Forbidden Pleasures #taboo #erotica #kink

Image credit: Pixabay

By Lisabet Sarai

taboo (n): A social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

Origin: Late 18th century: from Tongan tabu ‘set apart, forbidden’; introduced into English by Captain Cook.

The Oxford English Dictionary

Every society has forbidden practices, particularly with regard to sex. Incest, bestiality, pederasty and necrophilia are among the most common sexual prohibitions. Many cultures condemn same-sex intimacy, sodomy and extra-marital sex. In some places, even today, any type of physical contact between unmarried males and females will be condemned and punished.

Humans are perverse creatures, though. We delight in breaking the rules. The more serious the taboo, the greater emotional charge associated with its violation. Fear mingles with desire to make the forbidden experience more exciting and intense than sanctioned sexual behavior.

Erotic authors are experts in exploiting taboos. We push our characters to step over the lines of propriety: to fuck strangers in a dark alley; to beg for a spanking; to watch a teenage brother jack off then slip into his room naked. Not every erotic tale depends on the flaunting of taboos, but I suspect that the majority incorporate some aspects of the forbidden, or at least, the officially frowned upon. Nice girls don’t get up on stage and take off their clothes. Proper, masculine husbands don’t get aroused watching their wives get serviced by big-cocked studs. Modern, emancipated women don’t allow themselves to be tied up and whipped by bossy dominants. In the world of erotica (though not in erotic romance), it’s rather unusual to find sex that conforms to social norms.

Some taboos are enforced by law, or by rules made because of fear of the law. In the United States (though not in some other countries), you can write about mother-son, daddy-daughter, or sister-doggy sex, but Amazon and many other outlets won’t publish or distribute your naughty tales. On the other hand, sex between teens (or heaven forbid, pre-teens) is strictly sanctioned. Porn film-makers are required to certify and document the fact that all their performers are over eighteen.

Other restrictions are based on convention. Many readers strongly reject any tale with adulterous themes, despite (or maybe because of) the large amount of cheating that goes on in the real world.

What I find most fascinating, though, is the way taboos shift. Back in Victorian times, a flash of ankle was considered terribly improper. Now tiny bikinis that cover next to nothing are perfectly acceptable on public beaches – and Victorian-style corsets are the height of sexiness!

Two or three decades ago, homoerotic activity fell into the prohibited category. Same-sex stories often focused on first-time scenarios, and included a lot of fear, shame and soul-searching. As societal attitudes have changed and become more tolerant and inclusive, LGBTQ fiction has changed as well. The conflicts tend to revolve around other aspects of the characters and their relationship.

Then there’s kink. The success of Fifty Shades of Grey brought BDSM out of the closet and into the mainstream. Before FSOG, we early practitioners of D/s felt like members of a secret society, brave pioneers, outcasts who broke the rules of vanilla sex and reaped the erotic rewards. Now leather-clad Dommes show up on daytime TV and bondage cuffs are sold in department stores.

Kink was a lot more fun when it was verboten.

On the other hand, I’ve observed a new taboo developing around sex without condoms. I subscribe to Selena Kitt’s Excite Spice newsletters, at least partly to see what other people are publishing and what sub-genres seem to be popular. At least once a week, I read a blurb about some well-endowed guy “taking” a woman “hot, hard and unprotected”. Of course, bare-back sex is fundamentally more enjoyable than sex with a condom, but it seems that to post-AIDS readers, it is also breaking the rules and thus has acquired a new erotic charge. Personally I find this emphasis a little peculiar, since almost all the sex I’ve had in my life has been “unprotected”, but for the generations who came of age in the nineties and after, unprotected sex is forbidden, risky and exciting.

This started me pondering the question of whether I could write a story about a society with taboos against using condoms. Perhaps the elders in this society believe that fertility is sacred and that women are divinely intended to bear children. In such a world view, creating a barrier between sperm and egg would be viewed as thwarting the will of the Creator, as well as offering opportunities for women to indulge in sex for pleasure rather than for procreation.

Wait a minute... this suddenly doesn’t sound so original...

I’ve penned a few pieces where I’ve played with the idea of how taboos develop. In Quarantine, after a devastating, AIDS-like plague apparently spread by gay men, M/M intimacy has become illegal and invisible. The US has succumbed to nostalgia for the fifties, heterosexual sex is the only kind that officially exists, and simply having a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality means indefinite imprisonment in a remote internment camp.

