A British interviewer of a certain age ran afoul of the Guardians of the Problematic not so very long ago by saying that whenever he was speaking with attractive women, he was very likely to be considering in a part of his mind what she'd be like as a lover, or what an affair with her would be like. I read the on-line attacks on him by the usual crowd of ranting moralizers and gender warriors and just threw up my hands. It did no good to ask if these people were fools, since they so obviously were, but I had once again to wonder how it had come to this.
I for one have never partitioned my thoughts about speculative desire. I have to be very open about that. If I'm talking to a lovely girl, I'm flirting, even if it's just pro forma. When I meet an attractive girl, or if I see her walk into a room or an office or a club, I am constructing a story in my head about what it would be like to have a romance with her, what it would be like to take her to bed.
There's a difference between that and leering. There is. One needn't be staring or drooling. But in some part of my mind, whatever else I may be doing, I am telling myself stories in my head about how the girl and I would meet, about what we'd do out for drinks and dinner, about what where we'd travel and how we'd flirt and what we'd do in bed. I can be lecturing to classes or working over documents with a client or reading in a cafe, but I am telling stories in my head and imagining what conversations would be like. Yes, of course, I wonder about what her key sexual skills are, certainly, but I'm also constructing dialogues and trying to puzzle out what interests we'd share.
Sometimes I know there's a kind of self-imposed melancholy there: Isn't it lovely to think so? Or sighing for what have might been even more than thinking about how to actually take the girl out or take her to bed.
In any case, I can't imagine ever not creating stories. I can't ever imagine ever not feeling desire when I see or talk to someone attractive. I can't imagine not flirting a bit when I talk to someone attractive. It's really not possible for me to not imagine some kind of sexual tinge to how I interact with someone attractive. Just as with the British newscaster, even if I go on to be completely professional in a meeting, the attraction, the interest, the stories will have been there.
After all, why shouldn't those things have been there? Why do we find it so horrifying that we (and here I'm using "we" to mean "males", since those attacked for the sin are inevitably male) experience desire or speculate about what-might-have-been? Why is there the presumption that someone (meaning someone female) doesn't know that others will find her desirable and/or will be appalled and horrified at the thought? Why is it so hard to recognize that desire exists and that a certain well-controlled, often unspoken, sexual tension is likely to be in the air? Importantly--- why do we think that sexual desire or tension obliterates everything else? Why is it so difficult to imagine a certain amount of speculative or fleeting desire as just one more possible element of social encounters? Why does being desired seem to be taken as having everything else in one's life erased?
I suppose I'm asking why it seems to be so hard to imagine people as doing or being more than one thing. And why the culture has become so desperately afraid of sexual desire. It is funny, though--- sex as an act can still be assimilated to the category of "intimacy", but the desire behind it and the imagination fueling it are regarded as part of some category of oppression and power. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Ninety-Six: Caveats
There's an article I ran across not so very long ago where the author talked about the horror of contemporary dating life. The article struck a moralizing and morally-panicked tone--- how horrible, that men might ask their dates for the kinds of sex they'd seen in porn! and on a first date! ---and I dismissed the bulk of it with a contemptuous flick of my hand. I don't find it horrible at all either that men might watch porn or that they might ask a partner to try things from films. I certainly don't find it worthy of outrage that one might ask that on a first date, either. I really do find such articles deserving of contempt.
Still...it is true that dating life here in the teens of the twenty-first century is fraught and often frightening. There was one brief passage in the article that did catch my eye, and it did leave me deeply uneasy. There was a throwaway line about all the things morally-corrupted males ask girls to do, and ended by imagining girls crying afterwards amongst themselves over the disgusting, pathetic things men really wanted to do. There's something in that to make one's blood freeze. What I imagined when I read that was simple enough. Not girls crying, but girls laughing at the things males wanted or liked or asked for. Not, mind you, laughing with affection or delight, but with mockery and disdain.
One of the most fraught parts--- the most frightening parts ---of any affair is making the leap from flirtation and seduction to actual sex. That leap from words to flesh is always dangerous. All the things that sound romantic or erotic, that sound alluring or exciting when they're spoken or hinted at, can go bad when translated into the concrete. Flesh and physics are tricky things, and it's so easy for imagination to fail, for things imagined to fail abysmally in practice. More than that, of course, there are social fears at hand.
Let's not talk about body fears, about the fears of not being attractive enough, not sleek and toned enough. That's not what this is about. The fear, I think, comes from something else. If you--- as a male ---have any particular sexual interests, anything not wholly vanilla, then there's always that fear of being unable to reveal them with any kind of safety. When you make the step from the bar table to the bed, you will have to finally tell a new lover what it is that you fancy. This is what I like, you'll say. Which is also saying This is what I am. And in that moment you're wholly vulnerable--- undefended against derision and mockery, against that look in a girl's eyes that says pathetic and disgusting.
This is a gendered thing, I think. It's simply not something I can imagine--- being male and looking at a girl with disgust when she tells you her fetishes or preferences. A lovely girl willing to come into one's bed--- and you'd mock her sexual interests? No. That's not something I can ever imagine doing, not something anyone male is likely to do.
But if you're male, to express any non-vanilla interests is to take a very real risk. My Young Companions know that coming into my bed involves being with someone much older, and they know that there will be games that involve silk blindfolds and ice cubes and candle wax and riding crops. They've known that all along. But that's something that I do always present as a kind of abstraction, as something almost literary, as a chance to be part of a story, as something to be expected with an older lover, with a self-described roué. I haven't had to express anything that was too concrete, too fleshly....and at least the things I tell Young Companions that I want to do involve them and not me. What I tell them about are rituals that offer them literary pleasures. Those things are abstract enough to offer some kind of distancing from the words pathetic or disgusting.
