to be Erotic

[Diane Marie]

I started this thread as an off shoot of erotic clichés by Whispersecret.

"What is the main thing in love? to know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden-the passion for the revealed." by Marina Tsvetaeva

Erotic Poem or not? Regardless of whether you believe it is or isn’t, it surely deals with an awful lot in four very short sentences. Love, knowing, hiding, passion and shame. A good number of us could write a very erotic story from those five words. I dare say many could write one inspired by those four sentences.

Would each story be original, unless it’s just a typical fuck story, I think they would be. I might add, I defy a writer of purely fuck stories to write such using either the four sentences or the true meaning of those five words. In my mind impossible. How each author dealt with characterization, emotions, passions, shame because of that passion(morals) and finally the erotic, would make each story uniquely theirs.

Is this not the heart of erotic literature, as opposed to pornographic literature. I do believe there is a vast difference between these two forms of literature. It is not tit for tat, one deals with the nature of human beings, while the other deals only in the physical acts we humans can do.

One type well call a woman a cum sucking whore, the other well deal with who she is, why she does what she does, even to the point of dealing with her morals. Depending on the author, one may handle the moral question as a sociality judgment, "she’s loose", while another more circumspect author is going to deal with the moral conflict within(conscience), and how she’s resolves that conflict. Society may judge her a slut, she may think of herself as sexually liberated, which approach is taken depends on the author.

I guess the heart of what I’m trying to say is that most of the stories written here rarely deal with the emotional issues, if they do many are totally unrealistic. One that comes to mind is a couples first sexual encounter with another couple, the author used a totally unrealistic avenue, the easy way out, to get the wife’s consent. I’m sorry, I’m a woman, she dealt with both her emotions and her morals, a woman just doesn’t jump in bed with her best friends husband, not without first dealing with her feelings. Maybe she dealt with those long before that night, making it seem seamless as she slipped into his arms, but she dealt with her emotions. I also do not believe a man jumps into bed with his wife’s best friend without dealing with some emotions and some of his morals.

Moral conflicts are part of our daily lives, you can just ignore them but they are there. When I cheated on my first husband, I had to deal with my emotions but the bigger conflict was with my morals. I’m not sure I resolved either but I justified both or I would not have cheated. After doing so again I had to deal with the emotional and moral, how I dealt with that may be totally different then how someone else would have done so. A wife cheats, clichés story, but my story is unlike that of another who cheats, but only if I tell of the emotional and the moral conflict, then it’s very unique.

Even something as simple as having sex on the first date, emotions and morals have to be dealt with. For most women I know, that is just not morally acceptable. Maybe however she gets caught in a moment of passion, how she deals with her emotions along with her morals is not only important to a story, it can turn a bad story into a great story.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that good erotic literature, deals with the inner most parts of our beings, only one of which is our sexuality. Fear, hate, passion, lust, morals just to name a few. Writing in this venue can be so much more then just writing sex stories, and in my mind they should be. In a way erotica literature is uniquely suited for this, because we don’t hide what so many want hide, Sexuality.

Some of you may say hold on you haven’t mentioned characterization. Haven’t I? Real live people have all of these, how can you portray a real person if you ignore the most important parts of us. The outside is only a container for that which is within.

It is my opinion that all of the clichés stories mentioned, and more, can be given new life, becoming truly erotic if they are written in this way.

Any opinions?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Congratulations! It sounds like you're ready for real literature!

I think you're taking too broad a view of erotica. Most of the issues and questions you mention are in the province of literature proper, not erotica.

I think most people would agree that "erotica" forcuses on the sexual dimension of human beings and the emotions associated with sexual desire. Moral questions and the struggles we go through trying to deal with them may add depth to a character, but are not in themselves erotic, at least not to me. I would not expect a character to agonize over whether to take a married lover in my erotica any more than i would expect two people to graphically go at it like minks for page after page in a mannstream novel.

A lot of writers have merged overt sexuality with "deeper" or more philosophical questions of love and life. Henry Miller comes to mind, Phillip Roth, Erika Jong and--help! my mind is gone!--the guy who wrote the Alexandria quartet. None of those authors' works would get mnore than a 2 here.

---dr.M.

 

[PaulX35]

In agreement

DM,

Even when I have little to add to the position you are taking here, I did want to support it.

Basically, I think, (erotic) writing becomes really interesting when there is something happening to the characters involved. Painting that in a shorter story is not at all easy; many stories here are scene-impressions rather than character-developments, but even within a scene-impression you can enliven a lot by adding in real and credible emotions. I personally spend quite a bit of time thinking out the respective feelings my characters would be likely to have. I've also found it is not everyone's main interest to be enlightened on that aspect of writing, but I think it makes the difference between a mere fuck-story (which can be hot and pleasing and can indeed be fun to write as well!) and what gives a piece of writing just that bit more in terms of depth, which is what I aim at when writing longer stories.

Thanks for bringing this subject up

Paul

 

[Un-registered]

Dr.M and Paul,
I agree with both of you.

I might even go further and say that a lot of the things posted on Lit as short stories read much more as though they were extracts from much longer works. They are not complete and self-contained. There is more to writing a short story than writing a single episone from somebody's life, though that can make a short story.

 

[Diane Marie]

Speaking of Erica Jong.

"Oh Doris Lessing, my dear-your Anna is wrong about orgasms. They are no proof of love-any more than that other Anna's fall under the wheels of that Russian train was a proof of love. It's all female shenanigans, cultural mishegoss, conditioning, brainwashing, male mythologizing. What does a woman want? She wants what she has been told she ought to want. Anna Wulf wants orgasm, Anna Karenina, death. Orgasm is no proof of anything. Orgasm is proof of orgasm. Someday every woman will have orgasms-like every family has color TV-and we can all get on with the real business of life."
Erica Jong

Love it!!!!!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Diane Marie

Exactly. That's why you won't see much about love when the stories are mainly concerned with orgasms.

I'm at something of a disadvatnage because i just don't read that many stories here on Literotica, and what I do read tend to be the better stories. I just have absolutely no patience for the bad fuck-scene story and I will just not read them, so when I'm forced to read them--when they appear in the Feedback board for example--I am just shocked at how bad they are. Just incredulous that anyone would have the nerve to publish that kind of crap.