My scifi short Trespass (in the altruistic erotica collection Coming Together: By Hand) involves a society in which everyone wears gloves. Fashions display large amounts of skin, but bare-handed contact is strictly forbidden – and thus unbearably arousing.

Then there’s incest. The original prohibition against inter-familial sex supposedly derives from the dangers of inbreeding. In a world (like today’s) where fertility can effectively be controlled, is there really any reason for brothers and sisters not to get it on?

Sometimes I rage against taboos that limit what I can publish. On the other hand, if all the rules were to suddenly vanish, that might have a negative impact on my imagination. I could still write about sensual pleasure – but pleasure can be so much sweeter when it’s forbidden.

We don't talk about these things: #Sex, #Taboo & 90210

by Giselle Renarde

I'm loving everybody's posts this week. Taboo is such a great topic of discussion.

As I read Lisabet's post, I was reminded of something you're going to laugh at me for doing but I don't even care.

I've been re-watching Beverly Hills 90210 on DVD.

I just finished the first season and I'll tell you this: I remember watching EVERY SINGLE ONE of those episodes when they originally aired in 1990.

Yesterday I got to the episode that has lived inside my brain since I first watched it: the one where Dylan and Brenda have sex for the first time. It's been almost 30 years since I first watched this episode and I still remember tons of lines from the show. Like how after they have sex for the first time Brenda makes the hotel bed and when Dylan tells her she doesn't have to do that she says, "What will the maid think?"

That line has stayed with me all these years. I don't know why.  I just like it.  It would make a good book title, wouldn't it?  The butler did it! What will the maid think?

Okay, something else about that episode has stayed with me too.  Something more personal.

My parents knew I loved 90210 even though, being a preteen when it first came on the air, I was a tad young to be watching it.  Maybe not by today's standards, but I don't have kids so what do I know about today's standards?

Anyway, I've mentioned before that my mother worked nights and my father was always passed out by the end of Entertainment Tonight.  That meant I got to watch 90210 (and everything else that came on after 7:30) without parental supervision. And THAT meant I didn't experience the awkwardness of having my mom glaring uncomfortably in my direction as teenagers on TV discussed the risks and rewards of having sex.

Thank goodness for that, because sex was a taboo topic in my household. Still is. Nobody ever discussed sex when I was a kid.  Nobody ever discusses it now. I'm very close with one of my sisters. We've never talked about sex.  Not once.

My mom did give me "the sex talk" (which was more awkward than informative) but here's what prompted that discussion:

When my mom announced that she was pregnant with my youngest sister, I was mad as hell.  This wasn't your typical sibling rivalry or whatever kids go through when they're afraid a new baby will usurp their Favourite Child crown. I already had other siblings. I hadn't been upset about their existence.

This one was different. I was ten years old and already I had more than enough experience raising children.

You know, I had an epiphany a couple months ago. I heard the word "neglect" and started thinking about the way definitions shift over time.  When I was a kid, I would have defined child neglect as, like, taking off for two weeks and leaving your kids to fend for themselves. I wouldn't have considered myself or my siblings neglected. There was always an adult body present in the house. Now I realize that if that adult body is not conscious, it doesn't count. If one parent is out of the house and the other is perpetually drunk and you've got a 7-year-old running the show, yeah, sadly, that's neglect.

Ouch.  I hope my mom never reads this.  It would kill her.  She is such a devoted parent.  Being a mother is the most important thing in her world.  I know she did what she thought was best for us, always, but living in a domestic violence situation with an alcoholic made life really difficult for all of us.

Not only was I raising myself and my siblings, but I was babysitting a parent as well.  I remember that I always had to wake myself up during the night to go downstairs and check the kitchen. My dad had a habit of coming to late at night or early in the morning and cooking when he was barely conscious. He would put something on the stove or in the oven, then pass out again.  One of my responsibilities was to get out of bed at regular intervals to make sure there was nothing burning downstairs.

So when my mom announced that she would be having another baby, my little 10-year-old brain did its little 10-year-old version of screaming, "How dare you stick me with another kid?" I felt like she was spitting out babies for me to look after. I was so mad.

For whatever reason, my mom was convinced I was angry about her pregnancy because I didn't clearly understand where babies came from.

When I heard this theory, everything inside me did a little 10-year-old version of going: "You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Her theory seemed so juvenile and irrelevant. I had bigger fish to fry.

