably “works” for those who are looking for this sort of erotica.

Nope, no surprise twist. So it stands as just a mildly clever bit of erotica in the objectifying women category. Please don’t read any judgement into that. My erotica is all about objectifying men. We fantasize what we fantasize.

In the end I don’t think I would have had much to say at the editing level. It’s well written, good rhythm.

But you’re right. Outside my stated interests, but I suspect it works for its intended audience.

 

[AG31]

Shelly, thank you SO MUCH for your honest evaluation. I think I will hold off on doing a full What I Wrote And Why (WIWAW) for another week or two in case someone else comes along and also wants to read it fresh.

I look forward to your explaining your motivations in this story. Was it meant to be arousing for a certain audience? Or was it meant to use sex as an excuse to write social commentary? Either is OK. I'm just curious. Will wait for the WIWAW post.

 

[PrimalDual]

I look forward to your explaining your motivations in this story. Was it meant to be arousing for a certain audience? Or was it meant to use sex as an excuse to write social commentary? Either is OK. I'm just curious. Will wait for the WIWAW post.

Many thanks again. Like any overly-garulous writer turning thoughts to a piece he wrote... I do have thoughts. I think I'll break them up into direct comments on a portion of the points you raised, and then save the rest (and more you may not have touched on) for a fuller WIWAW.

I struggled a bit with which category among the Literotica choices to submit this one under. So it's interesting that my eventual choice of Non-human proved enough of a red herring that you questioned at the outset what species might be conversing. I would be afraid sci-fi implies sex in space and so forth, erotic horror would imply scares galore, interracial love would ground it in human interactions, non-consent/reluctance would actually vastly understate what is going on, BDSM would involve a different kind of power exchange, and humor/satire would imply something too far afield from the dystopian world I built. I'm not schooled in writing but probably what I attempted qualifies as allegorical. I admit, I can understand why Literotica never has created an "Erotic Dystopia" or an "Erotic Allegory" category.

You inferred that the narrator is a "mildly nice guy" - or so he portrays himself, to the reader and to the broker. He wants to think well of himself. But by the end, I hope I conveyed that he's not a nice person at all. (One theme in common across a lot of my stories is "everybody lies", including to themselves. I like the challenge of getting the truth across even when no one is consciously trying to inform the reading audience of it. I don't claim I'm especially skilled at it.) To be fair, I also hope the reader wonders just how nice anyone can be, if the world as a whole has taken this dark turn. This fellow Randy is thoroughly corrupted by the system he's surrounded by.

Is it a world of the future? I don't know exactly. Could also be an alternate universe, or an alternate time-line where some chance event changes everything. Alternate history is a bit trite, having been done approximately a million times, but the time-line maybe could fit with John Kennedy's assassin having missed his shot, Kennedy losing his re-election bid to Barry Goldwater, some genetic engineers getting really busy in the 1960s in a more laissez-faire atmosphere, and by now events have shifted considerably.

If your interest increased when you met Suzie, then I am relieved. She's certainly an affectionate individual, and even though she doesn't have much scope to show her personality, I would hope that she's someone you can root for or side with. She's not especially unhappy with her lot in life, and isn't being terribly mistreated, since she's considered to be of significant monetary value. A treasured pet - pet-with-benefits in the case of a 10%er like her, since she was engineered to have a super-high sex drive and apparently knows how to enjoy it. Yes, she gets zooted if she gets out of line, but she bounces back from it quickly. It kind of would be fun to expand this to a novel and see how her character develops - I'm genuinely unsure. If novelized, this prologue chapter might also set the stage for Randy to be redeemed eventually. A lot will depend on what direction Randy's wife ends up taking, in my imagination.

You wondered about the Kiev skin show. I couldn't resist working references to some geopolitical elements into the story. The backstory here is that Russia invaded Ukraine long ago and utterly demolished it, filling it mostly with ethnic Russians and either letting the Ukrainians stay and be enslaved (Kiev becomes a sex-tourist destination similar to Bangkok except grimmer), or else emigrate (where they are unwelcome and don't fare well either, such as working as housecleaners who are subject to sexual abuse here in the US on a regular basis).

Objectifying, yeah. I don't know if that specific word came to mind while devising the story, but it fits. "Dehumanization" probably is closer to what I had in mind, with the demmies being explicitly dehumanized in the eyes of the law. I would hope the reader finds some revulsion in the telling.

