Charlie J Forrest

There’s an old saying, no honour among thieves. You’d be mistaken, if you look at some of the rhetoric in the literary community for thinking that this statement applies equally well to erotica. No honour (by which they mean, art, craft, quality control etc) amongst smut peddlers. It seems to me to be an extension of the needless snobbery between ‘literary’ fiction and ‘genre’ fiction.

It’s an attitude that bugs the crap out of me. The number of supposedly liberal open-minded friends I have who, upon hearing I write erotic fiction, assume that I’m the writing equivalent of a battery hen and ask me if I find it soul-destroying.

Soul destroying?

Seriously?

Are you fucking mad?

I’ve never shied away from sex as a subject. My first (thank Christ unpublished) novel featured a lot of sex. Not just for titillation but as a key element of both the plot and the main character’s development. I’ve written erotic pieces for people who are close to me and, when I decided to start writing and publishing erotic fiction it was with no doubts, fears or regrets. If you enjoy writing, why on earth wouldn’t you write at least some erotica?

I’m firmly of the opinion that art should reflect life, and I do see writing as art. Dan Brown and Jackie Collins as much as Poe and Dickens. I don’t care about literary reputation, I care about people enjoying something, running their eyes across the words and feeling something.

So why, then, do so many writers choose to cultivate this gigantic blind spot around something that sits so close to the heart of the human condition?

Maybe having too much focus on erotica is a bad thing, but I think there are very few people who ever go that far. Most writers, myself included, don’t just write erotica, but I bet you that you can spot the mainstream authors who don’t. The sudden shift as characters enter the bedroom from an engaging, convincing authorial voice into either prudish euphemisms or what sounds like the script of the world’s worst porn film. Quite frankly I’ve had enough of both.

Read erotica; write erotica; it’s good for you!