I've known all my life that girls do talk amongst themselves. I have tried very hard to avoid any activities or needs or interests that can be turned into derision. My own tastes run to the abstract and literary, and my Young Companions tend to be girls who are bookish. Those things are a kind of defense.
The contemporary dating world is fraught and frightening. There's no question about that. There's the ever-present fear of being found sexually contemptible and disgusting. A girl might be thought too slutty if she asserted certain desires, but to be male is always to risk being thought pathetic and disgusting. Those things are worse--- or have worse consequences. I've always thought of myself as sexually open, as adventurous, as open to experimentation. I'm not sure the risks are worth it these days. Having any fetishes, any particular or non-vanilla needs or desires, lays you open to being thought contemptible. Yes, I think pathetic is found far worse than slutty, if we're weighing these things on a contemporary scale.
The step from table to bed, the moment when you have to say that you like these things--- the level of risk here in 2014 is higher than it was twenty years ago, and the level of fear is higher whenever you need to explain or justify yourself. Sexual experimentation, sexual tastes, sexual fetishes--- the whole thing becomes ever more terrifying. Looking at a new lover and waiting to see derision in her eyes... That fear is always there, now. Unless you're willing to stay well inside the lines of the most anodyne and inoffensively vanilla tastes, you can never admit to wanting anything particular. That's the way it works in contemporary dating. Never admit to what you might really like. Whatever happens, admit nothing, ask for nothing, try nothing. It's probably best, all things considered, to say nothing at all, to shut down your imagination or longings altogether.
Still...it is true that dating life here in the teens of the twenty-first century is fraught and often frightening. There was one brief passage in the article that did catch my eye, and it did leave me deeply uneasy. There was a throwaway line about all the things morally-corrupted males ask girls to do, and ended by imagining girls crying afterwards amongst themselves over the disgusting, pathetic things men really wanted to do. There's something in that to make one's blood freeze. What I imagined when I read that was simple enough. Not girls crying, but girls laughing at the things males wanted or liked or asked for. Not, mind you, laughing with affection or delight, but with mockery and disdain.
One of the most fraught parts--- the most frightening parts ---of any affair is making the leap from flirtation and seduction to actual sex. That leap from words to flesh is always dangerous. All the things that sound romantic or erotic, that sound alluring or exciting when they're spoken or hinted at, can go bad when translated into the concrete. Flesh and physics are tricky things, and it's so easy for imagination to fail, for things imagined to fail abysmally in practice. More than that, of course, there are social fears at hand.
Let's not talk about body fears, about the fears of not being attractive enough, not sleek and toned enough. That's not what this is about. The fear, I think, comes from something else. If you--- as a male ---have any particular sexual interests, anything not wholly vanilla, then there's always that fear of being unable to reveal them with any kind of safety. When you make the step from the bar table to the bed, you will have to finally tell a new lover what it is that you fancy. This is what I like, you'll say. Which is also saying This is what I am. And in that moment you're wholly vulnerable--- undefended against derision and mockery, against that look in a girl's eyes that says pathetic and disgusting.
This is a gendered thing, I think. It's simply not something I can imagine--- being male and looking at a girl with disgust when she tells you her fetishes or preferences. A lovely girl willing to come into one's bed--- and you'd mock her sexual interests? No. That's not something I can ever imagine doing, not something anyone male is likely to do.
But if you're male, to express any non-vanilla interests is to take a very real risk. My Young Companions know that coming into my bed involves being with someone much older, and they know that there will be games that involve silk blindfolds and ice cubes and candle wax and riding crops. They've known that all along. But that's something that I do always present as a kind of abstraction, as something almost literary, as a chance to be part of a story, as something to be expected with an older lover, with a self-described roué. I haven't had to express anything that was too concrete, too fleshly....and at least the things I tell Young Companions that I want to do involve them and not me. What I tell them about are rituals that offer them literary pleasures. Those things are abstract enough to offer some kind of distancing from the words pathetic or disgusting.
I've known all my life that girls do talk amongst themselves. I have tried very hard to avoid any activities or needs or interests that can be turned into derision. My own tastes run to the abstract and literary, and my Young Companions tend to be girls who are bookish. Those things are a kind of defense.
The contemporary dating world is fraught and frightening. There's no question about that. There's the ever-present fear of being found sexually contemptible and disgusting. A girl might be thought too slutty if she asserted certain desires, but to be male is always to risk being thought pathetic and disgusting. Those things are worse--- or have worse consequences. I've always thought of myself as sexually open, as adventurous, as open to experimentation. I'm not sure the risks are worth it these days. Having any fetishes, any particular or non-vanilla needs or desires, lays you open to being thought contemptible. Yes, I think pathetic is found far worse than slutty, if we're weighing these things on a contemporary scale.
The step from table to bed, the moment when you have to say that you like these things--- the level of risk here in 2014 is higher than it was twenty years ago, and the level of fear is higher whenever you need to explain or justify yourself. Sexual experimentation, sexual tastes, sexual fetishes--- the whole thing becomes ever more terrifying. Looking at a new lover and waiting to see derision in her eyes... That fear is always there, now. Unless you're willing to stay well inside the lines of the most anodyne and inoffensively vanilla tastes, you can never admit to wanting anything particular. That's the way it works in contemporary dating. Never admit to what you might really like. Whatever happens, admit nothing, ask for nothing, try nothing. It's probably best, all things considered, to say nothing at all, to shut down your imagination or longings altogether.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Ninety-Five: Grey Silk
A lovely friend in the far snowlands of upstate New York told me once that having a lovely, bright, clever Young Companion as a sexual submissive would be very like trying to own a cat. I had to laugh at that. After all, long ago a very lovely girl in a plaid uniform kilt looked at me over her glasses and dryly told me that she was complaisant rather than submissive--- a perfect line, and of course she won my heart by knowing the word complaisant. I do have to agree with my friend out there above Rochester somewhere. "Owning a cat" makes perfect sense as a metaphor here.