Of course, I didn't communicate to my mother WHY I was mad.  It would have hurt her feelings, for starters.  More than that, we didn't talk about feelings in my family.  That was a taboo even bigger than sex. I chose to sit through the awkward sex talk rather than admitting to my mom that, at 10 years old, I was already too worn out to take care of another kid.

A few days after that highly memorable Brenda-and-Dylan-have-sex episode of Beverly Hills 90210 first aired, my mom confronted me on the topic. She told me I wasn't allowed to watch the show anymore. Apparently that episode had caused an uproar. Moms across America (and Canada too, I guess) were pissed these two teen characters on a TV show discussed the possibility of having sex, had sex, were happy about their decision, and nothing bad happened.  Everybody knows that when teens have premarital sex on TV, their genitals are supposed to shrivel up and fall into a bucket of boiling lava.

Anyway, the hoopla around this episode was such that my mother heard about it and confronted me on the issue.  I remember her exact words: "I've heard that Dylan and Brenda have already had sex!"

And you know what I said?

"No they didn't."

I lied for them.

I lied for Dylan and Brenda.  I did it to protect their reputations.  No, that's not true.  I lied because I wanted to keep watching the show.  Mind you, one of the perks of being a neglected child is that, between raising someone else's kids and making sure the house doesn't burn down, you can really watch whatever you want on TV.

Giselle Renarde is an award-winning queer Canadian writer. Nominated Toronto’s Best Author in NOW Magazine’s 2015 Readers’ Choice Awards, her fiction has appeared in well over 100 short story anthologies. Giselle's juicy novels include Anonymous, In Shadow, Cherry, Nanny State, Seven Kisses, and The Other Side of Ruth.
http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com

The Ultimate Taboo (#erotica #taboo #inspiration)

By Lisabet Sarai

Erotica often generates its emotional and physical charge by pushing the envelope—focusing on sexual activities that are popularly viewed as wicked, sinful or forbidden. Erotic fiction allows readers to experience the naughty thrill associated with breaking taboos, without any personal or societal consequences.

On the other hand, writing stories that address prohibited topics can be dangerous for an author, at least if you want to sell your work. The line between publishable erotica and unacceptable smut is both narrow and blurry. One misstep can see you tumbling into the adult dungeon, or even banned outright.

What, then, constitutes the most extreme possible transgression? Is it incest? Bestiality? Necrophilia? Scat? These days, what’s the riskiest thing an erotic author can write? What story element is most likely to kill your chances that readers will see and buy your work?

You may be surprised by my answer.

Based on my observations, the ultimate taboo in erotica is an unhappy ending.

You can write a story that’s dripping with sensuality, sizzling with heat, full of outrageous sex acts. You can bring your readers to the edge of climax, even push them over. If your characters don’t end up satisfied, though, it’s likely your readers will not be either.

Every now and then, I run afoul of this taboo. The thing is, my reasons for writing erotica are not necessarily the same as the reasons my audience has for reading it. I started writing sexually explicit fiction in order to explore the frontiers of desire. I wanted to take my fantasies and bring them into the light, to vicariously experience situations I’d imagined but lacked the opportunity (or the courage) to make real. Furthermore, I was curious about the deep-seated entanglement of sexuality with other aspects of our psyche. This includes not just positive emotions like love, joy, pride, and pleasure, but also darker elements: shame, guilt, anger, obsession, self-doubt and fear.

My readers, on the other hand, are mostly looking for a tale that will arouse and entertain them. I like to think that the quality of my writing makes a difference, but I suspect that the most important criterion for a story’s popularity is the extent to which it turns the readers on. Obviously the erotic effect of a story depends somewhat on the skill with which it is told. Still, I suspect most readers do not share my fascination in the deeper or more abstract themes that sometimes pop up in my work.

Readers identify with the characters. Hence an ending where the characters do not get what they want—an ending that is ambiguous, ironic or even tragic—can spoil their enjoyment.

Unfortunately, sometimes I break this taboo against unhappy endings. I can’t help it; my premise leads me in a certain direction and I have to follow. I’m not going to force the narrative toward an unbelievable conclusion. I know that distorting the flow would be a mistake, at least from an artistic perspective. From a marketing perspective... well, that’s a different matter.

I have one story (“Trespass”), a science fiction retelling of Romeo and Juliet that ends with the death of both protagonists. That was rejected from a record five anthologies, before it finally found a home in a Coming Together collection. More recently, I wrote a lesbian tale called “Countertransference”, about the attraction between a psychiatrist and her young, psychotic patient. As you might expect, this taboo relationship does not end well. I’ve received three rejections for this one so far. I’ve considered self-publishing it, but I doubt that the effort would be worthwhile.

