Why Bother with Porn?

[jomar]

Why porn? Because I'm horny and it's fun. I've read here for awhile, but only in 10/06 did I start to write. I write some technical reports for work, but have never done creative writing, at least for as long as I can recall. But then some fantasy based stories got hold of me so I wrote them (and I now have a glimmer of what you all talk about when you say the characters and stories take over ). And frankly, I just didn't have any ideas about other topics at the time.

But for the most part my stories have been pure stroke - hopefully decently done, but stroke. Any glimmer of plot or character development was probably accidental. I branched out with a couple of poems, a couple of non-erotic stories and then I had a grand idea for a multi-chapter cliffhanger, adventure type romp. For the most part the sex in this story is gratuitous, or at least the graphic nature of it. And I could take the sex out and the story stand on its own. Because I'm writing it for Lit I'm trying to put sex in each chapter, but like others have said even that's getting hard since I don't want to force it. And quality aside, I could see how this one could be easily expanded to novel length.

All this is to say that I see myself evolving and caring more about the elements of a good story and writing better (real) stories. But I do like the freedom here to throw in crazy, steamy sex and have it appreciated. Yes, I love the "that was so hot..." feedback, and every now and then I get a "well written" comment. (Another aspect of the appeal here is the instant feedback.)

Thank you for this thread DrM. I have been thinking about a parallel question that I may ask on a new thread. I want to search old threads first to see if its already been answered though.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

My original answer was rushed because I had an impending meeting at the time. Meeting is gone and done with, so here is a better answer that is a little more detailed and closer to the truth.

When I was younger I considered myself an ameteur artist. I drew things all of the time. Anything and everything that got my attention. Cars, guns, planes, buildings, buildings in perspective, people, women, action scenes, and everything that comes to an adolescant's mind.

In high school I started writing comics (trying to anyway). They were bad. Poorly drawn, poorly written, and even my first forays into sex scenes, and incest. Some of them were btter than others. I wrote a couple dozen one page comics that were brilliantly weird and hilarious (filled with inside jokes that no one outside my core group would understand, but to us, hilarious).

When I graduated high school I could no longer find the time, desk space, or desire to draw anymore. My writng of comics had pretty much come to a halt. I didn't try writing anything for a long few years.

Somewhere around 23 or 25, I found porn stories on the internet. I read a few, and stumbled upon some incest tales. They caught my eye the most, as it was something I had dabbled in. I even have one of the first ones I found saved on my hard drive to this day. I read every hetero porn story I cound find over the next year, especially all of the hetero-incest stories.

At one part I started writing about this girl my friend fancied. I turned it into an incest story because that was my favorite genre, and there weren't any spectacular stories with a character with this particular name, in this particular vein at the time. None that I could find anyway. My story wasn't ground breaking. Well, it would break under scrutiny, but not ground breaking. It's bad. I still have a copy. It's not getting released without being 100% rewritten.

But that's why I started writing. To write stories that I didn't think were being told. Or taking existing stories (maybe I shoudl say "themes" instead) that I thought were being told poorly, and writing them from my own perspective in the way I thought they would be better told from. I didn't think I would be the best smut writer ever, but I thought that I could be a positive influence on the scene.

So I wrote. I started around 30 stories before I finished the first three that I released (I had four released before I went back and finished the one story that was missing the last few paragraphs, it wasn't finished when I submitted that and have since gone back and corrected that )

One day I got an idea and cranked out an entire story in one day. A week later I pumped out chapter 2, and then another little while later chapter 3. I was on a binge, and it was a blast. I still wrote a lot the year after that, but I didn't finish anything. Nothing releasable (I have a rape story that I'm considering deleting from existence).

Now when I write (which isn't often), it isn't just porn anymore. It's whatever comes to my mind like it used to be. Comedies, action, intrigue. It's all going onto the page whenever I get around to it. I write because I feel I have things to say that, while they have been said before, it hasn't all been said in the way I want to say it, all in the same place. I write because I feel that I can write something that not only would I want to read, but I want other people to read. I write because I have things I think should be read.

I write porn because I'm addicted to sex, porn, and porn stories.

 

[Vermilion]

We're not writing "The Declaration of Poon-Tang Freedom"...

Elsol - I'm adopting that for my sig line
x
V

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Wave of the Future

I belong to the Romance Writers of America. I went to their National Convention in Atlanta last July and it was kind of interesting - like 1000 women and 4 or 5 men.

One of the things I learned was that fully half of all fiction sold in the USA is Romance. Fifty per cent. And the fastest growing segment of the Romance market is what's known as Romantica, that is, romance with graphic erotic scenes. Women are the primary audience, and every publisher now has at least one line of Romantica - Dell, Harlequin, all of them. It's a huge, huge business.

We're cutting edge.

 

[rgraham666]

I belong to the Romance Writers of America. I went to their National Convention in Atlanta last July and it was kind of interesting - like 1000 women and 4 or 5 men.

I've noticed the same thing during my on-line promoting.

Too bad they are, with very few exceptions, taken. Sigh.