It's always worth remembering that any bright, clever, bookish Young Companion who plays the submissive is far more likely to simply be complaisant, and that it's inevitable that she'll be topping from below. After all, as a clever and bookish girl she's almost certainly chosen to be there with her wrists tied and a blindfold fitted as part of her sentimental education, as a knowing and very self-aware part of an exchange of youth and beauty for experience. Letting herself experience everything--- ice cubes and candle wax, blindfolds and riding whips ---is something she wants, but every girl I've known in that situation has done more that just letting herself fall headlong into raw experience. They've been willing to offer themselves up to the experience, but they've never not wanted to have a clear voice in how the experience is played out. Not something that I can ever really imagine minding, of course. I'm not someone who finds topping from below in a girl to be a problem. Of course, remember, too, that I find the idea of being addressed as "Sir" or "Master" to be boring. I don't mind being addressed by my academic title (I did earn it, after all), but my preference is always for either my first name or "darling". I am reasonably skilled with a riding whip and with ice cubes and candle wax, but my role is always to provide experience, to offer up my part of a sentimental education.
Remember the girl--- the heroine in the erotic romance I talked about writing? That key moment on the steps of the hero's brownstone, when she stands up and takes his hand and pulls him to the door. Show me, she says. Show me. That's always the key moment. Someone like my hero understands his role, of course. A beautiful, much-younger girl is giving herself to him because he's an opening into a new world. I'm not denying or minimizing any romantic connection, any passion--- don't think that. But for a bright and bookish and clever girl having an affair with someone older, one of his attractions is always that he represents a gateway to things she'd like to know--- things she'd like to have done. She's been topping from below from the first moment of the affair, and of course the hero knows it. How could he not? His own pleasure will be bound up not in asserting power or dominance, but in providing her (and himself, yes) with well-crafted, very formal scenes. She's very much seeking pleasure in having the experiences, in knowing all the literary and film sources, in knowing that she can be part of the kinds of experiences her older lover can provide.
Someone in the London exurbs reminded me not so very long ago that she was tired of having to defend herself and her choices--- that she liked being slapped around a bit in bed, that she liked very rough, intense sex with much older lovers. What you like in bed, she said, doesn't say anything about your value as a person. Not at all. Not what you like, not how many people you do it with. Not whether you're a dom or a sub. That's just in bed. People assume far too much about her from what she likes in bed, and they never see that she's collecting stories and experiences, that what she likes in bed isn't about her essence or her value.
I like the London girl rather a lot. Having her in my bed with her hands tied with silk would be a major delight. But I'd expect her to be shaping what happens every step of the way. I can't imagine it any other way.
This may all be the long way round of saying that what I like about the idea of s/m has very little to do with the fact of dominance and submission, and a great deal to with a exchange of stories, with creating very formal scenes. And that, I think, requires seeing dominance and submission as simply self-conscious poses, as abstract concepts that are just part of the decor. It requires that a lovely Young Companion be complaisant, that she be willing to let me create stories she can walk into, but it only requires that her submission be purely formal and notional. I suppose it might mean that she regard herself just for the night as a kind of canvas or screen, but that's not quite right, is it? She understands that she's there to accept experience, to be the recipient of experience. But if she's aware of that, then she'll always be part of shaping how those experiences are offered and delivered. My Young Companions are a bookish lot, and they know what they want in terms of scenes and crafting and literary references. Which is why I like them, after all.
Owning cats? Maybe...or just maybe a bit more like being a director and working with a skilled actress--- that may be a better dynamic.
It's always worth remembering that any bright, clever, bookish Young Companion who plays the submissive is far more likely to simply be complaisant, and that it's inevitable that she'll be topping from below. After all, as a clever and bookish girl she's almost certainly chosen to be there with her wrists tied and a blindfold fitted as part of her sentimental education, as a knowing and very self-aware part of an exchange of youth and beauty for experience. Letting herself experience everything--- ice cubes and candle wax, blindfolds and riding whips ---is something she wants, but every girl I've known in that situation has done more that just letting herself fall headlong into raw experience. They've been willing to offer themselves up to the experience, but they've never not wanted to have a clear voice in how the experience is played out. Not something that I can ever really imagine minding, of course. I'm not someone who finds topping from below in a girl to be a problem. Of course, remember, too, that I find the idea of being addressed as "Sir" or "Master" to be boring. I don't mind being addressed by my academic title (I did earn it, after all), but my preference is always for either my first name or "darling". I am reasonably skilled with a riding whip and with ice cubes and candle wax, but my role is always to provide experience, to offer up my part of a sentimental education.
Remember the girl--- the heroine in the erotic romance I talked about writing? That key moment on the steps of the hero's brownstone, when she stands up and takes his hand and pulls him to the door. Show me, she says. Show me. That's always the key moment. Someone like my hero understands his role, of course. A beautiful, much-younger girl is giving herself to him because he's an opening into a new world. I'm not denying or minimizing any romantic connection, any passion--- don't think that. But for a bright and bookish and clever girl having an affair with someone older, one of his attractions is always that he represents a gateway to things she'd like to know--- things she'd like to have done. She's been topping from below from the first moment of the affair, and of course the hero knows it. How could he not? His own pleasure will be bound up not in asserting power or dominance, but in providing her (and himself, yes) with well-crafted, very formal scenes. She's very much seeking pleasure in having the experiences, in knowing all the literary and film sources, in knowing that she can be part of the kinds of experiences her older lover can provide.