For some reason, my paranormal tales particularly tend toward darkness. None of the seven stories in my paranormal collection Fourth World offers an unequivocally happy ending. Need I mention that sales for that book have been abysmal?

Most of my novels end happily, but Exposure has an emotionally ambiguous conclusion. Though that novel features one of my strongest and most vivid heroines, I doubt it has sold more than half a dozen copies.

Why do I keep violating this taboo? Why don’t I just write sunny, sex-positive smut that will arouse my readers without making them suffer—or think?

I guess the answer is that I don’t control my inspirations. I don’t believe I have a muse, but I know that my stories arise at least partly from my subconscious. And there are some dark things buried there.

Dark, but true. I can ignore those truths. Or I can incorporate them into my fiction, and pay the price for my transgression.

Over the Taboo Rainbow

by Giselle Renarde

When daddy smut started taking over the erotica bestsellers lists, it literally turned my stomach. Every time I saw a book cover that said FUCK ME, DADDY! I felt physically ill.

When was that?  Maybe 2013? Or was 2013 the year Amazon et al started banning it because of its sudden hyper-visibility?

I don't know. But I think 2013 was the year I wrote my Adam and Sheree trilogy: 100,000 words about a brother and sister fucking each other and a bunch of other people. Sheree really gets around. In the the third book she sleeps with her aunt, her uncle and her cousin. There's a whole lot of family sex going on.

Why was I grossed out by the daddy/daughter thing but not by the brother/sister (uncle/aunt/cousin) thing?

That's a question I can't answer. Sorry.  I just don't know.

I remember the day Adam and Sheree came to me.  I'd just taken a shower and I recall being very hot... too hot. My body just started shutting down.  I'm not a "nap" person, but it was daytime and I felt oddly exhausted. I folded myself into a ball on my bed and Adam and Sheree's Family Vacation (now also available from Amazon as Stepbrother Summer) played out for me like a movie.

It was the strangest thing. It's never happened to me before or since.  I don't think I was asleep and I didn't feel like I was dreaming. It was a movie in my mind.

As soon as it was over, I went to my computer and started typing. The words poured out of me. My fingers did all the work. My brain didn't play a part in writing any of these books.

I don't know where Adam and Sheree came from.

But it took a while before I could cross from their taboo into Lexi Wood's brand of stepdaddy/stepdaughter smut.

Is that as "bad" as brother/sister sex? Or is it worse because there's a power imbalance between a father and daughter (whether biological or not) that doesn't exist between siblings? 

Or is it HOTTER because of that power imbalance?

These are major taboos. These are ideas that turned my stomach a few years ago.

How does a writer go from turned stomach to turned on?

Is it all about the cash?

Taboo smut is harder to publish these days than it was a few years ago.  Apple won't touch it. All Romance won't. Google Play won't.  Forget Kobo, too.  Amazon will allow you to publish stepdaddy smut as long as you don't include the word "stepdaddy" in the title or the blurb or on the cover or... anywhere, really.

Straight-up incest erotica can only be published at Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Excitica. How can it possibly be that lucrative if you can barely get it to market?

Well, I guess it's not.

So, when my sock puppet nemesis Lexi Wood challenged me to an incest erotica duel a few weeks ago, why did I accept?  I'm the least competitive person in the world, so it's not like I cared about defending a title or anything.

I accepted because I wanted to do it.

Last year someone staged an opera about Anais Nin's affair with her father. It sounded titillating, but I didn't see it. Wish I had. Still, it planted ideas in my head. It planted the idea of a father and daughter meeting as adults and falling hard for each other.  I felt I could do something with that.

Round One of the Lexi vs. Giselle Smut Smackdown has begun. My very refined (HA!) meeting-as-adult story against Lexi's dirty-talking phone sex smut. We're encouraging readers to vote for their favourite.

Here's the warning I'll issue about writing dirty daddy sex: once you've crossed that line it's damn hard to cross back. You start seeing the world in this new taboo rainbow, and the things you used to write seem so grey and dull.

I heard John Waters talking about The Wizard of Oz one time. He said he always wondered why Dorothy wanted to go back to the black-and-white world after experiencing life over the rainbow.

Why would anyone go back?

Writing taboo erotica is a lot like that.

