Sex as Literature's Bitch

by Amanda Earl

Why is sexual activity often associated with misfortune or dysfunction in mainstream literature?

Here are my half-baked theories (HBTs) on the subject with a little help from Alberto Manguel in his introduction to The Gates of Paradise. 

HBT # 1

According to religious doctrine, sex is supposed to be subordinate to the spirit. Sex is for procreation, with pleasure being a reward for such. Erotic fiction is subversive because it depicts sex as enjoyable, the achievement of desire as the ultimate goal. Western literature is still very much influenced by religion because its readers are still very much influenced by religion. Christianity is still a major world religion with one-third of the world's population as its adherents. Its doctrine continues to influence people. Part of that doctrine means that sex outside of marriage, sex with people of the same sex and sex with multiple partners is a sin. It's not a viewpoint that is going to go away quietly. The parts of the Bible, such as the Song of Solomon, which poetically rhapsodize about the pleasures of sexual union, are of course in conflict with such dogma, but Christians live with many paradoxes.

In fact, mainstream society is full of these paradoxes towards sex. We use underage children to sell us alluring clothing. We are fine with graphically explicit violence in films, but show a man's dick and the film has to have an X Rating. Priests take vows of celibacy, but many of them turn out to be buggering little boys. These paradoxes are reflected in literature, thanks to hard working writers trying to make sense of them and the existential angst of the modern world.

HBT #  2

Writers want to create fiction that includes a healthy dose of conflict in order to make the work compelling. [Segue: Not to say that fiction without conflict can't be compelling; see this post on kishōtenketsu.] Sex, especially shameful sex, is a pretty convenient and juicy little conflict creator. It is something most people have to deal with, one way or another. So all readers and writers can relate. Desire can be something that is difficult to reign in; it plays with one's emotions. Repression or frustration of desire can lead to out-of-control acts.  In other words, it's a pot of gold for any writer.

HBT # 3

In literary fiction, all subjects can serve as material for inspiration. Writers can write about incest, rape, abuse, bestiality,necrophilia…all manner of sexual dysfunction and criminality, with the understanding that they are not writing about such acts to titillate. These subjects are very juicy for writers and consequently they are ubiquitous in literature. Open up most Canadian literary fiction at random and you will happen upon

a) winter;

b) a character who has been the object of abuse or incest;

c) World War II;

d) lichen [more common in poetry than fiction];

e) cormorants [see d];

f) a grieving widow.

See Gail Anderson-Dargatz's The Cure for Death by Lightning; Lisa Moore's February; Timothy Findley's the Piano Man; Anne Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees, Barbara Gowdy's We So Seldom Look on Love…

What self-respecting fiction writer wants to write about healthy, loving experiences, when they can immerse themselves in  the dark, nasty stuff, emotional baggage, the skeletons in our closets?

In erotic fiction, writers can't get published by legitimate publishers if their fiction includes such taboos for the sake of arousal. We also cannot write about underage characters, so coming of age stories, the ones that are so ubiquitous in mainstream literary fiction are also mostly off limits to us, unless we figure out a way to make their coming of age happen after they are eighteen (and sometimes even older), which comes off as a wee bit preposterous most of the time.

Meanwhile Tamara Faith Berger's excellent novel Maidenhead  about a sixteen year old girl whose first experience with sex involves a stranger who pisses on her, beats her and gets her involved in pornography has received rave reviews in the mainstream media, and justifiably so; however, reviewers are not allowed to get too explicit in their reviews.

The fact is, erotica writers are hamstrung. We want to portray sex positively, but we also want juicy stories with complex plots and characters. It's such fun to write villains. [I look forward to the next topic which discusses the happily ever after ending.]  We, too, want to take on the angst of human existence with all the sturm und drang [this video is NSFW] that such angst entails.

To me the best example of a contemporary writer who immerses herself in the paradoxes, who plays with the tensions of sex as pleasure/shame and whose landscapes are often bleak and exotic is Remittance Girl. Her characters are never perfect. She writes from deep psychological depths and her work doesn't just titillate body parts, it also provokes the mind. See for example her novels Beautiful Losers about a threesome made up of two gay men and a woman and the Waiting Room about Sophie-the-slut and Alexander, her tempter, lover, perhaps redeemer/corruptor. 

I do feel that such resplendent examples are still rare in contemporary erotica. I can think of a few others off the top of my head: M.Christian,  Mike Kimera (the latter no longer writing alas.) No doubt you, dear readers, can provide me with a few examples of such and I invite you to do so.

HBT # 4 [or rather, an extension of HBT # 3]

Take for instance BDSM, which is the current darling of the mainstream, thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey. And I say darling of the mainstream because newspapers and magazines are suddenly full of articles on how handcuffs and floggers can spice up your marriage, etc. 

