While I rarely read erotica, if it’s good writing, I enjoy it and have written favorable reviews. But let’s not elevate erotica beyond it’s due. Generally, it has no redeeming social message. It does not contribute to solving our enormous social, economic, and political challenges. It appeals to our basic animal instincts for the main purpose of making money.
Granted, we all strive to make money by doing what we love. Nothing wrong with that. Film pornographers may love what they do (like Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights), and make lots of money, but we don’t hold them in high regard. Writers of erotica may be a step above pornographers and, assuming they love what they do, nobody should begrudge them their livelihood. Most people enjoy being sexually aroused. It might make them forget their ugly spouses, underwater mortgage, and wayward teenagers. Or it allows the perfect parent a little “me time,” or can serve as foreplay to spice up a long-term relationship that has hit the doldrums. All worthy, I suppose. Good erotica writers make good money and they don’t have to meet in bathrooms, or actually perform the sex acts they write about.
I only wish more of us sought to make this world a better place, sought to solve the global climate mess, sought to cure disease, or to inspire others to solve today’s important problems. If only erotica writers could titillate the imagination of problems solvers as skillfully as they make our fluids gush.
Jeffrey Penn May, author of Cynthia and the Blue Cat’s Last Meow and Roobala Take Me Home, both of which have several “erotic” scenes.
