cliterature

The more I think about it the more I see it.  It is often said of women that they fancy the bad boy, but they marry a good man.  But isn’t the same story told just as often about men?  Even Puss in Boots, the “cat” is willing to doing anything for the miller’s son, even thought see is set aside for the princess.  And most recently I have been reading an old adventure/romance called, robustly, The Pirate and the Lady, by Leslie Turner White (Ace, 1961).

The blurb and inside synopsis is very focused on the relationship between the pirate and his “insatiable” lady.  The lady, Genevieve, is a gorgeous 40-year-old who married to avoid the unfortunate fate of a cavalier family on the losing side, and found the respectable husband she never loved to be unpleasant and impotent,  and proceeded to cuckold him–repeatedly.  By the end of chapter two she has been surprised in bed with a sea captain by her outraged husband, shot him dead, protected and cunningly implicated her lover, and made a break for America with him to escape justice.

My kind of woman.

The sad-but-true aspect of the story is that this is not the woman the pirate marries in the final chapter.  That is, as usual, a juvenile daughter of an influential father whom the pirate has greatly impressed–the father being an earl who will get the pirate a knighthood as well as a wife (So sue me, the pirate and the father seem more in love than any other couple in the book).  And Genevieve?  Said father of the groom brushes her off in the closing scene:  ”Faint heart n’er won fair lady … As for your affair with the Lady Genevieve, that can be chalked off to experience.”

Overall it is a rather interesting book, being an adventure romance not clearly aimed at only men or only women. But it does seem that if there is an exciting older, femme fatale in the bed during act one, there with be a wedding to a princess in the epilogue. Just like the gay stories that end with some kind of suicide, or career woman old movies where she proves to the man that she is his equal… then marries him and quits work to raise the kids.  (Eat the cake too?  I don’t think so!)

Just like a woman might date James Dean, but marry Pat Boone –it seems men are meant to fantasize about fooling around with Lilith before they settle down with Eve. And when it comes right down to it, it looks like double standards right across the board. Of course, I am still reading this book (you caught me, I skipped over and read the last chapter ahead of time) and haven’t yet discovered the ultimate fate of fiesty Genevieve–keep your fingers crossed for her.  Maybe she settles down with a hot Jamaican and lives lustily ever after (however I suspect not).

Come, Erato. Lovely muse,
stand by me,
as I craft this tale.

For music
is not a sound of the mouth–
nor poetry a scratch of the pen.

Any voice of the heart,
is sheltered by the harp*.

Clear-voiced Erato
lend me your lucidity
so that my words may be
wreaths of roses**,

moist with dew.
Erato, in that I sing of love,
I stand by you.

By  tradition there are nine muses; goddesses of the art (well, originally there were just three: practice, memory and voice–but we are going with the later version). At the time the preeminant arts were music, song/poetry and dance. And Erato is the muse of erotic poetry, and I am sure erotic fiction would now fall within her domain.

Blogging also, I would suggest–so long as it is in her subject area.  Because in ancient times oral poetry was often focussed on the news and gossip of the day.  So as I writter or erotic romance and a blog concerning sexuality I wrote the entreaty above, for myself and anyone else who might want to call on the Muse for a little assistance. 

It was traditional to call upon a muse before beginning a performance and ask for her presence. Because the basic meaning of muse/mousai is mental ability and power–and this is what the muses embody. 

So those of you who create or consume romance and/or erotica, let the Erato remind you: the erotic genres have a tradition that is as long as it is ‘broad’–as old as humanity and extending with equal vigor from the ‘finest’ of art to the most engaging of pure entertainments. 

Next time you see eroticism and romance conflated with gratuity, banality and, think of Erato, a goddess of love and lust.  If you stand by her, she’ll stand by you.

* The harp is Erato’s emblem–she is also associated with the parrot and the crow.