So is it erotica? I'm uncertain. A male of the dominant persuasion might feel a little wiggle at some point in the story, and then feel guilty about it. Sometimes... a little guilt adds to the arousal. I don't know. I would be horrified by any individual who responded, "hot story, PrimalDual! I hope there's a sequel!" If five stars are to be bestowed, I would prefer they come packaged differently than that.

The twist, if you want to call it that, is the reader's dawning realization very close to the end that Randy is going to be a lazy and inattentive and very selfish owner for Suzie, and that he's not the man he portrays himself to be. I had it in mind as more of a cliffhanger - he's deliberately violating the advice he was given - will it turn out badly? The cleverness as you put it, if that's my aim, is in the world-building. I don't aspire to Shyamalan-esque surprises - that's too hard to keep up, over a few dozen stories here.

Intended audience? Possibly an audience of one, me.

I have more to say about the world-building and other things, but it's time to turn off the lights and head to bed.

 

[AG31]

First, the over-arching question for me has pretty much been answered. Is this story meant to arouse, or is it social commentary with sex as the pretext? You've helpfully explained that it's the latter.

Here on Lit I look for (and write) stories that are meant to arouse, and which tap sexual impulses that may have absolutely nothing to do with a person's real life. So I was open to the possibility that your quite graphic depictions of the narrator exploring Suzie sexually could be very arousing to someone who gets off on dominance. On objectification of the other. But in real life, most of us judge that sort of behavior negatively. Thanks for telling us that you were hoping we'd end up seeing the MC as not so nice after all. I do think you achieved that, even if the reader happened to be getting off on the sex stuff.

See a few more comments below.

I struggled a bit with which category among the Literotica choices to submit this one under. So it's interesting that my eventual choice of Non-human proved enough of a red herring that you questioned at the outset what species might be conversing. I would be afraid sci-fi implies sex in space and so forth, erotic horror would imply scares galore, interracial love would ground it in human interactions, non-consent/reluctance would actually vastly understate what is going on, BDSM would involve a different kind of power exchange, and humor/satire would imply something too far afield from the dystopian world I built. I'm not schooled in writing but probably what I attempted qualifies as allegorical. I admit, I can understand why Literotica never has created an "Erotic Dystopia" or an "Erotic Allegory" category.

I think your non-human choice was probably as good as you could get.

You inferred that the narrator is a "mildly nice guy" - or so he portrays himself, to the reader and to the broker. He wants to think well of himself. But by the end, I hope I conveyed that he's not a nice person at all. (One theme in common across a lot of my stories is "everybody lies", including to themselves. I like the challenge of getting the truth across even when no one is consciously trying to inform the reading audience of it. I don't claim I'm especially skilled at it.) To be fair, I also hope the reader wonders just how nice anyone can be, if the world as a whole has taken this dark turn. This fellow Randy is thoroughly corrupted by the system he's surrounded by.

Yes, you accomplished that. Sort of depressing.

Is it a world of the future? I don't know exactly. Could also be an alternate universe, or an alternate time-line where some chance event changes everything. Alternate history is a bit trite, having been done approximately a million times, but the time-line maybe could fit with John Kennedy's assassin having missed his shot, Kennedy losing his re-election bid to Barry Goldwater, some genetic engineers getting really busy in the 1960s in a more laissez-faire atmosphere, and by now events have shifted considerably.

If your interest increased when you met Suzie, then I am relieved. She's certainly an affectionate individual, and even though she doesn't have much scope to show her personality, I would hope that she's someone you can root for or side with. She's not especially unhappy with her lot in life, and isn't being terribly mistreated, since she's considered to be of significant monetary value. A treasured pet - pet-with-benefits in the case of a 10%er like her, since she was engineered to have a super-high sex drive and apparently knows how to enjoy it. Yes, she gets zooted if she gets out of line, but she bounces back from it quickly. It kind of would be fun to expand this to a novel and see how her character develops - I'm genuinely unsure. If novelized, this prologue chapter might also set the stage for Randy to be redeemed eventually. A lot will depend on what direction Randy's wife ends up taking, in my imagination.

You wondered about the Kiev skin show. I couldn't resist working references to some geopolitical elements into the story. The backstory here is that Russia invaded Ukraine long ago and utterly demolished it, filling it mostly with ethnic Russians and either letting the Ukrainians stay and be enslaved (Kiev becomes a sex-tourist destination similar to Bangkok except grimmer), or else emigrate (where they are unwelcome and don't fare well either, such as working as housecleaners who are subject to sexual abuse here in the US on a regular basis).

