Fantasy, Erotica, and Creative Guilt

Today I have a guest blogger.  The fabulous Molly Synthia!  Take it away, Molly...

Okay…it’s time for a Molly confession.  My ever-lovin’ man and I have watched more than our share of porn in the years we’ve been together.  My absolute favorite is Behind the Green Door, the 1972 film that made Marilyn Chambers a household name (even if the name wasn’t exactly Sunday Brunch conversation fare.)  Let me tell you something, if you haven’t watched the film while your lover rubs your shoulders and kisses your neck and then gradually starts rubbing and kissing other areas…well, you’re really missing out.

When my man and I first watched this film, we had a pretty remarkable seventy-two minutes of foreplay and then a wonderful finish as the television screen showed the credits and then faded to black.  Oh boy, let me tell you it was amazing.  We’ve had similar situations since, and I can tell you that we’ve figured out a hundred positions that allow me to keep my eyes firmly on the screen, and more often than not we can time our climactic finish right as Marilyn is looking up with her soft doe eyes at the beautiful hunk of a man finishing in artistic slow motion shots.

I’m telling you that I have had some of the most incredible orgasms watching that film and imagining myself as the beautiful Ivory Soap girl exploding onto the porn scene.  It’s just remarkable.  The very thought makes me ready to grab my man, grab the dvd player, and spread blankets on the floor!

So what does this tell you about Molly?  Clearly, it means I want to be kidnapped.  I want ten or twelve strangers touching me while allowing me no say in the matter.  I want to be forced to have sex with a stranger with an enormous penis.  Further, I want it to happen in front of an audience masturbating and having sex with each other.  I want to be used without my consent for everyone else’s enjoyment.  That’s what it means, right?

Of course it doesn’t mean that.  Fantasy is wonderful because it’s just that, fantasy.  I love when my husband talks dirty to me.  I even enjoy occasionally watching porn movies with him that push the limits of what I would actually do.  If most of those situations arose, though, I’d be racing for the door in a panic!  I enjoy writing about gangbangs, reading about very rough sex, and even writing that pushes the boundaries of non-consent.  There’s no way in hell I’d really want any of that!  It’s fantasy.  Let me say it again.  Fantasy. 

We love fantasy in other genres, so why do we seem to have such a hard time accepting it in erotica? Why do erotica authors seem to carry with them a giant collective feeling of creative guilt for writing sex fantasies that likely would never happen?  Fiction is fantasy. Fantasy is fantasy. Non-fiction is reality.  Reality is reality.   Fantasy does not have to be reality.  

Don’t ever confuse the two.  I read erotica reviews on Amazon with people saying, “That would never happen!” and I wonder if these readers think hobbits could really carry a magical ring to an orc-infested city run by a demon.  I see a review on an erotica book that says, “No woman would want this to happen to them!” and I wonder if the reviewer really believes there are scores of misunderstood billionaires just waiting for a poor peasant with a heart of gold to show him via whips and collars what real love is all the while respecting her every wish.  I see a review that says, “The sex is unrealistic!” and I wonder if the reviewer thinks that rookie FBI agents really do regularly interact with serial killers.  Come on people!

Seriously, it’s fucking fantasy!  (Yes, that was a pun.) Hells Bells, do you really want to read erotica that isn’t fantastic in nature? 

It all starts with erotica writers, not readers, really.  We desperately need to stop taking ourselves so seriously.  We need to stop fighting for approval as “real” writers.  Some of the best literary greats in all of history went through this idiocy.  Shakespeare was called vulgar.  Robert Louis Stevenson was called base, fanciful, and unworthy of reading.  Kurt Vonnegut had his work labeled drivel.  Why was that?  Easy.  They each pioneered a genre that was yet to be accepted.  Let’s not allow popular misconceptions about fantasy and reality to color what we do. And…if you happen to be an erotica reader, don’t you dare think one size fits all!  Explore different kinds of erotica, from the very romantic to the very explicit.

Above all, don’t dare forget the difference between reality and fantasy!  Lose yourself in an erotic story not because it could happen, not because you want it to happen, but because the thought of it happening does something to you.  Write it because you have a story to tell, not because you want to have accolades or affirmation as an author. (While I’m at it, don’t write anything for the accolades, write because if you didn’t write you’d burst.  If that’s not you, consider another profession.) Above all, write so someone gets lost in the story, not so someone reflects on the author.  So let’s relax a bit and enjoy writing and reading the story. That’s what it’s all about, right?

Want a taste of her latest release, Coffee Shop Girl?  Your wish is my command.  You can buy Coffee Shop Girl HERE.

Excerpt:

Coffee Shop Girl by Molly Synthia

In fact, on a soft Tuesday morning, the day after our arrival in San Angelo, I sat in another coffee shop location waiting for the barista to call out “Rose” to announce that my drink was ready and contemplated potential excuses for a return to Flagstaff. We’d bypassed the Grand Canyon because of holiday events that were expected to fill the park to bursting and neither Clarence nor I trusted ourselves to keep hold of our eight year old in the midst of a crowd. Still, we’d both been relieved to avoid bringing five children anywhere near that ledge and such an excuse wouldn’t work. 

Clarence was in the RV typing his latest masterpiece, and the kids still slept, so I sat alone in the shop with warmth between my legs that still remained in memory of Clarence’s fingers within me and the lingering taste of his culmination on my tongue. I closed my eyes as I recalled the swelling before he finished and the expected shock as he spurted into my mouth while I was lost in my own orgasm imagining it was she whose cheeks bulged when he cried out at the end.

My eyes were closed when I heard her voice, and I silently mouthed her order, grande drip with a shot of hazelnut and half and half. My eyes flew open when I realized the voice wasn’t just a particularly vivid phantom from my memory, and just as I heard my name on the lips of the young man holding my drink, I saw her standing at the counter. Her hair was just as gold and set off more by the navy tee shirt she wore tucked into tight, bleached jeans that accentuated her legs and her ass even more than the shorts she’d worn in Flagstaff. 

I stared unabashedly until the barista called me again and I jumped up, nearly stumbling on my way to the counter. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and when she carried her coffee toward the door, she stopped and stared back. I felt my face flush with embarrassment and a sudden heart-pounding fear, but she walked up to me and said, “Do I know you?”