Dark Futures - #ScienceFiction #Dystopia #EroticFreedom

Image by Carroll MacDonald from Pixabay

By Lisabet Sarai

Most people who know me, both in my author persona and in meat-space, will agree that I’m an optimist.

Except, it seems, when I’m writing science fiction.

As a reader, I’ve been a scifi fan more or less forever. (Witness my recent post on the ERWA blog.) More drawn to “soft” than “hard” scifi, I’m awed by the ability of the best scifi authors to fashion totally convincing alternate realities and to explore their social implications. Unfortunately, my love of and admiration for the genre has made me hesitant to write speculative fiction myself. I’m consumed with self-doubt about my own ability to create truly original scifi scenarios. Thus, I have only a few speculative fiction titles in my catalogue.

Every single one unfolds in some sort of dystopia.

Furthermore, as you might predict, almost all my dark futures involve some distortion of positive sexuality.

Quarantine, my most ambitious scifi effort to date, takes place in a near-future US where the population, the social fabric and the nation’s infrastructure have been devastated by a virulent plague. Echoing the AIDS epidemic, the disease supposedly arose in and was spread by the gay community. In the wake of wide-spread rioting and horrific violence, a shadowy cabal known as the Guardians of American Greatness has taken over the government. All men whose genome includes the “H-gene”, which supposedly predisposes them to homosexuality, have been imprisoned - “quarantined” - in remote internment camps. The novel follows Dylan, a brilliant and desperate young man who’s been quarantined since he was teen, as he seduces one of the few human guards in order to engineer his escape from desolate Camp Malheur.

It’s not much of a stretch, I guess, to imagine a rabidly homophobic America that glorifies Eisenhower-era “traditional” families and treats same-sex attraction as a literal crime. In writing the book, I hoped I could make this dystopia vivid enough that readers would forgive the lack of originality, not to mention the more or less obvious political stance of the author. Quarantine is a romance; Dylan and Rafe, the ex-gang-member-turned-guard, have to overcome not only the real-world obstacles facing them as fugitives but also some serious trust issues. Eventually they realize they love one another. Still, the book does not have an unequivocal happy ending. Rafe and Dylan are together for the moment, but still threatened by the authorities, as well as physically and emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, a revolution is brewing which could easily tear them apart.

Dystopias tend to persist even after the story ends.

Another example can be found in my short story The Antidote. Indeed, this dystopia shares many features with the world in Quarantine, though I wrote this story first. It’s set sixty years after the Plague, a sexually-transmitted disease that triggered mass deaths, riots and massacres. The government, superficially more benign than that the thugs in Quarantine, requires that all citizens submit to a mysterious libido-suppression technology, in order to prevent a resurgence of the deadly virus. Most people are satisfied with monthly government-supported, hormone-enhanced procreative sex. But Lena is different. Though she loves her husband Jeff, she yearns to experience the thrill of forbidden lust, to know what it feels like to couple with a stranger. There are rumors of an antidote to the government’s technology. Lena’s willing to risk everything for a taste.

Superficially, Lena’s world is peaceful, prosperous and orderly. But can one truly be human without knowing sexual desire? I guess my personal opinion is pretty clear.

The Last Amanuensis (currently out of print, but hopefully to be re-released soon) once again is set in a world overseen by an intrusive, authoritarian government. In this case, though, it’s not sex that’s forbidden, but literature and art. The Preceptors envision a purely rational society, controlled and harmonized by logic, mathematics and science. They arrest and eradicate people who challenge their ideology. Adele, the amanuensis of the title, is hired to record a secret trove of brilliant poems written by her employer and help to keep them hidden.

Trespass, published in the altruistic erotica collection Coming Together By Hand, presents a different type of dystopia, one in which a small, super-rich elite lives in beautiful, soaring cities, supported by a destitute, struggling under-class. Again, almost a natural extension of today’s realities... The tale chronicles a tragic romance between a woman of the Tower People and a young man from the Sub-urbs. It also explores how notions of obscenity and transgression can vary from one society to another.