Someone in the London exurbs reminded me not so very long ago that she was tired of having to defend herself and her choices--- that she liked being slapped around a bit in bed, that she liked very rough, intense sex with much older lovers. What you like in bed, she said, doesn't say anything about your value as a person. Not at all. Not what you like, not how many people you do it with. Not whether you're a dom or a sub. That's just in bed. People assume far too much about her from what she likes in bed, and they never see that she's collecting stories and experiences, that what she likes in bed isn't about her essence or her value.
I like the London girl rather a lot. Having her in my bed with her hands tied with silk would be a major delight. But I'd expect her to be shaping what happens every step of the way. I can't imagine it any other way.
This may all be the long way round of saying that what I like about the idea of s/m has very little to do with the fact of dominance and submission, and a great deal to with a exchange of stories, with creating very formal scenes. And that, I think, requires seeing dominance and submission as simply self-conscious poses, as abstract concepts that are just part of the decor. It requires that a lovely Young Companion be complaisant, that she be willing to let me create stories she can walk into, but it only requires that her submission be purely formal and notional. I suppose it might mean that she regard herself just for the night as a kind of canvas or screen, but that's not quite right, is it? She understands that she's there to accept experience, to be the recipient of experience. But if she's aware of that, then she'll always be part of shaping how those experiences are offered and delivered. My Young Companions are a bookish lot, and they know what they want in terms of scenes and crafting and literary references. Which is why I like them, after all.
Owning cats? Maybe...or just maybe a bit more like being a director and working with a skilled actress--- that may be a better dynamic.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Ninety-Four: Blue Pill, Black Draught
I'm a gentleman of a certain age. There's no denying that, and I've learned not to try. Nonetheless, certain birthdays do serve as markers, and there are certain mileposts that are reminders of mortality. My next birthday will be one of those, and I'll admit to a certain sense of unease. I brought the issue up with two different young ladies of my acquaintance this week--- both in England, oddly enough ---and in both conversations I found myself afraid to talk about the specific number. They've both known me for a while--- a dozen or so years in one case, something like three years in the other ---and they both know the number I'm worried about. Yet I am afraid to say it aloud, even with girls who know my biography and have been okay with me. This is a sad thing, though exactly in line with my personality. If I say it aloud, it'll have power over me, power to harm. Magical thinking at its finest, I think.
My fears do come down to a belief that the number is magic dark enough to mark the end of my ability to interest lovely Young Companions, magic that will bar me from any ability to be with a companion. I have all the usual male fears--- hair falling out, losing the ability to achieve an erection. Greying hair I can deal with--- I know how to do the "distinguished" thing. There's always dye, if it comes to that. Bald spots...I don't know. If that happens, I'll feel instantly hideous, though girls tell me that in an era where shaven heads aren't uncommon, a bald spot wouldn't be a major issue. Whether or not I believe them, they've at least made the effort to reassure me. I suppose it's the other thing that frightens me. Systems failure is a something that does leave me terrified for the future. Winter is coming, after all.
I talked with one of my friends in London about her own experiences. Her latest lover--- mid-40s, moneyed, an academic with transatlantic connections, athletic ---hadn't been able to get it up all week, and she was baffled. She tells me she's been with men into their 70s, and this has never happened to her, ever. She's 32 now, so that's...in eighteen years of sexual adventures, no man has ever failed to be hard with her. The current lover did everything else with her, but couldn't do basic PIV sex. She was...concerned. Or at least concerned that something physical (blood pressure, undiagnosed diabetes, depression) might be wrong. She has, she says, a cache of generic, probably illegal, Indian black-market Viagra and wonders if she should give him a few.
I told her about Caverject. Caverject is what male porn stars use. It's...injectable. Which would be...very, very painful, I'd think. But as soon as I said that, I thought about aging seducers in films or novels carrying three or four Caverject syrettes in a chic, stainless-steel Art Deco cigarette case. There it would be in the inside jacket pocket of your suit jacket, and you'd take one out and just...use it. It's probably a very sad thing that I'm far more intrigued by the idea of having the elegant case than I am by whether Caverject works as advertised.
Oh--- if you didn't have syrettes, the Caverject comes more often in a case with two vials and a couple of disposable syringes. That would look and feel just a bit too much like shooting heroin for me. Using it like that just seems...like something that would look too wrong. The syrettes would be hideously painful, but the more ordinary injection system has all the wrong visual symbolism.
Anyway--- I've never used Viagra or its relatives, and so far I haven't needed it. Systems failure is as yet only a shadow out there on the horizon. But...having talked to my friend, I'm now afraid that it'll happen any time. Yes, I'm probably hypochondriac--- talking myself into being so afraid of this that it will happen. This is my usual "taking counsel of my fears" procedure. I'm even afraid to say the word Viagra aloud. Somehow the power of dark magic doesn't apply if you say Sildenafil instead. The same applies to saying Tadalafil rather than Cialis. The generic names aren't as frightening.
I can say "the Blue Pill" and be okay with that, by the way. There's no dark magic there, no hovering Delators. I can even laugh about the usage. Patrick O'Brian's novels, of course. Dr. Maturin prescribes "blue pill and black draught" to seamen. The blue pill he uses is a mercury-based remedy for "the venereals", but I'll overlook that part. Saying "the Blue Pill" brings up HMS Surprise and its adventures, and that's quite comforting.