 

[impressive]

I belong to the Romance Writers of America. I went to their National Convention in Atlanta last July and it was kind of interesting - like 1000 women and 4 or 5 men.

One of the things I learned was that fully half of all fiction sold in the USA is Romance. Fifty per cent. And the fastest growing segment of the Romance market is what's known as Romantica, that is, romance with graphic erotic scenes. Women are the primary audience, and every publisher now has at least one line of Romantica - Dell, Harlequin, all of them. It's a huge, huge business.

We're cutting edge.

I've also heard from several different sources that erotica writers make better romantica writers than romance writers do. Guess there's something to be said for coming in through the back door.

 

[Guest]

I've also heard from several different sources that erotica writers make better romantica writers than romance writers do. Guess there's something to be said for coming in through the back door.

Um. I'm not even going to say a word.

 

[elsol]

Um. I'm not even going to say a word.

I am...

That was porn-ish!

 

[Liar]

question, in light of some postings: (in general) does writing porn and/or erotica subvert anything, foment any kind of resistance to "The System," or does it encourage conformity and submission? does that concern you?

Quite frankly, no, no and no.

Never thought of it in any of those terms. Not even sure what all that means.

 

[Liar]

I was wondering whether anyone else would admit to getting off on making readers hot with their stories, if anyone else looks at writing as a kind of remote, long-distance, generalized seduction. I can't be the only one?

I'll admit it feels pretty cool to get an email saying "I read your story to my husband, and he threw me against a wall and fucked my socks off. Thank you!"

 

[Grushenka]

Never thought of it in any of those terms. Not even sure what all that means.

I love your blunt answers, sometimes more than other times. You make me smile often. Just saying it aloud. Gru

 

[rgraham666]

I'll admit it feels pretty cool to get an email saying "I read your story to my husband, and he threw me against a wall and fucked my socks off. Thank you!"

I like getting those as well.

 

[CeriseNoire]

Why?

Well I've liked to write since I've learned how to. I think I still have a weird five page "book" I wrote in first grade about a girl who fell into a magical squirrel land and learned how we were destroying the Earth (damn, I should have rewritten that for Earth Day).

I've written a lot, although I stopped after I finished my B.A. I do write a lot of non-sexual material, it's just that as many have mentioned, that won't get read much, so it stays between me and my hard drive.

I also enjoy sex and sexual things, as well as their physical and/or emotional impact on people. I often find it fits into my writing as much as other details of the character's lives.

Anyways, I ramble, but I suppose I like writing and I like sex, so why not put them together?

 

[_Lynn_]

I don't have any real or great answer here. Last November I sat down at My computer, with no specific thought in My mind, and 2 hours later I had a 'stroke story'. Since I had fun doing it, the next day I did another one. Two weeks later, with a dozen stories, I mentioned them to a friend, who instantly asked to read them. Thinking they were rather poorly written, I sent a few through and waited nervously for the laughter. Two of those, with a few edits, are now posted here.

The reason I write it?

Writing porn lets Me use My imagination, which is rather active. I have discovered it is a part of who I am.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

question, in light of some postings: (in general) does writing porn and/or erotica subvert anything, foment any kind of resistance to "The System," or does it encourage conformity and submission? does that concern you?

You mean like empowering women or legitimizing transgression or things like that? I read some essay that saw pornography as defining the frontiers of social acceptibility and maybe it does, but when I'm writing it I don't give it much thought.

Actually, I think porn is usually very conservative at heart. The whole idea of "naughty literature" is kind of quaint, with its mom-fucking and maiden-whipping and giant dicks and big tits. It's all kind of innocent.

It's funny that the only thing we seem to find obscene now is political incorrectness - sexism and the like - and I find myself playing up and exaggerating the differences between male and female behaviors and attitudes in a lot of my stories now. It's a weird place to go in serarch of a feeling of transgression.

 

[Guest]

I'll admit it feels pretty cool to get an email saying "I read your story to my husband, and he threw me against a wall and fucked my socks off. Thank you!"

I like that sort of feedback, too.

 

[An Awful Cad]

It's funny that the only thing we seem to find obscene now is political incorrectness - sexism and the like - and I find myself playing up and exaggerating the differences between male and female behaviors and attitudes in a lot of my stories now. It's a weird place to go in serarch of a feeling of transgression.

Try writing for the Loving Wives category. They seem to be able to find lots that's obscene there - at least that's what my feedback says.

 

[Nasha]

Nasha, you've just said almost everything I would have! Especially your last two paras, I couldn't agree with you more.

Except for the part about the sex scenes, which still enthrall me. I am trying to add more and more story around them, though. And now the challenge is to craft sex that merges seamlessly into the storyline, and that always moves the plot forward.

Hi, Stella.
It's lovely bumping into someone else those issues resonate with.

Yeah, I know what you mean about trying to get the seamless cohesion between the sex and the story it's a part of. I'm struggling, myself, trying to craft a cohesive story around the various ideas and sexual encounters that spawned my latest monster. There is a thread which connects my characters and drives their exploits, but writing something that doesn't end up looking like screw. filler. screw. filler. screw... is proving difficult.