Compared to BDSM fiction's earlier incarnations, such as the Story of O where O is forced into service without prior consent and the men who use her aren't exactly paragons of virtue, or books by the Marquis de Sade, contemporary BDSM fiction has been replete with cool-headed perfect dominants and compliant submissives. Agreements are made ahead of time; scenes of abduction abound, but are prearranged by the spouse. Often contests and calls for submission for BDSM erotica include the proviso that the acts depicted must be SSC (Safe, Sane and Consensual) or RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink).

Is this because there is pressure by the BDSM community to portray BDSM that way, to avoid putting BDSM in a bad light because it is seen as reprehensible by mainstream society?

Just the other day I was watching a recent episode of Mad Men [SPOILER ALERT!] Out of the blue, Don became all dommy with his mistress, pathetically ordering her to crawl on the floor (she wouldn't) and then making her stay in a hotel room to be used for his pleasure (she did.) and then when she wanted to end it, begging her to stay. Begging!  No preamble, no prearranged agreements, because this is how the mainstream thinks BDSM works. And this is one of the reasons why BDSM erotica more than any other kind of erotic fiction is held up to a standard (SSC/RACK; robotodoms).

Because mainstreamers have these ludicrous ideas about BDSM, its practitioners and advocates worry that people wanting to experiment might take this fiction as truth and decide to try out the activities based on how they are portrayed in fiction. This is tantamount, in my opinion, to saying that readers are stark raving idiots. And perhaps some of them are, but if so, they have bigger problems in life than their inability to read beyond the literal.

Meanwhile there is a plethora of very educational, highly informative reference books that deal with the subject available for the curious to consult. See Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns; A Different Kind of Loving; SM 101. & take a look at this great list on the Submissive Loving site.

It's not to say that all contemporary BDSM erotica falls in line with SSC/RACK or has perfect characters, but when it includes dysfunctional characters, they are usually redeemed by the end of the story or the door is open for their redemption. My theory about why conventional society is actually reading and admitting to reading Fifty Shades of Grey is because the so-called dominant is a sociopath who is taking out past issues with his crack whore mama and redeemed by the love of a good woman. Such pleasant heteronormativity. Much more unpalatable to mainstreamers if he was just an ordinary man, a good man who was turned on by drawing out sexually repressed lovers and making them understand their true selves, who delighted in their punishment, their pain for his sake and their own but not because he is suffering from some kind of disorder or mania, simply because it's fun or mind-expanding.

Erotica writers have a tough challenge to write compelling fiction while still portraying sex in a positive light. These days you are pretty much obligated to include condoms in your descriptions of the sex act. I find this tiresome. I read erotica to fantasize, not to be brought back to reality with a sticky piece of latex on the page. See. Remittance Girl's recent blog post "Unsafe Sex and the Representation of Ideals." And while I don't mean to suggest that such restrictions are always in place, it does seem to be becoming more of a trend. I doubt works like Georges Bataille's the Story of the Eye or the Dead Man could never be published in print today. 

Nicholas Baker, author of the Fermata and Vox, recently published House of Holes, which received many reviews, including one by the NewYork Times. The work is described as not as pervy as his previous books; although the Globe and Mail says that it is just as graphic, but goofier. Is this less pervy more goofy style because Baker is trying to satisfy more pedestrian tastes, become more palatable to the mainstream? 

Faced with the way mainstream literature often uses sex as its bitch, many of us want to try to write sex positive fiction. But I'd rather just write good fiction myself, with all the tensions and possibilities available to mainstream literary writers. The problem is mainstream publishers would find my graphic descriptions of sex gratuitous instead of empowering and arousing, which are my goals when I use such language. Whereas at least graphic sex is still welcomed by erotica publishers. But even that is changing. I've seen a couple of calls for submission advising against the use of explicit language, more calls for heterosexual erotica than queer erotica and also for BDSM erotica, requests to add romance. I worry that erotica is trying to become part of the mainstream. I prefer to play in the margins.

In conclusion, I believe that mainstream literature writers continue to write sex as dysfunctional in order to generate conflict, but I also believe that erotica is becoming increasingly sanitized with pressure to clean up its act and be less filthy in order to be palatable to the mainstream. Take a look at Selena Kitt's article on Amazon's filtering and the steps erotica writers are having to take to get their work past the Amazon censors so that we pervs can find their books. 

Also I've noticed a few authors whose work used to be quite gritty writing sweeter tales. While variety is good, I have been told that the reason for the lovey dovey nature of at least one of the books is because of market demand. I hope I’m wrong, but if erotica is becoming less edgy and if writers are sweetening up their writing in order to suit mainstream demand, I am very concerned.