My other, younger, friend in London tells me that she's been with various older men who needed it and with a fair number of 20 or 30-somethings who used the Blue Pill recreationally, and that it never made any difference to her. Some girls need extra lube, she writes, and some don't. Using a pill is no different from that. I'd like to have that attitude--- that it's only a tool for solving a problem, not a judgment about personal value. Of course, I regard everything in my life and world as a (usually negative) judgment about my personal value. My younger friend takes a very pragmatic view of dealing with male fears and male bodies. I have some experience in these matters, she said about dealing with much older lovers. There are problems, she says, and if there's a simple tool for solving them, you use it. The Blue Pill, she told me, is no different than lube for girls--- or reading glasses, for that matter. I do need her attitude. She's a very lovely, bright girl and of an age to be a perfect Young Companion. If she says that it's not shameful for men to need the Blue Pill and that she would never look at a man with contempt for needing it, I should listen to her. I'm very much aware of that.
I'm a gentleman of a certain age and a certain genteel poverty, and there's some doubt that I could ever afford Viagra, even something generic and black-market smuggled in from Mexico or India. I almost certainly couldn't afford that elegant, custom-crafted silver cigarette case for holding Caverject syrettes. It says so much about me that I'm more concerned about not having the case than I would be about not having a cache of Blue Pills.
I'll worried that I'll talk myself into being scared. I once talked myself into being afraid to fly, and that lasted for, well, much longer than I care to admit. Nothing has happened yet, and nothing may happen at all. If there is a problem, then solve it with the tools available. What matters is the result, after all. There's a lovely young companion that you don't want to fail, and you want to stave off decay and mortality as long as you can.
Nonetheless--- I will offer this up to you, if you're reading. What is the proper attitude toward the Blue Pill and its relatives? Is it just a tool, or does needing it serve as a judgment and condemnation, a statement about personal value? Is it something that you should be ashamed of using...or needing? What are your thoughts?
Friday, December 27, 2013
Ninety-Three: Characters
I do think that I'd have to craft any erotica that I might write into some very specific forms.
The erotica I'd write would have to have an s/m storyline, as much for the element of ritualized sex as for the s/m itself. I'd want there to be an sense of the very formalized about the story line. There would be a sense of cool (or even cold) formality and ritual. The characters would be able to look at what they were doing with a kind of stylized distance, a kind of abstraction. There could be romance, and even longing, but there'd always be a sense of distance. My characters would have read about the things they hoped to do long before they ever did any of them, and they'd always see themselves as being part of a story.
The characters would be age-disparate. There's never any question about that. The girl who's the heroine would always be much younger than the hero. However not? The hero would always be me, at least in some ways. The heroine would be a much younger, though she'd always be fiercely bright and well-read. Even as an undergraduate girl, as a co-ed, she'd understand the literary references implicit in the affair. It would be important that she knew those things, that she was aware that s/m existed, that she knew what any affair with the hero would involve.
My heroine would be young, yes--- perhaps just barely into her twenties. But she'd have lived inside books all her life, and she'd be visualizing herself as a character in a novel or a film. She'd have read enough to know what her older admirer wanted from her. The word "predator" wouldn't frighten her at all.
There's a moment that I'd insist on seeing, by the way. Imagine that early-autumn night in the city, and imagine her there on the stoop of a brownstone, holding hands with the hero, kissing him, and knowing what's waiting upstairs in his apartment. She puts out her cigarette and stands and pulls him up by his hand. "Show me," she'd say. "Show me." That's very much what I'd want--- a girl who's willing to explore, who's prepared to overcome any fears with the desire to try new things, to just dive into experience. That would be important--- that she'd be willing to go up those stairs as an adventure.
He is older--- that's a given. How much older? Well...enough to make their affair suspect in most people's eyes. Enough of an age difference for their affair to be transgressive. But it's important that he not see her as a child or as simply a plaything. He admires her courage and her intelligence as much as he loves her long legs and sharp, visible hipbones and ribs. Whatever he wants to do with her, he wants her to be part of it, to know that she sees herself as a character in so many stories.
I can think about what's likely to happen upstairs--- silk blindfolds, silk bindings, riding whips and candle wax. I can think about those things. But what matters is that the girl who's the heroine walks up those stairs because she wants to see new worlds and new experiences, and that the hero knows that his own role in the story demands that he offer her up formal, ritualized experiences.
It's no less important that they talk, that the affair demands long conversations late at night. The story can be very explicit, but to the two principals, it's also about long conversations, about stories and dreams spun out late in the night. It's important that they know that each of them is creating backstories for what's happening. For every kiss on a bare hipbone, for every new position and every enacted ritual, there must be long, intricate conversations. They'll be deeply enamoured of one another, deeply in lust and in love. But they'll be all-to-aware of what they're doing together, all-too-aware of being part of something very formalized.
I'm not sure at all if this makes any sense. The story I'd want to tell would be very passionate, but a passion that's mediated through literary references, through an awareness of all the books and films that my characters have experienced. My characters would approach one another through their own knowledge of those things. Is that erotica, no matter they might do in bed? That's a question that I'll open up to any readers--- does self-awareness blight erotica? What are your thoughts on that?
Anyway... It's hard to imagine erotica that isn't about two people who want to experience new things, who are aware of so many things in books and films that they need in their own lives. Erotica for me requires a kind of distance, an awareness of sets and setting, an awareness of what sets and props the characters have chosen--- brand names, despite anything Remittance Girl may have said. My characters would always want to be part of a literary world that embraces everything they do with one another.
