Butterfly Kisses or Ball-Gag Erotica?
Long and slow or passionate and decisive? Feathers or leather and chains? Our tastes in sex vary. How does your reading experiences compare?
Are you a reader of steamy fiction? What's your limit to what happens inside the pages of hot novels? How far can the character’s sex go before you close the book and say, nup, I’m not reading that?
Tits.
It's that too much? For some, tits is a highly offensive word. I know, I've seen it happen when people hate the words (see the second-hand book I came across) they read in books. People will leave the room if the text turns sexual, even in the smallest of ways. Some will gouge the words from the page.
Cum-sucking-gutter-slut.
What about those ones? Are we pushing the friendship now?
Of course, we are, context matters. If words like that appear out of nowhere, it just looks odd. It takes a bit of warming up to get from nothing to there. Gratuitous filth inside novels isn't crafty writing. It has to make sense, right? If there's no proper context for them, gratuitous sex words are a turn-off. Make a reader wade through pages of profanity and perversion, then most will miss experiencing their power when they’re really needed.
‘Creamy white thighs’ or ‘That's how you do it with a strap-on baby!’?
‘Floaty-curtain-scenes’ or ‘Gang bang on a baby's grave’?
The world of sex is diverse. Tastes vary. Limits vary. What’s a decisive line for one, is an intriguing opportunity for another.
My style of writing is a bit creamy white thighs at the start but moves beyond it as the story progresses. These softer symbols weren’t placed there for softer readers to enjoy but for my character’s relationship to develop. They’re a naive and inexperienced newly married couple. A well-intended romance deviates from the orderly path of vanilla sex but goes to another place later. But before you think that this story is one focussed on sexual discovery, think again. This book is a psychological thriller, not an erotica novel. Sex binds the elements of its narrative but steam doesn’t fill its guts. Put away the lube. It’s a weird sex story but in a good way. Go take a look. The first book is free. (Limited time)
How about you? Do you shy away from smut? Do you scratch out the words boobs, pussy and cock from the books you read so you can’t see the words anymore? What’s your limit in erotica? Drop me a line.
-Michael Forman (Author of Adult Fiction, see below)