Demagoguery and Erotica

According to a few angry Amazon.com authors, Amazon is "purging" self-published erotica e-books. That's not quite true. Erotica titles are not being purged. Amazon is deleting incest stories--most of them involving an underage character.

To my mind, incest and pedophilia are inseparable. Both pathologies involve exploitation of the weaker. There is no consent. Unfortunately, discussion and refinement of these concepts on the Amazon forums is pretty well futile. Anything less than blanket sympathy arouses indignation by the "victimized" writers. One of the banned authors tells the forum that incest fiction must be published by amazon because mainstream erotica publishers won't touch it. Entitlement, much? Disagreement is met with contempt. One of these authors writes: “Why are you posting on an erotica forum if you don’t like erotica?”

The subtext of this self-serving statement is this: if you don’t embrace pedo-incest erotica, you don’t embrace any erotica. This antilogic pisses me off. Some random author doesn't get to tell me what erotica is, or isn't. He doesn't get to decide what society will or will not accept, either. Related sentiments are trotted out on the kink boards. "You have to accept all perversion--even pedophilia--because you people are perverted." Nope. The kink boards, like collarme, have very strict rules about pedo pics or pedo fiction. Such material is quickly reported and removed.

Morality and erotica are not mutually exclusive. Decency in BDSM is not an oxymoron. Even if you live on the edge, you can still have standards.

Near as I can figure, amazon does.

Critique Groups

I was recently interviewed by The Black Raven's Erotic Cafe. Janis' questions really got me thinking about some writerly things, especially critique groups.

Based on the circulation of writer's magazines, like Writer's Digest, there are hundreds of thousands of fiction writers in the United States. A majority of these writers are probably going to a critique group.

I used to be one of those writers. I've been a member of several different critique groups during my writing life. I couldn't have survived without them. Writing is such a solitary pursuit, and critique meetings are like a "welcome home" party after getting out of prison. These get-togethers allow writers a place for gossip and support. I wouldn't be surprised if NaNoWriMo (a national project to write a novel in a month) is a sensation mainly because of the social experience. When critique groups click because there's a grounding in mutual respect, it's tremendously satisfying.

Critique groups are, of course, supposed to provide writing advice, too. Not everyone can stomach that part, though. One of my author friends couldn't. Mild suggestions about her pages were an assault on her soul. After one too many panic attacks, she stopped coming to critique. She said her work was too literary for us. Instead of using our free (and low-brow) advice, she paid a vanity publisher $600 to edit her work. Then she paid the same publisher to have this manuscript published (by purchasing advance copies). I bought and read her book. I'm in the acknowledgments. I'm flattered. And also mystified, since she ignored all of my suggestions.

There are specialty critique groups, some which even claim to be literary. I recently saw this invitation tacked to the bulletin board at the local coffee house:

New Literary Critique Group Forming. We are looking for open-minded writers. Must be willing to read works with GLBT themes. Genre fiction NOT considered.

Not open-minded enough to critique genre, I guess.

Some critique groups are run like exclusive secret societies. The long-lived Slow Sand Writer's Society in Colorado is one of those. The group is highly formal, with a rigorous audition-based application process, limited enrollment and its own website. Other groups are more inclusive, perhaps part of a non-profit writer's organization. I belonged to a critique group run by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for years. I was also a member of another group, run like an underground cell. I would meet with these secret agent-like creative folks publicly at Barnes and Noble, but I had to know somebody (who knew somebody) to get an invite.

There are lots of online critique groups. They would appeal to writers with inflexible schedules or those living in the middle of nowhere. But I'm afraid to join an online group. Humans are more apt to be flippant and cruel when they think they're anonymous.

Critiquing romance brings up a whole new set of problems. Sex scenes, even when they aren't graphic, are intimate. A romance writer can press a beta-reader's hot buttons (and not always in a good way). I knew I had to leave my secret-agent group when one of the women rewrote my rather tame sex scene using what she considered a more proper feminist perspective. My sex really upset her. In the long run, striking out alone has been a good thing. Writing without a hall monitor allowed me to explore the more intense themes of BDSM erotica.