Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Squick That Destroyed Planet Earth

I have to confess: I picked this topic based on a desire to read what came of said topic, and didn't actually think about what I was going to write. I'm writing this, and still don't know what I'm going to write about.

Of course, I have the usual squicks. You know the ones. They get trotted out by nearly every publisher, no matter how much hardcore they publish. And I agree for the most part, because I don't want to read about someone having sex with a dead person. All I can think when such a subject comes up is:

a) Zombie sex. Zombie sex in which the zombie suddenly rears up and, like, bites the face off whoever's stupid enough to bonk it. And then the bonker turns into a zombie, and turns another person into a zombie, and then suddenly I'm reading the novel version of 28 Days Later and I have to get Murdock to come rescue me in his helicopter because I'm scared. I have a very logical, practical relationship with zombie mythology. You can't just have sex with a zombie and come away zombie free, ok? You've just caused the end of the world because you wanted to shove your cock in a pickled, possibly rotting vagina. Congrats.

Then there's:

b) If it's just a dead body, wouldn't it be cold and...dry? That sounds very, very unappealing. I don't want to have cold, dry sex. For a start, it would chafe. And then we're getting into a whole "well, use lube" area and ugh. No. No.

Okay, so that's number one on the list of usual publisher no-nos. Necrophilia. What else is there?

Non-con. Now, non-con is a strange one, for me. I cannot bear to read about a woman actually getting raped, obviously. I don't ever want to read that. If that's the kink we're talking about, it goes straight to number two on my list of kinks I can't even stand in the same room as. I'm not even sure if it counts as a kink, to be honest. But I can appreciate a story if it's about rape fantasy. And as I know many publishers will accept rape fantasies and even dubious consent, but not non-con, I think that shows a clear distinction between kinky, and maybe just...disturbed.

Though rape fantasy will still tread the line between kink and squick, for me. It has to be done very, very carefully. I don't want a moment where I'm thinking: she is not enjoying this. Erotica will always be, first and foremost for me, about a woman enjoying herself. Take that away and I'm not so much squicked as mad as all hell and not about to take it, anymore.

And then, on a lighter note, there's bestiality.

I don't get along with bestiality for one reason, really. The animal can't consent. I know that probably sounds weird, and maybe the animal doesn't really know what you're doing anyway. But I know what you're doing, and I don't like it. All I can usually think when reading some random bestiality story I wasn't expecting when I dug it up on Literotica is:

Jeez, that poor donkey. What did it ever do to you, mate?

So that's bestiality. And then there are things like golden showers, which I can sometimes take- because of course a lot of this depends on the skill of the writer. Rape fantasies and golden showers and hell, even zombie sex can be great, in the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing. I've read good golden shower stories.

But scat...yeah, I do have a bit of trouble with scat. Mainly because, well...the word poo makes me laugh. Poo makes me think of the playground, when Digger Johnson would find a dog turd and chase everyone around with it on a stick. His name's obviously not really Digger Johnson, BTW. I just thought a name like that would illustrate my childish relationship with doo-doo nicely.

Can't find that erotic. I'd burst out laughing if someone crapped on a glass table above me. I'd be laughing before we even got to that point, and laughing at erotica, more than being squicked by it, kills it stone dead.

But there's one...yeah there's one that squicks me above all the others. One of the big guns, though maybe not quite as big as the one I won't even mention because it goes beyond squick and into the realms of actual judgement from me.

No- this one won't get judgement from me. In fact, none of them will- apart from That One, and maybe some of the more disturbing rape happy stuff. I mean, everyone's got some strange kink. Or at least, some kink that's strange to somebody else. Me? I flip my kink over a severely repressed guy getting humiliated. I am the opposite of Kathleen, on that score (one of the reasons I love the world of the erotic, right there. How different people are!).

But there's one that doesn't just make me laugh, or feel vaguely grossed out, or offended on behalf of a donkey, or concerned about zombies or wondering whether or not she's really enjoying it. There's one that makes me actively cringe inside- that true squicky feeling that heralds the limits of your kink.

Incest.

I can't.

He's your brother. Noooooooooo! Stop. Oh God, oh God. Now I'm picturing my brother's face.

*blanks out, briefly*

Please don't ever make me go through that again. Please. My shudder just destroyed downtown Tokyo, like a mad vibrating Godzilla. Never again. Sorry. Never.

8 comments:

  1. Charlotte - I will never look at incestial zombies the same way again.

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  2. Charlotte,

    Your post illustrates how different we are. When I read Wuthering Heights, my first thought was,"Aren't they like brother and sister?" My second thought was: "This is cool! They're like brother sister!"

    :-)

    Excellent post.

    Ash

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  3. Kathleen- LOL!

    Ashley- Sometimes, I really wish incest didn't make me cringe. I really do, because in an example like that, I can see the tension and the boundaries and all the story potential. And then that alarm bell goes off in my head: noooooo! He's your brother! And it's all shot to hell.

    Damn you, kinky limits!

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  4. Charlotte - maybe the problem is that our siblings aren't hot enough.

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  5. Hey, Charlotte,

    You shouldn't feel bad about your limits. They're YOUR limits, and they don't stop you from being a helluva erotic author.

    That being said, I've actually had incestuous dreams about my brother. Even though he's a skinny balding nerd. (Ok, the dreams were decades ago. He had more hair then!)

    Hugs,
    Lisabet

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  6. Charlotte,

    Yeah, dead people, major turn-off. Can you imagine the pivital moment, you're just getting to that great feeling, and a maggot wiggles out of the eyesocket.

    *shudders* OMG!

    As for Zombie Sex - LMAO! You are just kick ass. I had to read that part to hubby. : )

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  7. Kathleen- LMAO! Yeah, if I had Bradley Cooper as a brother, things might be different...

    Lisabet- I try not to! Tho mainly I just worry about offending someone by going ew, I hate that! And I can't even imagine how disturbed I'd be, if I had an incestuous dream about my brother. I'd probably have to end it all.

    Michelle- Urgh! You've just totally made dead sex even worse. And to hubby appreciate the zombie sex talk?

    Wait...that sounded wrong...

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  8. Charlotte - He was thinking maggots too. LOL What's even more funny was when I was in class the day after your post we were talking about Redi's experiment with maggots, and we played a video for the kids on the modern use of maggots in medicine, and all I could think of (while trying not to hurl at the idea of maggots on a wound cleaning it - ugh!) was man, zombie sex would so not be hot. How would you make it sexy? What aspects of the staple concepts would you have to tweak to make them sexy?

    How twisted is that?

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