My dystopias reveal a good deal about me, I guess. It seems I’m worried most about losing freedom: freedom to love whomever one desires, freedom to experience lust even without love. Deep down, I’m worried about the eradication of the erotic. Love, sex and the joy they can kindle are precious. In today’s world, however, let alone tomorrow’s, I see them as fragile.

I’ll end with a bit of flash fiction I wrote a long time ago, on the same basic, dystopic theme. 

Yes, you can imagine that I’m the one speaking.

Before the Plague

Of course you can buy me a drink. I'd be honored to have the company of an attractive young man like you.

Sorry, I can't help it. I know that I look like a lusciously ripe thirty-five. I've always had fabulous tits, and shapely legs, too. And the hair is all mine, even if the color is augmented. I've got to be honest, though. Don't be fooled by all the wiles of anti-aging technology. I'm old enough to be your grandmother. No, probably your great-grandmother.

Don't be shy, though. Didn't you ever fantasize about an older woman? You don't have to admit it, I know you have. Every young man wonders what it would be like: the willingness, the experience, the gratitude.

So, here I am. The older woman. The woman who remembers. Yes, I remember, I swear, remember what life was like, what sex was like, before the plague.

You were born to the plague. So were your mother and father. For you, making love has always been tainted by the threat of death. What a tragedy – an abomination! Can you even begin to imagine a time when two people who were drawn to each other could have sex without fear, without consequences, other than the fact that the emotional connection might or might not strike true?

It's nearly inconceivable to you, I know, the notion of spontaneous sex. No vaccines, no tests, no questions asked. No barriers – at least no physical ones. You might enjoy yourself, you might not. That was the only risk.

I lived in that age. The golden age, it seems now. You could revel in your own body, in someone else's body. Anyone you fancied. Maybe a stranger. Maybe your best friend's husband – or even your best friend herself! If desire called, you answered, as long as that was what felt right.

Every day was ripe with erotic possibilities. We moved through our world (well, perhaps I should speak only for myself) in a continual state of borderline arousal, ready to recognize and enjoy the next sensual adventure.

You're trying to be polite, but I can see your nose wrinkle with disgust at my "promiscuity". To you it sounds unthinkable. Irresponsible. Try to understand. Sex was safe – without drugs or viral inhibitors or any other "precautions". Oh, you could be hurt. You could fall in love with someone who didn't care for you, or with a stranger you'd never see again. But you were always free to try.

The Pill was the liberator that gave us this age of deliciously decadent exploration. My mother might have been as horny as I was (and let me tell you, I was horny. All right, I admit that with the rejuvenation treatments and the tailored hormones, I still am.) But she couldn't let herself go, because she might have gotten pregnant.

Pregnancy! Another life! Now there's a consequence, fully as weighty as potential death! Again, hard for you to comprehend the risk of accidental impregnation. Your parents probably paid a pretty penny for fertility boosters and gene customization, to produce a boy as cute as you.

Now don't get offended. Here, it's my turn to buy a round. All I'm trying to say is that even though we're sitting together in this bar, we come from different worlds. My early life is nearly as alien to you as the world of that Rigelian in the corner nursing his beer.

You want to hear more, though, don't you? Should I tell you about the afternoon that I rode my bicycle along the California beach, my nipples poking through my top, advertising my constant excitement? A man picked me up and took me up to his penthouse overlooking Venice. (That was a quirky little beach town near Lost Angeles. Before the Big One. Hippies and millionaires and body builders. There's really nothing like it now.)

He got me high (yes, I know you don't approve) and then screwed me for the entire afternoon. I came four or five times, and so did he. He was insatiable, the horniest guy I ever met. I can still visualize the curly black hair on his chest, the angry purple of his cock. I felt twinges in my deliciously sore cunt for days afterward.

As it turned out, I actually didn't like him much, once we started talking. He turned out to be intolerant and conceited. That afternoon, though, in that king-sized bed above the ocean, he was my stag, my centaur, rough and hard and unrelentingly physical.