Objectifying, yeah. I don't know if that specific word came to mind while devising the story, but it fits. "Dehumanization" probably is closer to what I had in mind, with the demmies being explicitly dehumanized in the eyes of the law. I would hope the reader finds some revulsion in the telling.

I used the word "objectifying" because it has a special meaning in the world of erotica. It can be a turn on, either by the objectifier or by the objectified. "Dehumanizing" does not, as far as I know, have any erotic vibe.

So is it erotica? I'm uncertain. A male of the dominant persuasion might feel a little wiggle at some point in the story, and then feel guilty about it. Sometimes... a little guilt adds to the arousal. I don't know. I would be horrified by any individual who responded, "hot story, PrimalDual! I hope there's a sequel!" If five stars are to be bestowed, I would prefer they come packaged differently than that.

I may some day compose a Lit post asking just this question. It took me quite a while to accept that lots of stories here are not meant to arouse. They're meant to do all the stuff that ordinary fiction does. Yes, what constitutes "erotica?"

The twist, if you want to call it that, is the reader's dawning realization very close to the end that Randy is going to be a lazy and inattentive and very selfish owner for Suzie, and that he's not the man he portrays himself to be. I had it in mind as more of a cliffhanger - he's deliberately violating the advice he was given - will it turn out badly? The cleverness as you put it, if that's my aim, is in the world-building. I don't aspire to Shyamalan-esque surprises - that's too hard to keep up, over a few dozen stories here.

You did that well. But I'm sort of left wondering, "Why?" Why did we spend time discovering that a mildly nice guy actually had no redeeming qualities?

Intended audience? Possibly an audience of one, me.

I'll check in on your story now and again in hopes there are comments. I do wonder who it would appeal to. My bottom line is I give you high marks for achieving your goal, but low marks for making me want to read more like it. So, again, I'll be interested to see if it appeals to a particular audience.

I have more to say about the world-building and other things, but it's time to turn off the lights and head to bed.

Ah. World-building. Another thing that was new to me when I re-entered the world of reading erotica. Your story probably appeals to that crowd.

 

[AG31]

PrimalDual said:
So is it erotica? I'm uncertain.

I may some day compose a Lit post asking just this question.

No sooner said than done. New post today by @ClaoSteve.

 

[AG31]

You did that well. But I'm sort of left wondering, "Why?" Why did we spend time discovering that a mildly nice guy actually had no redeeming qualities?

Well, it's 2:58 in the morning, and I've been thinking about your story since I woke up an hour or so ago. That's one of my criteria for a really good story, that it won't leave my mind. The word that keeps popping into my head is "brilliant." I've decided that your story is a brilliant depiction of raw sex. There are "no redeeming qualities" because it's about the primal physical attraction between two people. Suzie is not quite human because that way the distraction of personality can be eliminated.

When I (finally) got to the sexual activity it was like you'd turned on a faucet of energy. I've been wondering what it's like to be physically attracted to a female, and you've shown me. I say "physically," because I have no problem with love. My male MCs don't exhibit desire for women except as it's clothed in romance. But I experienced just a tiny bit of erotic flush when you dived into the eroticism.

So kudos! I hope you can shift your opinioin of your own story and take it for what I think it is, a depiction of raw sexuality.

So is it erotica? I'm uncertain. A male of the dominant persuasion might feel a little wiggle at some point in the story, and then feel guilty about it.

This is Literotica. I think you're correct, but I would urge readers to celebrate their response rather than feel guilty. This certainly does not mean that I think people who are attracted to women sexually should treat them in a de-humanized way, but we should be happy about the primal need to penetrate and be penetrated.

P.S. I re-read (re-skimmed) some other replies here and I want to agree with @shelleycat1 said.

I’m still thinking about your story a day later, so that says it is a good story.

Precisely. Me too.

 

[AG31]

It's now 3:57 a.m. I had to pop out of bed again to observe that it's not an accident that the female in this scenario is the one who is de-humanized. In aggregate female sexuality is more tied up with the higher human attributes like love. It's more complicated. Suzie is simple.

This is not something to be guilty about. This is LITerotica. In literature we can explore primal things without the implication that this will influence how we behave in real life.

 

[shelleycat1]

I’ve been following the discussion and I need to point out I did not say the quote above. Also, I’m M.

And the story is good enough for several reasons to stick in my head, but I did not find it erotic.

 

[AG31]

I’ve been following the discussion and I need to point out I did not say the quote above. Also, I’m M.

Sorry about that. I'm editing a correction.

And the story is good enough for several reasons to stick in my head, but I did not find it erotic.