Erotica for them has to be about be about dreams rather than flesh...or at least about something formal that's more than the mere collision of flesh.
I do wish I new how to write all of this down--- to shape a story around the characters I've seen in my mind's eye all these years.
The erotica I'd write would have to have an s/m storyline, as much for the element of ritualized sex as for the s/m itself. I'd want there to be an sense of the very formalized about the story line. There would be a sense of cool (or even cold) formality and ritual. The characters would be able to look at what they were doing with a kind of stylized distance, a kind of abstraction. There could be romance, and even longing, but there'd always be a sense of distance. My characters would have read about the things they hoped to do long before they ever did any of them, and they'd always see themselves as being part of a story.
The characters would be age-disparate. There's never any question about that. The girl who's the heroine would always be much younger than the hero. However not? The hero would always be me, at least in some ways. The heroine would be a much younger, though she'd always be fiercely bright and well-read. Even as an undergraduate girl, as a co-ed, she'd understand the literary references implicit in the affair. It would be important that she knew those things, that she was aware that s/m existed, that she knew what any affair with the hero would involve.
My heroine would be young, yes--- perhaps just barely into her twenties. But she'd have lived inside books all her life, and she'd be visualizing herself as a character in a novel or a film. She'd have read enough to know what her older admirer wanted from her. The word "predator" wouldn't frighten her at all.
There's a moment that I'd insist on seeing, by the way. Imagine that early-autumn night in the city, and imagine her there on the stoop of a brownstone, holding hands with the hero, kissing him, and knowing what's waiting upstairs in his apartment. She puts out her cigarette and stands and pulls him up by his hand. "Show me," she'd say. "Show me." That's very much what I'd want--- a girl who's willing to explore, who's prepared to overcome any fears with the desire to try new things, to just dive into experience. That would be important--- that she'd be willing to go up those stairs as an adventure.
He is older--- that's a given. How much older? Well...enough to make their affair suspect in most people's eyes. Enough of an age difference for their affair to be transgressive. But it's important that he not see her as a child or as simply a plaything. He admires her courage and her intelligence as much as he loves her long legs and sharp, visible hipbones and ribs. Whatever he wants to do with her, he wants her to be part of it, to know that she sees herself as a character in so many stories.
I can think about what's likely to happen upstairs--- silk blindfolds, silk bindings, riding whips and candle wax. I can think about those things. But what matters is that the girl who's the heroine walks up those stairs because she wants to see new worlds and new experiences, and that the hero knows that his own role in the story demands that he offer her up formal, ritualized experiences.
It's no less important that they talk, that the affair demands long conversations late at night. The story can be very explicit, but to the two principals, it's also about long conversations, about stories and dreams spun out late in the night. It's important that they know that each of them is creating backstories for what's happening. For every kiss on a bare hipbone, for every new position and every enacted ritual, there must be long, intricate conversations. They'll be deeply enamoured of one another, deeply in lust and in love. But they'll be all-to-aware of what they're doing together, all-too-aware of being part of something very formalized.
I'm not sure at all if this makes any sense. The story I'd want to tell would be very passionate, but a passion that's mediated through literary references, through an awareness of all the books and films that my characters have experienced. My characters would approach one another through their own knowledge of those things. Is that erotica, no matter they might do in bed? That's a question that I'll open up to any readers--- does self-awareness blight erotica? What are your thoughts on that?
Anyway... It's hard to imagine erotica that isn't about two people who want to experience new things, who are aware of so many things in books and films that they need in their own lives. Erotica for me requires a kind of distance, an awareness of sets and setting, an awareness of what sets and props the characters have chosen--- brand names, despite anything Remittance Girl may have said. My characters would always want to be part of a literary world that embraces everything they do with one another.
Erotica for them has to be about be about dreams rather than flesh...or at least about something formal that's more than the mere collision of flesh.
I do wish I new how to write all of this down--- to shape a story around the characters I've seen in my mind's eye all these years.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Ninety-Two: Decor
A cold Christmas Day morning, and I am thinking about the idea of writing erotica. I'm still not entirely persuaded that anyone male--- straight, white, "cis/cis-presenting" male and of a certain age ----is allowed to write erotica at all here in the age of the gender wars. That's an issue that needs to be considered, isn't it? Is it permissible at all for anyone male (let alone male and embodying all the other things so despised by the gender warriors) to describe sex or create sexual imagery? Is it permissible for males to have sexual fantasies at all in the age of the gender wars?
I'm looking out from my rooms at a winter morning and trying to explain what I'd like to see in erotica, or what I'd like to write about. Sets and settings, obviously. I always begin with sets and settings. Where something happens matters intensely to me. Place, time, decor--- the context matters. Sex, or at least a rencontre, means very little without the right mise-en-scène. Setting matters.
A fairly well-known writer of on-line erotica, an expat woman in Indochina who calls herself Remittance Girl once angrily blocked me from a discussion because I disagreed with her about the use of brand names in erotica. I'm no fan of the sex-and-shopping novels ("shopping and fucking") from the 1980s that made having Louboutin pumps and a millionaire, hard-muscled lover totally interchangeable for wealthy cougars in L.A., but I do like the idea of brand names in stories (and not just in erotica). Brand names provide context; they do help define a social background for the story. And, yes, they are aspirational. Brand names allow me the chance to make lists. I've done that with all kinds of genres, and done it all my life. Lists and brand names do help shape the encounter.