You're blushing, you know. I understand. When the plague came, suddenly all pleasure became suspect. Forbidden. Denied. Improper. The media still sell using sex, but the images are impersonal, sterile. Flesh without warmth, sex without pleasure, and by subconscious implication, without risk.

I'm annoying you. But I'm turning you on, too. I can tell. Don't laugh. Like I said, I have a lot of experience.

Not all my adventures were of the casual variety. I made love to my husband the first night we went out together, and we stayed together for thirty years. He took me to a Burmese restaurant and told me wild, picaresque tales of his travels. My attraction to the exotic merged inextricably with my attraction to him. Later, near midnight, he lifted my skirt (I rarely wore underwear in those days) and fucked me on a street corner, bent over the hood of his car. I followed him literally to the ends of the earth.

Where is he now? What can I say? He's gone. Taken by the plague. He couldn't adjust, couldn't accept the constraints. The restrictions. He said that he'd rather die than worry if every fuck would kill him.

He got what he wanted, ultimately.

No, of course I'm not crying. That's the latest cosmetic enhancement – makes my eyes sparkle.

You're right, I'm a romantic, but don't you think the world today needs a romantic or two? Look, my conapt is just a few levels up. Wouldn't you like to come up and join me for a nightcap?

That swelling in your britches is answer enough. No, that's OK, let me get the tab. Come on now, don't be such a prude. You know that you want to.

Of course I have a supply of condoms, viricide, gloves and dental dams. I'm a woman of my times. But I hope that I can make you forget all that. I want you to relax, to trust me, to let me give you a glimpse, a taste, of what pleasure was like before the plague.

Because, so help me, if someone doesn't know, and remember, we're doomed. Or might as well be.

My editor made me do it (#editing #dirtystory #genre)

By Lisabet Sarai

I write erotica and erotic romance, in a wide range of sub-genres. The degree to which a particular story is “dirty” (i.e. sexually graphic or explicit) depends mostly on the genre and my intentions. Some of my stories (for instance, The Last Amanuensis) barely include any sex at all. That doesn’t mean they’re lacking in eroticism. It’s just that in some cases, it’s not necessary to push the sexual envelope in order to make my point.

Then there are tales like The Antidote in which the sex acts are the point. That story, about a future society where the government artificially suppresses people’s libido in the name of social order, includes (in less than 5K) exhibitionism, voyeurism, spanking, fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, rough fucking, group sex, lesbian sex... Well, you get the picture I think. So there’s a lot of sex, but not too much. I like to think there’s exactly the right amount for this particular tale.

Hence, overall, I don’t really have stories that I think should have been “dirtier”. The one possible exception is my BDSM ménage erotic romance The Ingredients of Bliss. I wrote that book to fit a call from my publisher, but the editing of the manuscript was a nightmare. I think I did more revisions to that novel than to all my other novels put together.

The main problem was that I kept straying away from the romance formula. I had my main character, Emily, and her two lovers, Etienne and Harry. Unfortunately, I found that Emily was also attracted to other characters, including the kick-ass policewoman Toni. She even got turned on by one of the villains. In romance-world, this is definitely a no-no. Though shalt not allow the main characters to have sex—or even think about sex—outside of the primary relationship.

So I really fought with my editor on this one. Or maybe I should say, I fought with myself at the editor’s instruction. The resulting book feels, to me, a bit strained and stiff. Certainly, it’s not one of my most popular, even though it has a dynamite plot and some amazing sex scenes, as well as some rare bits of humor.

I was thinking I’d post two excerpts here to make my point, one before editing and one after. However, I discovered that I deleted all the intermediate versions of the manuscript (all ten of them!) to recover some disk space. So you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that this book should have been dirtier.

And probably should have been self-published.

By the way, if you want to sample one of my dirtier stories, The Antidote is currently 50% off--only 99 cents--as part of Smashwords Summer Sale!

The Voice Whispering in my Ear

By Lisabet Sarai

Okay, I've endured it long enough. It's payback time. This is the week that I'm going to make Garce blush, the way he's always doing to me!