No, I didn't either. I didn't mean to imply that you did, just that it made an impression on you.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I say this in the most complimentary way possible: that was disturbing and I regret reading it. I'm pretty sure that was your goal, though, so well done!

 

[PrimalDual]

Thanks to both for their various followups. (Edit: this lengthy reply was already in progress when joy_of_cooking added their reaction.)

I'll start by mentioning that lately at Literotica I've been working without a net. That is, I have not asked for the services of an editor in about 2 years now. That would be the topic of another thread. For better or for worse I decided to get some stories into as good of a shape as I can, entirely in my own voice, and put them out there for reading. There's little question, though, that an editor could have helped me make this story better. The question is, would one editor be enough? I aimed for sufficient complexity on this one, I think, that one editor would make one set of helpful suggestions, another editor might need to make another batch aiming to avoid reader objections, and pretty soon I have a story written by a committee with me as final editor trying to figure out where exactly I lost my own voice. I don't know where I stand on all of this, except to acknowledge that the flaws you are finding are real. And if those flaws were fixed, either other flaws would then assert themselves, or else the next reader will think that the fiaws I fixed weren't flaws at all. I'm not an experienced writer and these dilemmas, and finding the right balance, are old hat to those who are.

"Brilliant." Well, that made my morning! (I'm three hours behind AG.) I fear that you may be alone on an island by offering such an adjective - I try to visit that same island only as a tourist rather than as an inhabitant. I do try, on at least some fraction of my works here, to I reward a patient reader with things to notice on second reading. But as mentioned above, it's hard to get even a first reading, with the tendency to skim making it a challenge to have enough on the surface to hold the reader's attention. And this is a difficult story to love. Eh, every writer here dreams of being "discovered" - an anthology of "The Collected Short Stories of PrimalDual," edited and assisted by someone really good, is somewhere in the back of my mind.

The female in this story is the dehumanized one, yes. (The theme of the story as a whole, of course, is to what degree the two Full Rights humans are still worthy of being called human.) I alluded in the story to the male Demmies having small penises. I have in mind, if another story in this universe were to be written, that their POV could be explored, though it's not a priority and might be just a scene in service of some larger plot. If the genetically engineered females are highly charged sexually (so much so that 90% of them are genitally mutilated so as to get any work out of them), then presumably the males might be too (and again likely the majority have to be castrated when young). What use might a human woman make of a short-peckered male servant who ejaculates copiously and with a super-quick refractory period? With balls that manufacture sperm in limitless supply and a prostate that just won't quit? Not especially my fantasy, heh, so this prologue to a novel that doesn't exist didn't explore that. Maybe the novel has to be written with co-authors, heh. I wonder if male Demmies respond well to the idea of surrender, given that they already don't have rights. (BTW, I put at least one indication into the story that homosexuality has become extremely taboo once again - perhaps to a horrifying degree. "Good riddance," a character says. It simplifies some things for the story's purposes, but maybe increases other challenges. I do imagine an active underworld where the rules about DNA percentages and so forth are skirted, as well. People don't change.)

"Not something to be guilty about." Ah, I dunno. Guilt adds a certain tang to it all. Guilty thoughts maybe are not as bad as a guilty conscience about acts performed. This is pretty "meta" to the story itself of course.

"The primal need to penetrate and be penetrated." Heh, the story ends at exactly this moment of truth. The story itself perhaps doesn't qualify as erotic, for this exact reason, yet maybe the intent is for the reader's imagination to carry him or herself over the finish line in ways I as a humble writer can't anticipate for each and every one. Lazy technique, or effective? I will say that, for myself, the continuation goes in two or three very different ways, and at the end of the day I was unwilling to choose. Another reader probably can come up with a few more that are different still. I acknowledge that the majority of readers will throw up their hands and say no thanks or why bother?

"Depiction of raw sexuality." That and the other comments about whether this piece can be considered erotica give me some ideas for a bit of a rewrite within the final two-thirds or so, to include contiguous passages where "pure erotica" (AG's highly specific terminology) takes center stage. It would take some doing, and I have only vague ideas what I would do. A really good tease paragraph in the middle of the story, and an even better payoff at the end - but how to retain the ambiguous ending which I seem to unreasonably prize in this case?

You asked, "Is this story meant to arouse, or is it social commentary with sex as the pretext?" It's a very fair question for you to ask, and my qualms about answering are telling. It started as a simple wank story, and the backstory I eventually built gradually took over. A future draft that will never happen probably would attempt to move the pendulum back significantly.

Thanks again.