You can find out more about the Smut Smackdown at my blog: http://donutsdesires.blogspot.ca/2016/02/smut-smackdown-talk-dirty-to-me-daddy.html

And if you haven't read Adam and Sheree, the entire Stepbrother version is available for preorder at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C8XFNBW?tag=dondes-20 for only $2.99 USD. That's incredible value for all three books, and trust me--that price won't last. Comes out March 11th!

New Taboos

By Lisabet Sarai

Several years ago I set out to write a story for an anthology about voyeurism. I rolled the topic around in my mind, looking for a new and different angle on what is, after all, a well-worn erotic theme.

I realized that the kick in a voyeuristic scenario derives from the forbidden nature of what the voyeur observes. Secret parts of the body – secret behaviors – things society views as inappropriate to expose. In a culture where the genitals are freely displayed, there's no particular thrill to spying on the nakedness of a neighbor. If masturbation were openly practiced, it wouldn't matter if someone watched.

From that point, I jumped into what if mode. What if, instead of breasts and asses, pussies and cocks, people's hands were considered to be obscene? I imagined a society where everyone wore gloves, all the time. To be stripped of one's gloves would become the ultimate shame. Bare hand-to-hand contact would be the most intimate possible act. The mere sight of a naked palm could incite unbearable arousal. Prostitutes would excite their clients by wearing flesh-colored gloves that looked like exposed skin, but even a whore would not allow herself to be caught bare-handed.

Yeah, that could work....

The result was my story “Trespass”. This tale has the distinction of being my most rejected short story ever. It finally found a home in the altruistic erotica anthology Coming Together: By Hand (which focuses on self-pleasuring, but is certainly an appropriate title given our theme!), but only after being rejected by three – or was it four? – other editors.

I don't think the hand taboo was the issue, by the way. The story's pretty dark. Indeed, it turned out to be a science fiction riff on Romeo and Juliet, complete with the blood and violence. Not all that popular in today's world of romance-influenced erotica!

Anyway, whatever the editors thought, the tale is actually one of my personal favorites, so I thought I'd share a bit.

Her bedroom door was half ajar. A mirror faced the door, and in that mirror, he could see her as clearly as if she stood before him. He had a blazing, confused impression of bare skin and swelling curves, before he shut his eyes in panic. It wasn't seemly, for someone like him...

His heart slammed against his ribs. He waited for her to notice his intrusion, to scream. Instead, he heard her humming to herself, sweet and low.

Jared had to look. He couldn't stop himself, even though he knew the risk he was taking. There she was, undressing before her mirror, admiring her own loveliness. She wore black satin gloves that rose to her elbows. The contrast of her black fingers against her pale flesh kindled a hungry fire in his belly.

He watched, fascinated, as those long fingers untied the shoulder ribbons that held up her translucent chemise. The light garment drifted to the floor, exposing the perfect breasts that had been only half-visible before. She cupped them in satin-clad palms and strummed the rosy tips with her jet-colored thumbs.

Each of her self-touches sent shivers through Jared's body. His cock swelled painfully inside his tight uniform trousers. He allowed his own white-gloved hand to stray to his crotch, trying to adjust the pressure. It remained there, grasping the aching mass of his erection, while his eyes continued to follow her wandering digits. She trailed her fingers down over her milky torso, teasing herself with brief brushes of satin against skin. Her two forefingers slipped under the waistband of her lower garment, which like her chemise hid little. Jared could see her fingers as streaks of black against the gauzy fabric; he held his breath as he watched them disappear into her cleft.

Her humming had stopped. Now he could hear her panting, punctuated every now and then by a little moan. Her eyes were screwed shut. Her mouth hung half-open as she concentrated on the sensations she was stirring between her thighs. He imagined he could smell her musk, though logic told him she was too far away. A shudder ran through her body. His cock surged, straining for relief.

All at once she removed her hand from her sex. Dampness stained her fingertips an even deeper black. She brought them to her nose, savoring her own scent. Then, after a moment, she began to remove the gloves.

Jared couldn't breathe. His heart threatened to burst out of his chest. His leaking cock made a shameful spot on his spotless uniform. Could he really be seeing this? She peeled the black fabric down her forearm to her wrist. Jared knew he should look away, but no force in the universe could have made him do that. Finally she gripped the glove by the fingers and pulled completely off.