Our topic this week is “Constructive Criticism”, and I have to say, I don't know anyone whose critiques could be more aptly called constructive. When I pass a story to Garce for comments or consult him about some question of character or plot, I really never know what I'll get back. However, it's almost always something I didn't expect. He reads what I've written and then takes off, making wild suggestions that almost always shake up my view of the tale. Garce's critiques are “constructive” in the sense that they construct new conflicts, problems, scenarios, possibilities, even worlds.

I have other crit partners, people who will let me know when they find an awkward transition or a poorly motivated action or even (heaven forfend!) a bit of unruly grammar. I appreciate their time and effort, and I always find their commentary useful. They help me polish the story as I wrote it. When I ask Garce for a critique, I'm always a little worried, because his reply may force me to massively rethink what I've written.

Here's an example, from his crit of my story “Chemisty” (which was eventually published in Coming Together With Pride).

I'm used to thinking in really weird terms. So I was looking for something weird.

Take your description of Frank. I was thinking - Frank is this jolly old, kind of sloppy ‘60s guy, right out of a Cheech and Chong gag. He sounds like what? A mythical being! Frank is a satyr! She's going to be riding him wildly, baffled at her own sluttiness and infidelity – what in the world has gotten into her beside Frank? - and she sees his lower half turn into the lower half of a goat or something.

I was thinking Rosemary's Baby. Mia Farrow crying out when she sees the devil's eyes "This is NOT a dream! This is really happening!" I thought she had walked into some curio shop on a side street and been seduced by Zeus or a lusty goat-man. Bacchus! That was why she was unable to resist him. Why is she unable to resist his advances? No convincing explanation is given. So now’s your chance to come up with one.

Here’s another: I saw the little lab in the back of the third floor and I thought "Son of a Witch! This guy has discovered that which mankind, in all civilizations in all of history has universally sought and never really found - a genuine aphrodisiac." Damn, he’s going to be rich.

Think about it. No one in any culture has ever discovered a magic substance that if you take it you become irresistibly, recklessly horny. But what if an obscure chemist really discovered it? I mean it as in “IT”. The Godzilla of pheromones?

When Garce does a crit, he uses the story as a springboard for his own imagination. Sometimes, though, he sees what the tale really needs. In the case of this one, he was right on. I had this young, beautiful, career-obsessed pharmaceutical chemist falling into instant lust with a guy decades older, a guy whose cultural roots are completely alien to her. Why? In the end, I did introduce the notion of a super-aphrodisiac (it turns out the guy's a famous chemist, too) – though I never made a commitment as to whether the attraction is really chemical or not.

One of Garce's favorite comments in his crits is “Let's muddle this a bit.” He doesn't accept anything I write a face value. He always looks deeper. He wants to complicate things. And because he knows me fairly well at this point (anyone who reads my erotic stories knows me rather personally, after all), he can get away with making connections between what I write and what I feel (as opposed to what my characters feel). For instance, he wrote the following about my story “The Antidote”.

[Lena] might be a more complex character if she were not satisfied to be in tepid resignation or compatibility with Jeff, or saw herself that way, and was rebelling against not only the restrictions being imposed on a naturally passionate nature by an authoritarian society, but also against her marriage. Her marriage was engineered by society, not by her own search for love after all. Going to the club is her moral rebellion against everything in her life. She reminds me a little of Henry Jekyll in the “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Jekyll wants to go on being the respected Victorian gentleman, but as Mr. Hyde he gets to party down. She is Jekyll, not by choice but to stay out of trouble, and taking her drug is her way of busting out as Miss Hyde. As presented, she’s rebelling against society, but what if she were also rebelling against her husband?