 

[PrimalDual]

I say this in the most complimentary way possible: that was disturbing and I regret reading it. I'm pretty sure that was your goal, though, so well done!

Thank you, I'll take it in the way you intended. Tomorrow is Halloween, after all. Enjoy the creepy feeling in that spirit, if you wish. Heh, I said spirit. Pleasant dreams!

Maybe it should have been my entry in the Halloween story contest here, instead of the two more light-hearted ones I attempted (one of which, I point out defensively, was entirely a spoof of a non-horror genre). The present dystopian story is by far the "darkest" one I have put on Literotica, but I do like to entertain by doing the unexpected at times.

 

[AG31]

Thanks to both for their various followups. (Edit: this lengthy reply was already in progress when joy_of_cooking added her reaction.)

I'll start by mentioning that lately at Literotica I've been working without a net. That is, I have not asked for the services of an editor in about 2 years now. That would be the topic of another thread. For better or for worse I decided to get some stories into as good of a shape as I can, entirely in my own voice, and put them out there for reading. There's little question, though, that an editor could have helped me make this story better. The question is, would one editor be enough? I aimed for sufficient complexity on this one, I think, that one editor would make one set of helpful suggestions, another editor might need to make another batch aiming to avoid reader objections, and pretty soon I have a story written by a committee with me as final editor trying to figure out where exactly I lost my own voice. I don't know where I stand on all of this, except to acknowledge that the flaws you are finding are real. And if those flaws were fixed, either other flaws would then assert themselves, or else the next reader will think that the fiaws I fixed weren't flaws at all. I'm not an experienced writer and these dilemmas, and finding the right balance, are old hat to those who are.

"Brilliant." Well, that made my morning! (I'm three hours behind AG.) I fear that you may be alone on an island by offering such an adjective - I try to visit that same island only as a tourist rather than as an inhabitant. I do try, on at least some fraction of my works here, to I reward a patient reader with things to notice on second reading. But as mentioned above, it's hard to get even a first reading, with the tendency to skim making it a challenge to have enough on the surface to hold the reader's attention. And this is a difficult story to love. Eh, every writer here dreams of being "discovered" - an anthology of "The Collected Short Stories of PrimalDual," edited and assisted by someone really good, is somewhere in the back of my mind.

The female in this story is the dehumanized one, yes. (The theme of the story as a whole, of course, is to what degree the two Full Rights humans are still worthy of being called human.) I alluded in the story to the male Demmies having small penises. I have in mind, if another story in this universe were to be written, that their POV could be explored, though it's not a priority and might be just a scene in service of some larger plot. If the genetically engineered females are highly charged sexually (so much so that 90% of them are genitally mutilated so as to get any work out of them), then presumably the males might be too (and again likely the majority have to be castrated when young). What use might a human woman make of a short-peckered male servant who ejaculates copiously and with a super-quick refractory period? With balls that manufacture sperm in limitless supply and a prostate that just won't quit? Not especially my fantasy, heh, so this prologue to a novel that doesn't exist didn't explore that. Maybe the novel has to be written with co-authors, heh. I wonder if male Demmies respond well to the idea of surrender, given that they already don't have rights. (BTW, I put at least one indication into the story that homosexuality has become extremely taboo once again - perhaps to a horrifying degree. "Good riddance," a character says. It simplifies some things for the story's purposes, but maybe increases other challenges. I do imagine an active underworld where the rules about DNA percentages and so forth are skirted, as well. People don't change.)

"Not something to be guilty about." Ah, I dunno. Guilt adds a certain tang to it all. Guilty thoughts maybe are not as bad as a guilty conscience about acts performed. This is pretty "meta" to the story itself of course.

"The primal need to penetrate and be penetrated." Heh, the story ends at exactly this moment of truth. The story itself perhaps doesn't qualify as erotic, for this exact reason, yet maybe the intent is for the reader's imagination to carry him or herself over the finish line in ways I as a humble writer can't anticipate for each and every one. Lazy technique, or effective? I will say that, for myself, the continuation goes in two or three very different ways, and at the end of the day I was unwilling to choose. Another reader probably can come up with a few more that are different still. I acknowledge that the majority of readers will throw up their hands and say no thanks or why bother?

"Depiction of raw sexuality." That and the other comments about whether this piece can be considered erotica give me some ideas for a bit of a rewrite within the final two-thirds or so, to include contiguous passages where "pure erotica" (AG's highly specific terminology) takes center stage. It would take some doing, and I have only vague ideas what I would do. A really good tease paragraph in the middle of the story, and an even better payoff at the end - but how to retain the ambiguous ending which I seem to unreasonably prize in this case?