 

[Nasha]

...it always surprises me how little serious erotica there is. There's a lot of porn - a lot of stories about what people do to each other - but not much about what they think of what they're doing and how they feel about it, why they do it, what they're looking for and what they actually find. Even in mainstream serious capital-L literature they don't seem to delve too deeply. D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller - they're like serious pornographers.

So that's another reason I work in erotica, because I think it's a wide open field. People have sex for all sorts of reasons - because they love each other, because they use each other, because they're trying to change each other or change themselves or they hate each other or God knows what - and yet probably 90% of the stories on Lit are about people just wanting to have fun or be naughty. The rest of it is wide open. The great sexual literature remains to be written.

So personally, instead of getting away from sex in my writing, I seem to be getting more into it, getting more personal and hopefully more honest. I've spent the last 4 years basically investigating D/s and trying to figure out why my characters engage in it and what they get out of it and I've only just scratched the surface. When you think of all the other sexual behaviors out there... There's a hell of a lot of virgin territory.

I think you're dead on--the realm of sexuality has been trodden to dust, at the borders, but most of the vast territory of sex and sexuality has been pretty much ignored in literature. For whatever reasons, most people who write explicitly about sex tend to ignore what's driving it, beyond the throbbing erections and dripping pussies, while writers who have the talent and interest to explore the human psyche and how culture works on it tend to steer clear of the sexual aspect of things. So yeah, I agree, there's a vast virgin territory to be plundered.

I'm so glad you started this thread--it's seriously helping me to re-focus on what I meant to accomplish with what I'm currently writing.

 

[Nasha]

question, in light of some postings: (in general) does writing porn and/or erotica subvert anything, foment any kind of resistance to "The System," or does it encourage conformity and submission? does that concern you?

As with everything--the internet, television, comic books, rap music, etc.--I don't believe porn as a genre is inherently subversive or conformist. It's the substance of any particular work that makes it one or the other or some of both.

 

[CharleyH]

You're good enough to have stuff posted on Lit, which means you have a modicum of talent and ability as a writer. You can write a sentence and a paragraph, do dialogue, know a plot when you trip over one, recognize a story when you see one.

You could be writing mysteries or science fiction or humor, horror or romance or adventure, but instead you're writing porn. How come? Why do you put so much energy and effort into something that will probably never make you any money and that you'll probably be too embarrassed to ever even admit to writing under your real name?

I have my own reasons. I'm curious about yours.

LOL what a fabulous question. I write porn (although I am a snob and like to call it erotica - joking, maybe - I see the difference, and so I do call my writing "erotica" and not porn - lol). I write it because I am good at it - good at writing sex scenes, scenes that turn me on and that I hope turn others on or inspire them or at least give them a hot flash (sans menopause). I like writing with no constraints and writing erotica (even though I do find participating in chain stories a little binding) is good for writing beyond the boundaries of the acceptable. (I've always been a Kafka/ Genet/ Beckett fan).

I wanted to be a writer from as early as I can recall and tried and tried and tirelessly tried to write non-erotica, yet there was always something missing. I did not know what and so wrote press releases and editorials and articles for the most daunting time.

I used to write more poetry than I do, and erotic poetry is what ultimately lead me to Lit. Upon finding Lit, I wrote my first erotic story, "The Screening ." It is probably my best story, although that's coming from the opinion of others more than from me. It is not my best story. Yet, it is a pivotal narrative for me. It made me realize that what was missing from all my stories was the basic human need and desire: sex. I write erotica, not only because I am good at it, but because out of all the genres, it speaks to the only theme/topic/want/need that ALL humans ultimately desire - sex. No other genre can do that and so I enjoy -no - I LOVE writing erotica.

 

[CharleyH]

I write sex-centric (my word!) fiction because I hate that something so integral to who we are is viewed as shameful and dirty. In short, I rebel. I'm an advocate. It's in my blood.

Just getting to the rest of the posts now, but I must admit this is THE BEST PHRASE EVER! Sex-centric fiction ... I might have to use it somewhere.

 

[CharleyH]

I was wondering whether anyone else would admit to getting off on making readers hot with their stories, if anyone else looks at writing as a kind of remote, long-distance, generalized seduction. I can't be the only one?

I do not look at erotic/ porn writing as a remote and long-distance seduction (read THE SCREENING before you answer, though - )

 

[Stella_Omega]

I love your answer up there, Charley!

 

[cumallday]

You're good enough to have stuff posted on Lit, which means you have a modicum of talent and ability as a writer. You can write a sentence and a paragraph, do dialogue, know a plot when you trip over one, recognize a story when you see one.

You could be writing mysteries or science fiction or humor, horror or romance or adventure, but instead you're writing porn. How come? Why do you put so much energy and effort into something that will probably never make you any money and that you'll probably be too embarrassed to ever even admit to writing under your real name?

I have my own reasons. I'm curious about yours.

1, 2, 3, sex. 1, 2, 3, sex. 1, 2, 3, sex. That's how my brain works.