All About Pleasure: Beyond the “Wet Test”

We read erotica to get off, right?  That's why people always preface comments about my writing with, "I don't usually read this kind of stuff, but...."  Admitting you do read a lot of erotica is tantamount to a public proclamation you indulge in--gasp--self-pleasuring activities.  And I don't mean eating fine chocolate.

This month at the ERWA blog in "Beyond the 'Wet Test,'" I talk about the ways that assumption is often reflected in casual reviews of erotica anthologies.  And it's not that there's anything wrong with listing the stories you "like" best in an anthology.  It's just that sometimes it seems that's the chief means by which erotica is judged, so that it serves as a kind of code for what personally turns someone on.

You may disagree.  Read the post and let me know!

All About Pleasure: The Politics of Arousal

Pornography.  You know it when you see it, right?  It's the stuff that's created to arouse you.  But is that the only entertainment that targets our natural instincts and vulnerabilities?  Today at Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog, in All About Pleasure: The Politics of Arousal, I discuss how literary and mainstream fiction also manipulate our emotions and our sexual desire, for often less than noble purposes, and why they get away with it.

It's a provocative topic, and I'd be curious what you think!