You asked, "Is this story meant to arouse, or is it social commentary with sex as the pretext?" It's a very fair question for you to ask, and my qualms about answering are telling. It started as a simple wank story, and the backstory I eventually built gradually took over. A future draft that will never happen probably would attempt to move the pendulum back significantly.

Thanks again.

Thanks for this in depth reaction to our comments. Very interesting. I enjoyed this back and forth.

 

[PrimalDual]

To tie up some loose ends, here is a full summary of the ideas behind the story.

WIWAW
What I wrote and why

Like nearly all my Literotica submissions, this one began as a masturbation fantasy. Then as usual I ask, “how did they get in this scenario?” This one is just a little more extreme in that regard. Starting out, it was OF COURSE nowhere near this complicated. I honestly am not sure what the original scenario was, anymore, nor what small portions of the eventual story were there from the beginning – probably the test-drive scene at the end, but no doubt it was a little more seamy in nature than my usual Dom/sub one, involving a more extreme degree of unequal status between characters.

Whatever it may have been, when I went to write it up, it became clear to me that the story was essentially about slavery. And since slavery is illegal, essentially everywhere, this was going to be an uncomfortable story. What I hit on was to go far beyond mere slavery, and that would require some backstory, to say the least.

So that’s the "Why." Some readers might be expecting a twist at the end of the story, but no, the only difference at the end than at the beginning is that the main character is even less admirable than you perhaps thought. Not really character development, just a character study. He’s been thoroughly corrupted by this dystopian society.

Is this a future human society? Is it an alternate universe? Is it some kind of trite alternate history based on Abe Lincoln or John Kennedy not getting assassinated? I don’t really know. It seems clear the Genetic Engineers, in a perhaps more libertarian environment, hit on some major breakthroughs some decades ago (living past 100 is the norm now), and certain skunkworks GEs worked on a chimpanzee-human hybrid. I know of some places in the American West where populations of these Demihumans could have been hidden away for a long while without anyone bothering them, especially if there was a governmental breakdown along the way so that oversight was nil. One thing we’ve learned from cellphones, the internet and so forth, we know that any new resource will soon get applied to sex, one way or another.

Personal POV of course, but many economic systems, IMO including capitalism, do best when there is a permanent underclass that can be depended on for cheap labor, keeping the classes above them at a higher standard of living. Slavery was an institution for centuries, but always had several problems: the slaves might escape, the slaves might revolt, the slaves might not thrive. One characteristic is that despite bigotry, the slaves were inherently capable of the same intelligence as the owners. But what if they were not nearly as intelligent, just smart enough to do simple tasks laid out for them (assembly line work, harvesting crops, and so forth)? What if they were so markedly different looking from their captors that they could not blend in, even if they escaped? That was the germ of the idea these Genetic Engineers started from. Instead of daring to breed a super-race to rule, they left the ruling class alone (except for curing a few diseases) but created a whole new under-race. At some point, they got it into the nation’s constitution (just as slavery was written into the US constitution at the outset), and there’s an implication these Demihumans are viewed as pets, so the combination of law and genetics makes the system ironclad. There would be no Underground Railroad.

One thing I noticed on later re-reading: by mentioning some examples of what the law protects (Down Syndrome, etc.) as human, I kind of already drew a line on the weird tangent of midget porn. I won’t kink-shame though. Demmie porn might scratch the same itch for some people.

So it pretty clearly became an allegory for US slavery, almost without my intending to. (Until I finally leaned into it.) One thing I don’t think I specifically mentioned was that, in my mind, this human society has actually benefitted greatly from the rise of Demmies. Standards of living have become very high. At least, if you don’t take into account the implied degradation of the environment outdoors.

This is pretty far from the original sex story. But if you have pieced together part of the backstory from the banter between the broker and his customer, maybe this answers some of the gaps.

All I am confident of is that it’s not a world I want to live in, and this world is nevertheless uncomfortably close to our own.

I’ve been asked, “but is it erotica?” I don’t have a great answer for that. It certainly started out as erotica, for me anyway, but the world-building did take over. But could I publish this at some vanilla site? Probably not - it’s got too much sex in it. Aspects of the sex still arouse me, but if I were to give this story a revision I might put additional effort into bringing back the heat.

The ending is where heat could obviously be added. But I really like ending it there. Will things go as he expects, or will things blow up in Randy’s face? He’s going against the voice of experience, right? You know the cliché of Schrödinger’s Cat, and where I ended the story, the “cat” is still both alive and dead. Erotic continuations could easily occur, and when I think about them, thereby opening the “box,” I enjoy them, feeling a little dirty about it of course.