The hero in a thriller drinks this kind of Scotch and wears these kinds of shirts. He takes these items of equipment with him to the hills of Nuristan. Some writers do that deliberately, of course. Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were notorious for that. They were as much about teaching postwar young Englishmen how to dress for an upwardly mobile life as much as they were about the spy plots. I do want brand names and lists, despite Remittance Girl's hostility to them. I want to be able to read erotica and look for class markers and style guides. Sex has to be about a certain kind of stylishness. The physical encounter is never as important as the presentation. And I do judge sex by presentation. Flesh and bodies are never very attractive on their own, or at least they're not sufficient to make an encounter work, even if they are necessary. I don't want to be inside a story, or identify with a story, that's not appealing to the eye, or to a sense of style. That's style in both senses, mind you--- literary as well as fashion. Maybe that's what Remittance Girl was objecting to. Maybe she was angry that I was saying that sex--- an encounter ---is or should be defined and judged not by flesh or physical pleasure, but by presentation. I can't imagine it any other way, though.
Writing erotica... Anything I'd write would have lists implicit. What the characters did and how they approached it would be shaped by locations and decor. It would be important to them that what they were doing be part of the stories in their heads. My characters wouldn't be the Beautiful People from the "Dynasty"-era shopping-and-fucking novels, but they would be people who wanted sex to be framed like a story, to happen in ways that would allow them to live up to the stories in their heads. If they're over-literary, well, so am I. The important thing is to have a correct setting and a correct set of symbols and markers to deploy. I grew up reading things like "Story of O"--- erotica set in the places and social settings I wanted to visit, erotica set in what were always aspirational settings for me.
Erotica for me has to have a self-aware literary edge. And it has to have a certain kind of s/m flavor. But that goes back to the idea of literary style. What's more "literary" than high-end s/m, with all its roots in Catholic ritual and French novels...?
I need to think more about that, about what and how to present the kinds of characters I'd like to use. And about how to present s/m--- how to deploy it and how to have my characters understand it.
I'm looking out from my rooms at a winter morning and trying to explain what I'd like to see in erotica, or what I'd like to write about. Sets and settings, obviously. I always begin with sets and settings. Where something happens matters intensely to me. Place, time, decor--- the context matters. Sex, or at least a rencontre, means very little without the right mise-en-scène. Setting matters.
A fairly well-known writer of on-line erotica, an expat woman in Indochina who calls herself Remittance Girl once angrily blocked me from a discussion because I disagreed with her about the use of brand names in erotica. I'm no fan of the sex-and-shopping novels ("shopping and fucking") from the 1980s that made having Louboutin pumps and a millionaire, hard-muscled lover totally interchangeable for wealthy cougars in L.A., but I do like the idea of brand names in stories (and not just in erotica). Brand names provide context; they do help define a social background for the story. And, yes, they are aspirational. Brand names allow me the chance to make lists. I've done that with all kinds of genres, and done it all my life. Lists and brand names do help shape the encounter.
The hero in a thriller drinks this kind of Scotch and wears these kinds of shirts. He takes these items of equipment with him to the hills of Nuristan. Some writers do that deliberately, of course. Ian Fleming's James Bond novels were notorious for that. They were as much about teaching postwar young Englishmen how to dress for an upwardly mobile life as much as they were about the spy plots. I do want brand names and lists, despite Remittance Girl's hostility to them. I want to be able to read erotica and look for class markers and style guides. Sex has to be about a certain kind of stylishness. The physical encounter is never as important as the presentation. And I do judge sex by presentation. Flesh and bodies are never very attractive on their own, or at least they're not sufficient to make an encounter work, even if they are necessary. I don't want to be inside a story, or identify with a story, that's not appealing to the eye, or to a sense of style. That's style in both senses, mind you--- literary as well as fashion. Maybe that's what Remittance Girl was objecting to. Maybe she was angry that I was saying that sex--- an encounter ---is or should be defined and judged not by flesh or physical pleasure, but by presentation. I can't imagine it any other way, though.
Writing erotica... Anything I'd write would have lists implicit. What the characters did and how they approached it would be shaped by locations and decor. It would be important to them that what they were doing be part of the stories in their heads. My characters wouldn't be the Beautiful People from the "Dynasty"-era shopping-and-fucking novels, but they would be people who wanted sex to be framed like a story, to happen in ways that would allow them to live up to the stories in their heads. If they're over-literary, well, so am I. The important thing is to have a correct setting and a correct set of symbols and markers to deploy. I grew up reading things like "Story of O"--- erotica set in the places and social settings I wanted to visit, erotica set in what were always aspirational settings for me.
Erotica for me has to have a self-aware literary edge. And it has to have a certain kind of s/m flavor. But that goes back to the idea of literary style. What's more "literary" than high-end s/m, with all its roots in Catholic ritual and French novels...?
I need to think more about that, about what and how to present the kinds of characters I'd like to use. And about how to present s/m--- how to deploy it and how to have my characters understand it.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Ninety-One: Pages
Classic and antique erotica--- I've been writing about that. I'd love to have a well-stocked library with its own section for classic and antique erotica. If you've been reading here, you already know that. I'd want the books to be not just titles that are classics, or at least exemplars of sub-genres, but finely bound as well. I'm not sure what it means to collect first editions of erotica, but having original editions--- high-end 18th-century and Victorian editions ---is an obsession all its own.
There's still one question, though. Let's say that I could have a shelf or two of classic erotica, of things done from the early 18th-century up through the early 1950s. The question remains: what counts as "real" erotica, "serious" erotica today?