In this context when she gets bailed out by Jeff, she might think he’s going to punish her harshly or even violently, and at the least divorce her sorry ass, and maybe this is what society expects of him. But instead of a beating or worse, they break out in passion having been liberated by their sexual escapades, and discovering an excitingly dark side of each other unknown to the other before. He might even make a big show of indignation in the presence of the authorities, and then when they’re alone bring out the leather and handcuffs and a sheepish confession. They can discover things in their relationship with each other they never knew were there. After all, what obsession are you exploring here? Your own rebellion against romance genre convention.

In my opinion Lena is you. Let her be you even more.

Not what one normally expects in a critique. But I value his opinions and his insights, and once again, he put his finger on the reason that the story's original ending was weak.

I've learned a great deal from our discussions (of his work as well as of my own). Now I seem to have internalized some of his critical style. When I write, I sometimes hear his metaphorical voice (we've never actually spoken) whispering in my ear, making suggestions (often outrageous), asking questions (always difficult), forcing me to dig deeper and not be satisfied with my first inclinations.

I have a tendency to be lazy when I write. It's relatively easy for me to pen a tale that will titillate without really saying anything. You know, a potato chip story, tasty but with no substance. Garce makes me work. When I dare to ask him for a crit, I know that he won't let me off the hook until my story does more than just turn the reader on.

And for that, I'm seriously grateful.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

By Lisabet Sarai

It's not true, of course. The title of a book or story critically influences whether a reader will pick up the book or not. I know that. So I find it particularly aggravating that I'm totally clueless when it comes to generating titles.

Sometimes I get lucky. A title will come to me out of the blue, floating through the ether, and I'll grab it on the way past. "Raw Silk" was like that. I actually had another working title for that novel, but when the new title popped into my head, I knew it was right. (Actually, there are several other books in print with the same title...not a good thing, but a suggestion that other authors agree with me.)

Occasionally, especially with short stories, the title comes before the tale. I wrote “Crowd Pleaser” during a period when my stories tended toward a lot of introspection and emotional complexity. “I should write something that's just a sexy romp,” I thought to myself. “A real crowd pleaser.” I penned “The Antidote” when I was feeling burnt out from writing romance, with all the emphasis on love and a happy ending. “I want to create something totally filthy without any love at all,” I griped internally. “An antidote to all this romance stuff.” Titles sometimes come from other literature, bible quotations, or song lyrics. I have a great title right now, looking for a story, based on a line from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Most of the time, though, I'll agonize over titles and still not be happy with the result.

I recognize a great title when I see it. I can even analyze the factors that distinguish between a perfect title and one that is less so. I just can't generate titles on demand.

First and foremost, a perfect title has music or at least rhythm. It has to trip off the tongue:

“Lolita”

“The Naked and the Dead”

“Wuthering Heights”

Second, the words in the title should have powerful connotations. I like titles that use concrete terms with sensual or emotional echoes. That's why I was so pleased with “Raw Silk”. Raw suggests “untamed”, “elemental”, “fierce”, also “innocent” or “untutored”--all appropriate for the book. Silk evokes both softness and strength, as well as having associations with the Orient.

Third, a title needs to be memorable. Sometimes this means surprising. To stick in the mind, a title needs to use lower-frequency words, or high-frequency words in an unexpected combination:

"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”

“Catch-22”

“Snow Crash”

“Love in the Time of Cholera”

Finally, of course, a title needs have some relationship to the subject of the book or story. I personally like titles with double meanings. “Exposure”, for instance, refers first to Stella's occupation as a stripper, second to a roll of film that plays a critical part in the plot, and finally to the secrets that are revealed in the story. “Butterfly” is the name of the bar where the protagonist first meets his lover but also echoes the term that the Thai bar girls use for a man who flits from one woman to the next.

Knowing all this, it would seem that I could construct an algorithm for generating good titles. Maybe I could, if I wanted to spend the time. There are word databases available that have the necessary information on meaning and connotations. One could use artificial intelligence or Bayesian statistics. Maybe I could get a grant...but then I'd get even less writing done than I do now!

So my method for generating titles tends to be pretty haphazard, based on free association. I'll write down some words that seem related to the story. Then I'll write some more words that are suggested by the first words. I'll keep this up for a while. Then I'll start combining and recombining the terms into phrases. When I've got a list of phrases, I'll pick one. Or else I'll get frustrated because I don't like any of them, and give up.