Her naked hand was alabaster white, gleaming in the mirror like some pearly apparition from another world. Her fingers seemed unnaturally long. Her fingernails, he was shocked to see, were enameled red, like the whores he'd read about. Her flawless skin looked impossibly smooth, obscenely soft, unforgivably vulnerable. She slipped one bare finger into her mouth and sucked on it. The lewdness of it all finally undid him.

With a muffled groan, he exploded, his come soaking his crisp trousers. Then he fled in terror, still shaking, taking with him a last lascivious image of the woman plunging her naked fingers deep into her cunt.

****

I look forward to reading my fellow Grippers meditation on the erotic marvel of our hands.

Creature of Pure Sensation

By Lisabet Sarai

I'm a polymorphously-perverse humanist who believes that almost anything can be arousing, under the right circumstances. So in general, I don't have too much difficulty writing sex from the perspective of the “other”. I've written lesbian stories (but that's easy because I'm attracted to women myself) and gay male stories (more surprising since I have little or no experience with M/M sex, or even gay porn). A significant fraction of my stories are told from a man's point of view. I find I can inhabit the mind and body of my male characters and female characters with nearly equal facility.

Although I've created a number of secondary characters who were male-to-female transsexuals, thus far I haven't written any tales where the POV protagonist is transgendered. However, I've had one simmering on the back burner for a while, a story that looks at the world through the eyes of a pre-op transsexual Thai go-go dancer. Over the years, on my visits to Bangkok, I've met a few. I can imagine the thrill my heroine would feel seeing her new, feminine body – not to mention the kick of being admired by the men in the audience. At the same time, there'd be fear and shame, worries about being rejected, a sense of inadequacy compared to the biological women she worked with. I'd really like to explore those emotions and see how they play out when I manage to get her into a hotel room alone with the guy who buys her out of the bar. Actually, this fledgling story is almost a rewrite of my tale “Butterfly”, with the point of view flipped. I wonder, though, whether it might end more happily.

I'm less confident that I could write a main character who was female-to-male – it's tough for me to think about chopping off my tits – but I'd be willing to give it a shot. I like an erotic challenge. In my smut-on-commission work for Custom Erotica Source, I've managed to crank up the heat writing scenarios that would never arouse me personally.

There's one sort of “other”, though, I doubt I could successfully portray. I don't think I could convincingly write a creature of pure sensation – a woman (or man) for whom physical stimulation is the primary focus of sexual experience. All my characters share one trait with one another – and with me. For all of them, arousal begins in the mind and flows out to the body.

My sex scenes concentrate on what's going on in my characters' heads. The circumstances and meaning of the sexual encounter, the emotional connection between the participants, the fantasies shared or held in secret, these are the elements that fuel my erotic writing. The physical actions involved are definitely secondary. The brush of a single fingertip along the sensitive side of a breast can evoke a reaction more intense than full penetration. Vibrating dildoes inserted front and rear won't do a thing to one of my heroines if her mind isn't engaged in the scene.

This mirrors my own sexual experience. I've been to swing parties and sex clubs, been fondled and fucked by strangers, and felt almost nothing, because my partner(s) just weren't pushing my psychological buttons. I can masturbate forever without coming, unless I envision a transgressive tableau to accompany my actions. When I replay my most cherished sexual memories, I can't really recall the details of what we did. But how I felt – that's still sweet, raw and precious.

I gather that many women experience sex in a similar manner. (That's probably one reason why I'm doing pretty well writing erotic romance.) I'm sure that at least some guys do, also. However, not everyone is wired that way. We've had discussions on the ERWA Writers list which made it clear that some women achieve orgasm from specific kinds of stimulation, without regard to context. Some people screw for the pure physical pleasure of the act. They don't care about taboos, or power exchange, or whether their companion has a great sense of humor. A good hard cock, a hot wet cunt, is all they need to have fulfilling sex.

It's tough for me to wrap my mind around that concept. I mean, I can understand it intellectually, but it's so distant from my own sexuality, I'm not sure I could write about it. Furthermore, I have to admit the notion of reading stories about such people doesn't interest me much, either. I realize that sounds judgmental. It's not meant to be. Sometimes, in fact, I regret that I'm not more present in my body during sex. I suspect I'm missing a lot.

At this point in my life, though, I'm not likely to change. I guess I have to accept that there are limits to my perversity - though that very notion makes me want to try and push the envelope. Still, is it possible to write a character who's driven entirely by physical sensation, and still have the story be erotic? My definition of erotic fiction is fiction that explores the experience and nature of desire. Can desire be totally physical? I'd love to hear others' opinions.