EROTICA TODAY – OLD
AS THE HILLS, SO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, HAS CHANGED?
BY PRIMULA BOND
The publishing world
seems to be in two minds about erotica. On the one hand, the
explosion of that trilogy two
years ago cannot be ignored. It sent editors rushing to get their
star writers to emulate the success of the three books which
overnight introduced the phrase 50 Shades
into common parlance around kitchen tables and water coolers, not to
mention Facebook and Twitter.
On
the other hand, those of us who have been writing erotica for 20
years or more are still mostly rebuffed by an industry which sees
erotica as smutty at best, second rate at worst.
Much
was made when 50 Shades came
out that what it revealed about the mainly female readers was even
more interesting than the story itself. To put it very simply, it
transpired that no matter how successful and high-powered they were,
women responded to the escapist, relinquishing theme of strong man
educating submissive woman.
Love
it or loathe it, what the advent of that trilogy has also
achieved with its focus on the
emerging relationship of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele (when
they are not busy in his Red Room of pain), is the rise of the more
accessible genre of adult, or erotic, romance. This has given
seasoned writers like Sylvia Day and me, and newer arrivals like Jodi
Ellen Malpas, the chance to flex our creative muscles after years of
toeing an increasingly restricted line of stereotypes and sex scenes
and we are now freer to expand and modernise an age-old theme, let
rip with some really intelligent, credible, enjoyable story telling
and introduce more complex characters and relationships.
Meanwhile
our widening market of eager readers can openly buy and display books
with their understated 'grey' cover designs and bury themselves in a
compelling love story which is every bit as hot and explicit as
before, but can, and should, hold its head up with any other type of
popular, well-written literature.
Many
historical examples of erotic writing, previously banished, are now
resplendent on literary book shelves, to wit the works of the Marquis
de Sade (1740-1814) who chronicled torture and cruelty as well as
blasphemy against the Catholic Church, The Story of O
(1954) which also deals with sado-masochism, and Anais Nin's Delta
of Venus (1940s). These all
explore fairly extreme, even brutal, examples of sexuality rather
than the wilder shores of love.
The
much misunderstood Lady Chatterley (1928) comes closer to the deeper,
more involved erotica that appeals to today's 'woman on the Tube' –
in other words, the readers I am after. Whilst the Anglo-Saxon
language is fruity and was considered shocking for its day, it
perfectly expresses the awakening and wonder that occurs between the
characters. Describing it as obscenity clouds the central tenet of
the book.
I
like to open erotica workshops with a discussion on the stark
difference, in my view, between pornography (visual, blatant,
unimaginative, demeaning) and erotica (written, evocative, inspiring,
celebratory), using Lady Chatterley as an example of misconception.
The
growing tenderness between Mellors (an articulate ex-Army officer,
not a rude mechanical as is so often assumed) and Connie is not the
overdone housewife-beds-plumber scenario, if only people would take
the trouble to study it more closely. It's far more subtle, a release
for both of them from the shackles on his part of a frustrating
marriage and his withdrawn personality, and on her part from a
loveless marriage and a stifling class system.
This
analysis of whether my chosen genre has evolved piqued me when I was
asked recently if male and female characters and their motivations
had changed with the times. I pondered this question as I wandered
round the supermarket one weekend filling my trolley with such
mundane items as spuds, sausage rolls, felafel balls (currently an
obsession), beer, yoghurt and, ooh go on then, cucumbers and Magnum
ice cream.
Yes,
we erotica writers see the suggestive everywhere we look, but we
still have to eat, entertain and feed our families. And no, we are
not paid enough to have lackeys to do it for us. The illusion our
readers have of us lounging around all day dressed in leather bondage
gear or baby doll nighties tip-tapping on our laptops and requiring a
touch of flagellation before stepping out the front door is just
that: a carefully constructed illusion. Some of us even masquerade as
respectable matrons and pillars of the school gate.
I
am an Oxford educated mother of three sons who has juggled legal
work, lodgers and family with writing newpaper and magazine features,
and although I have a colourful smorgasbord of 'real life'
experiences ranging from single motherhood, depression and
Catholicism to living abroad, chronic illness and older parenthood to
fill many an article, my real passion lies in fiction.
Since
I was a little girl scribbling in a grubby exercise book, the
emphasis has always been on romance. Sometimes light, sometimes
pretty dark. I dreamed of Mr Right, or more often Prince Right,
during a mournful teenage listening to 10cc, university struggling
with Shakespeare, twenties peppered with break-ups, and then the
wonderful challenge of unexpected motherhood. My musings were
consistently rejected until I submitted one to Mills and Boon. This
time the rejection was at least constructive: my writing was great,
but my sex scenes were too explicit.
And
so my erotica career was born.
Tune in tomorrow to hear the next instalment!