On a fresh reading, this story reads to me more like the prologue to a novel. A novel I surely will never write. But there are already threads to follow up on. How will Randy’s skeptical wife fit into the picture? Can we learn something about Suzie’s POV? Or that of a woman (are the male Demmies of any interest sexually?)? What other corruption does this society hold? And, since the prologue focuses on Randy, will he be redeemed at the end, or will he instead perhaps corrupt this society’s Winston Smith (of 1984)? In any case, the prologue is kind of a downer, with Randy being lazy and possibly negligent as an owner. Does he treat his new Demmie as a treasured pet, or does he just get blow jobs? So the novel needs someone to root for. Maybe we haven’t met the hero of the real story yet.

Although strictly an owner/property relationship, I think a lot of what the broker tells Randy carries over to a Dom/sub relationship. (And some key points clearly do not.) I found the story difficult to categorize for Literotica purposes. BDSM? Sci-fi? Horror? Nonconsensual? Non-human? (Do the two men in the story deserve to be considered human anymore? I went with this.)

What about the title? I had a hard time deciding on one and opted for a song reference which the protagonist invoked. It’s pretty banal. But there’s that phrase from Hannah Arendt, “the banality of evil.” When I thought of that, the title stayed.

Thanks for reading.

 

[AG31]

I wish you'd published this as a separate thread in AH, with the subject WIWAW, as @StillStunned suggested. I think it would have gotten more traffic. I'm afraid I'm giving up on this forum, although I'll still keep a watch on it.

To tie up some loose ends, here is a full summary of the ideas behind the story.

WIWAW
What I wrote and why

Like nearly all my Literotica submissions, this one began as a masturbation fantasy.

Don't I wish. I think lots and lots of Lit submissions begin as a plot idea. Or some vivid characters that need a story. The sex is added in because this is Literotica. Now, I may be wrong in my impression of the proportions. I've come to the point of not reading anything on the story side unless someone mentions it in the forums, or a new story pops up for someone I'm following. Probably most stories start the way you say. But not the really well written ones.

Then as usual I ask, “how did they get in this scenario?” This one is just a little more extreme in that regard. Starting out, it was OF COURSE nowhere near this complicated. I honestly am not sure what the original scenario was, anymore, nor what small portions of the eventual story were there from the beginning – probably the test-drive scene at the end, but no doubt it was a little more seamy in nature than my usual Dom/sub one, involving a more extreme degree of unequal status between characters.

Whatever it may have been, when I went to write it up, it became clear to me that the story was essentially about slavery. And since slavery is illegal, essentially everywhere, this was going to be an uncomfortable story. What I hit on was to go far beyond mere slavery, and that would require some backstory, to say the least.

So that’s the "Why."

Easily understandable. Thanks for that.

Some readers might be expecting a twist at the end of the story, but no, the only difference at the end than at the beginning is that the main character is even less admirable than you perhaps thought.

You did that really well. I'm trying to think of a way you could have addressed what I'm now calling "raw sexuality" without this plot device. At the moment I can't think of any, but Lit is probably mostly stories with some sort of plot device that works.

Not really character development, just a character study. He’s been thoroughly corrupted by this dystopian society.

Is this a future human society? Is it an alternate universe? Is it some kind of trite alternate history based on Abe Lincoln or John Kennedy not getting assassinated? I don’t really know. It seems clear the Genetic Engineers, in a perhaps more libertarian environment, hit on some major breakthroughs some decades ago (living past 100 is the norm now), and certain skunkworks GEs worked on a chimpanzee-human hybrid. I know of some places in the American West where populations of these Demihumans could have been hidden away for a long while without anyone bothering them, especially if there was a governmental breakdown along the way so that oversight was nil. One thing we’ve learned from cellphones, the internet and so forth, we know that any new resource will soon get applied to sex, one way or another.

From my perspective you got distracted. From my perspective the point of the story was the depiction of raw sexuality without the trappings of civilization. I do believe that at our core there's a store of energy based on the need to penetrate and be penetrated (clustered more heavily at either end of the physical spectrum). The energy is there because the survival of our species depends on it.