I'm not at all sure what counts as "serious" erotica these days, and I'm not exactly sure what I'd be looking for in erotica. Certainly nothing like "50 Shades" or its progeny. Nothing like the long list of "erotic romance" titles listed at GoodReads, where far too many of the stories seem to be Harlequin romances with explicit sex.
I'm a literary snob, and I'll admit that. I'd want erotica to be literary as much as anything else. I'd demand something that was aware of itself as literature. Explicit is fine--- graphic is better. But it has to be crafted the way literary fiction is crafted. But you know that about me. I want erotica to have the same quality of writing I expect from any other genre I read.
But there's something deeper here as well. Even if I decided to write my own erotica, what am I still allowed to write in the age of the gender wars? It strikes me that so much of the erotica produced in the last fifteen or twenty years has been by female authors, and I'm wondering if there's not a kind of social rule here. Are men who write self-described erotica regarded with suspicion, or at least with more suspicion than female writers? Are male authors of erotica regarded as working not just in a sketchy field, but as being suspect themselves for all the usual sins?
If I decided to write erotica, I'd have immediate problems. Writing about sex is regarded as having political overtones, as being immediately subject to political criticism in a way that, say, writing detective stories isn't. I'm male, white, heterosexual, and of a certain age. (Should I add "cisgendered", too? And "educated middle class"?) There'd be a question of whether I was even allowed to write erotica. All the more so if what I wrote had age-disparate couples or told s/m-inflected tales.
The columnist Sarah Nicole Prickett is noted for dismissing anything written by "Dads"--- white males over 30 ---as being works she refuses to read. She sees no reason for such people to write anything anymore. And when I follow on-line literary feuds, I see that she's not the only one to hold that view. And it takes very little imagination to imagine the abuse a male author of erotica could face. You'd never be able to write literary s/m, especially if you had a heroine who volunteered to be the submissive parter. You'd never get away with trying to be inside her head, and making her "conventionally" beautiful would only seal your fate in the eyes of the gender warriors and the social justice mob.
There have been times when writing erotica was a sin--- providing temptation to lure readers into sin and debauchery. That actually sounds amusing these days, and I suppose anyone who was serious about what they wrote would enjoy the idea of having that kind of effect. Here in these latter days, writing erotica is taken as being a kind of political statement, as being "really" about issues of oppression. To write erotica as someone too male, too old, too pale, and too straight is to be instantly accused of writing erotica for all the basest or most ideologically-evil reasons.
I can have classic or antique volumes on my shelves. What I can't do is write the erotica I'd like to read without being immediately attacked on non-literary grounds. I told you this before--- I am a roué and a gentleman of a certain age. In the age of the gender was, there are no words for what I am that don't imply that any desires I may have are vile and oppressive.
There's still one question, though. Let's say that I could have a shelf or two of classic erotica, of things done from the early 18th-century up through the early 1950s. The question remains: what counts as "real" erotica, "serious" erotica today?
I'm not at all sure what counts as "serious" erotica these days, and I'm not exactly sure what I'd be looking for in erotica. Certainly nothing like "50 Shades" or its progeny. Nothing like the long list of "erotic romance" titles listed at GoodReads, where far too many of the stories seem to be Harlequin romances with explicit sex.
I'm a literary snob, and I'll admit that. I'd want erotica to be literary as much as anything else. I'd demand something that was aware of itself as literature. Explicit is fine--- graphic is better. But it has to be crafted the way literary fiction is crafted. But you know that about me. I want erotica to have the same quality of writing I expect from any other genre I read.
But there's something deeper here as well. Even if I decided to write my own erotica, what am I still allowed to write in the age of the gender wars? It strikes me that so much of the erotica produced in the last fifteen or twenty years has been by female authors, and I'm wondering if there's not a kind of social rule here. Are men who write self-described erotica regarded with suspicion, or at least with more suspicion than female writers? Are male authors of erotica regarded as working not just in a sketchy field, but as being suspect themselves for all the usual sins?
If I decided to write erotica, I'd have immediate problems. Writing about sex is regarded as having political overtones, as being immediately subject to political criticism in a way that, say, writing detective stories isn't. I'm male, white, heterosexual, and of a certain age. (Should I add "cisgendered", too? And "educated middle class"?) There'd be a question of whether I was even allowed to write erotica. All the more so if what I wrote had age-disparate couples or told s/m-inflected tales.
The columnist Sarah Nicole Prickett is noted for dismissing anything written by "Dads"--- white males over 30 ---as being works she refuses to read. She sees no reason for such people to write anything anymore. And when I follow on-line literary feuds, I see that she's not the only one to hold that view. And it takes very little imagination to imagine the abuse a male author of erotica could face. You'd never be able to write literary s/m, especially if you had a heroine who volunteered to be the submissive parter. You'd never get away with trying to be inside her head, and making her "conventionally" beautiful would only seal your fate in the eyes of the gender warriors and the social justice mob.
There have been times when writing erotica was a sin--- providing temptation to lure readers into sin and debauchery. That actually sounds amusing these days, and I suppose anyone who was serious about what they wrote would enjoy the idea of having that kind of effect. Here in these latter days, writing erotica is taken as being a kind of political statement, as being "really" about issues of oppression. To write erotica as someone too male, too old, too pale, and too straight is to be instantly accused of writing erotica for all the basest or most ideologically-evil reasons.
I can have classic or antique volumes on my shelves. What I can't do is write the erotica I'd like to read without being immediately attacked on non-literary grounds. I told you this before--- I am a roué and a gentleman of a certain age. In the age of the gender was, there are no words for what I am that don't imply that any desires I may have are vile and oppressive.
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