Alas, I also find that without a title, it's difficult for me to start writing. Right now I'm facing a deadline for a BDSM romance story. I have some notion of the characters and the plot. I haven't yet been able to sit down and actually write the first scene, because I'm waiting for inspiration regarding the title.

I do take some consolation from the fact that a book can be successful with a mediocre or even a horrible title. You must admit that “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone” really doesn't meet most of my criteria.

I'm looking forward to reading what my fellow Grip denizens come up with for this topic. I'm hoping that I'll get some new ideas for producing titles that I don't hate!

Sex and Technology - Sunshine and Shadow

by Lisabet Sarai



Cyber-sex. Robotic fuck-toys. Bionic sexual augmentation. Full-immersion virtual reality.

I suspect that these are the sort of notions that first come to mind when someone brings up the topic “Sex and Technology”. These notions are not new, but they continue to be compelling. William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neil Stephenson have left their marks on our psyche. The real world is just beginning to catch up.

I’m more interested in, and concerned about, the impact of biotechnology on the sex of the future. Of course, biological innovations have already had a massive effect on the nature of sex and its relationship to society. “The Pill” dramatically altered the sexual landscape for women, giving them the kind of freedom men had enjoyed for centuries. Sexual reassignment surgery allows individuals to remedy what they see as nature’s errors, which trap them in the body of the wrong gender. Viagra may be the stuff of jokes and an endless generator of spam, but it’s a genuine boon for many men – and couples.

Scientists are learning more every day about the brain and its functions. The mechanisms of pleasure are well on their way to being mapped. The brain centers for appetite and addiction have been identified. Just a few days ago, I read about some recently-discovered molecule that can selectively erase memories. Anyone who has seen the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” can’t help but wonder at the implications.

I’ve said it so many times before that my readers are undoubtedly bored, but I remain convinced: arousal begins in the mind. Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac. So what will happen when we know enough about the mind to manipulate not just the physical aspects of desire, but also the psychological? Will we experience ever more explosive orgasms? Will we be able to save marriages by artificially inducing mutual attraction? Will fantasies and fetishes become obsolete when a pill can awaken lust on demand? What will happen to flirtation? To innuendo? To all the social complexities that we’ve erected around sexual thoughts and feelings?

What will happen to erotic writing, when the webs of titillation and tension we authors weave so laboriously are replaced by instant arousal?

Then, of course, there is the darker side. In this future that is rapidly approaching, desire may not be an individual choice. Even today, there is talk of castrating sexual offenders in order to blunt their desire and, arguably, reduce the danger they pose to society. How much more effective to simply change their brain function so that they are unable to become aroused.

Perhaps such interventions might not be limited to criminals. We all know that there are forces, powers, who believe that any non-procreational sex is evil, and who would love to enforce that belief on the those of us who disagree. Put the technologies that will undoubtedly grow from today’s explorations in neuroscience into their hands, and desire might disappear altogether.

That’s the premise of “The Antidote”, an erotic story I penned recently in a bout of darkness triggered by writing one too many happy endings. I’ve put it on my website for Grip readers to ponder, if you dare. Warning – this is not romance. It’s hard-core, graphic, sci-fi erotica. It is also a cautionary tale about sex and technology that may be well worth considering.

I’m a sexual Luddite, I guess. I can see the appeal of cyber-sex, using words to stir your partner’s imagination. Hey, that’s what I do all the time, as a writer. But I’m not really interested in fancy sex toys that vibrate in tune with my iPod. Actually I don’t even have an iPod. I don’t want a perfect fuck-toy of either gender; I’d rather have a real, flawed man or woman in my bed, warts and all. I’m all for a relaxing glass of wine but I don’t want a drug that will artificially turn me on. I’m a sentimental traditionalist when it comes to sex. To be honest, I worry a lot about what technology will do to the glory of genuine desire in the not so distant future.