Personal POV of course, but many economic systems, IMO including capitalism, do best when there is a permanent underclass that can be depended on for cheap labor, keeping the classes above them at a higher standard of living. Slavery was an institution for centuries, but always had several problems: the slaves might escape, the slaves might revolt, the slaves might not thrive. One characteristic is that despite bigotry, the slaves were inherently capable of the same intelligence as the owners. But what if they were not nearly as intelligent, just smart enough to do simple tasks laid out for them (assembly line work, harvesting crops, and so forth)? What if they were so markedly different looking from their captors that they could not blend in, even if they escaped? That was the germ of the idea these Genetic Engineers started from. Instead of daring to breed a super-race to rule, they left the ruling class alone (except for curing a few diseases) but created a whole new under-race. At some point, they got it into the nation’s constitution (just as slavery was written into the US constitution at the outset), and there’s an implication these Demihumans are viewed as pets, so the combination of law and genetics makes the system ironclad. There would be no Underground Railroad.

As I've said above. Nothing but distraction for me. I've asked before, but gotten no answers, why people who want to write character/plot/world-building fiction choose Lit. Goodness knows main stream fiction can tolerate a limitless amount of explicit sex.

One thing I noticed on later re-reading: by mentioning some examples of what the law protects (Down Syndrome, etc.) as human, I kind of already drew a line on the weird tangent of midget porn. I won’t kink-shame though. Demmie porn might scratch the same itch for some people.

So it pretty clearly became an allegory for US slavery, almost without my intending to. (Until I finally leaned into it.) One thing I don’t think I specifically mentioned was that, in my mind, this human society has actually benefitted greatly from the rise of Demmies. Standards of living have become very high. At least, if you don’t take into account the implied degradation of the environment outdoors.

This is pretty far from the original sex story. But if you have pieced together part of the backstory from the banter between the broker and his customer, maybe this answers some of the gaps.

All I am confident of is that it’s not a world I want to live in, and this world is nevertheless uncomfortably close to our own.

I’ve been asked, “but is it erotica?” I don’t have a great answer for that. It certainly started out as erotica, for me anyway, but the world-building did take over. But could I publish this at some vanilla site? Probably not - it’s got too much sex in it. Aspects of the sex still arouse me, but if I were to give this story a revision I might put additional effort into bringing back the heat.

Yes, that's the question. See above.

The ending is where heat could obviously be added. But I really like ending it there. Will things go as he expects, or will things blow up in Randy’s face? He’s going against the voice of experience, right? You know the cliché of Schrödinger’s Cat, and where I ended the story, the “cat” is still both alive and dead. Erotic continuations could easily occur, and when I think about them, thereby opening the “box,” I enjoy them, feeling a little dirty about it of course.

On a fresh reading, this story reads to me more like the prologue to a novel. A novel I surely will never write. But there are already threads to follow up on. How will Randy’s skeptical wife fit into the picture? Can we learn something about Suzie’s POV? Or that of a woman (are the male Demmies of any interest sexually?)? What other corruption does this society hold? And, since the prologue focuses on Randy, will he be redeemed at the end, or will he instead perhaps corrupt this society’s Winston Smith (of 1984)? In any case, the prologue is kind of a downer, with Randy being lazy and possibly negligent as an owner. Does he treat his new Demmie as a treasured pet, or does he just get blow jobs? So the novel needs someone to root for. Maybe we haven’t met the hero of the real story yet.

Although strictly an owner/property relationship, I think a lot of what the broker tells Randy carries over to a Dom/sub relationship. (And some key points clearly do not.) I found the story difficult to categorize for Literotica purposes. BDSM? Sci-fi? Horror? Nonconsensual? Non-human? (Do the two men in the story deserve to be considered human anymore? I went with this.)

What about the title? I had a hard time deciding on one and opted for a song reference which the protagonist invoked. It’s pretty banal. But there’s that phrase from Hannah Arendt, “the banality of evil.” When I thought of that, the title stayed.

Thanks for reading.

I think the title is perfect.

 

[AG31]

Like nearly all my Literotica submissions, this one began as a masturbation fantasy.

The next time you're inspired to share a masturbation fantasy, try just digging in and describing it (and your feelings) as vividly as possible. Use all your authorial skills. Then quit and publish. You may bump into the 750 word rule, but if you manage I'd be delighted to read it, even if it isn't to my particular tastes.

 

[AG31]

Underage portion removed by Mod

Thanks! I enjoyed it. I even enjoyed the occasional evidence of an early effort on your part.
Maybe you'll remember where you were going with this, now that you've revisited it.

 

[AG31]

Okay, this won't be exactly what you want, because it's all dialog.

I have no problem at all with all dialog. None at all.

Men left to their own devices stick it in, labor for a few minutes, and finish. Men are boring.

I don't find them boring at all.