** “[Erato] with both hands plaits wreathes of roses”– Propertius, Elegies 3.3

 (p.s. remember to be nice to grasshoppers.  Because fable, as described by Plato, says that when they die they carry news of lovers to Erato–and let her know that by loving you honor her.  And if a friendly muse helps with writing, I am sure a grasshopper-squishing writer is in for some trouble ;) )

The most recent survey that I can find* states that only 12% of romance novels with a contemporary setting included the use of condoms (in 2000)–and in several novels the heroine is shown as rejecting condom use when the hero mentions it. In the same study undergraduates who read romance novels had less favorable attitudes to condoms and were less likely to use them. I have two somewhat conflicting thoughts that relate to whether contemporary romance novels should depict safe sex.Firstly, I feel fiction should not be socially engineered. Authors should be free to write (publishers to manufacture and retailer to sell) any material they they wish. The contents of a novel may influence, but never cause a reader’s behavior. The reader remains responsible for what they read, and for everything they subsequently do. In fact, research is very ambiguous about how fiction may affect behavior. Most studies taken to show that media (such as television) influence behavior (such as violence) probably relate more to the suggestion of a permissive environment–rather than an effect on temperament or long term behavioral tendencies.

One of my interests, hobbies, source of income is writing erotic romance ebooks (hence the title: money for lovin’) I do this in addition to a full time job and my current goal is to bring in about $500 a month–which I am currently doing although the income is admittedly rather variable.

By a process of extrapolation I suspect that if I wrote full time I could probably earn a living, but frankly I prefer a regular salary with benefits. Also, unlike many people, I actually like my job.  But I also really enjoy writing my spicy romances on the basis of what you could probably call a ‘hobby with benefits’.  I can only hope my readers are enjoying them too.  :)

But, just in case anyone is interested, I thought I would post my recent earnings from this and a few other online sources of income. As you can see the ebooks are by far my best source of online income right now. Stock photography brings in a few dollars but it is not something I am actively pursuing right now. Advertising isn’t generating very much income either. This blog is shown as the brown line and has already overtaken photos and advertising even though it is only part way through its second month of existence.

 If anyone has an tips on how to make more money from advertsing and blogging, please do let me know!  But based on this it sure looks like my best bet would be to log off and get back to writing my next book….

Much is sometimes made of how the recent upsurge in erotic romance is some new and outrageous development. The sex, the salacious covers, the gay and group sex! As a person who has been reading erotic books all my life I find this perspective a little naive. There has always been erotic fiction with lurid covers and options including gay, group, furry and so much more (erotic romance ebooks have a ways to go before I’ll consider them really decadent). Reaching to my bookshelf I pulled down a few examples.

First up we have The Velvet Trap (1971) with a cover showing two women and the tag line: “She spent one night with another woman–and never wanted a man again!” and the first line is: “Jan Flowers, from early childhood on, had always known the difference between a penis and a pencil.” That’s right, the word ‘penis’ in the very first sentence.

Next on the shelf is When Men Meet (1963). The blurb on the back ends: “In the arms of this voluptuary Cassius found himself helpless … a slave to unlooked for passions.” So that covers FF and MM within the first two books.  Beside that sits The Sign of Eros (1953): “Two Women … one man … a single love”. FFM, check.

Then there is In Bed We Cry (1943): “This gay and clever novel by the glamorous Ilka lays bare the secret intrigues and love affairs that take place in the smart atmosphere of New York’s ‘beauty and fashion’ world … the intense struggle for money and glamour, the casual love affairs, the pleasure-hungry of cocktail parties and night clubs.” Erotic chick lit, check.

Finally–because this is just an illustrative sample, I could go on–there is The Waters of Centaurus (1970) : “The Sea King was handsome, perhaps the most overwhelming male personality that Police Sergeant Sibyl Sue Blue had ever met … but he wasn’t human.”  Furry, or in this case scaly, check.

So before suggesting that the new incarnation of erotic romance, ebooks, the internet or any modern phenomenon is somehow creating a new wave smut hitherto unknown to womankind–look back. Exactly the same themes of alpha men, shape shifters, threesomes, orgies, furries, spanking, bondage, seduction and morethan seduction, slavery, fetish, role playing etc etc etc is there when you look back to the mass produced genre fiction of the day. Pulp novels, penny dreadfuls, medieval poetry, neolithic stone carvings… (no idle claim, I will show all of these, or at least pictures of them, in later posts).

And interestingly in all the cases where the gender of the author or artist can be determined, women have been represented in this activity. Women have not suddenly leaped into creating and consuming erotica, we are part of a long, rich and diverse tradition of treating sex like (shock, horror) it is alluring, amusing and just plain fun.  Like it is something to package for consumption and make money of, unapologetically or–if we must–anonymously.

Women, books and sexuality–not just for the new millennium.