Each and every month, I’m highly aware of following Lisabet Sarai’s posts – they never fail to be awesome. This month, though, Lisabet has directly inspired my post – thank you, Lisabet!
Lisabet’s post covered writing commando, or being free and writing whatever you want. Read the article, she explains it much better than me 🙂
There was a particular sentence, though, that gave me the idea for this post, and I’m sure Lisabet won’t mind me borrowing it:
The inclusion of F/F and M/M in a book that is mostly M/F will evoke criticism from many romance readers, who seem to want a sort of genre purity.
Firstly, I agree with her comment and have found it to be true. But it led me to a slightly different way of thinking about the “genre purity” Lisabet mentions. There are many, many types of erotica and erotic romance, so many I can’t list them all as we’d be here for weeks. Some of it reflects real life, some of it is much more seated in fantasy. But, the thing to remember is, for the most part, it’s just fiction.
So why do readers dislike cheating in erotica and erotic romance? It happens in real life, it happens in television programmes, films, and it happens in other genres of book. But only in erotica and erotic romance does it get such a battering – readers really seem to dislike it, even though it’s made up and the characters aren’t real people – nobody’s actually getting hurt. I’m not bashing anyone. Far from it, I’m asking a genuine question – how come, for the most part, erotica and erotic romance readers are incredibly open-minded and they’ll read about anything from threesome and orgies, to BDSM, to anal sex, even water sports, blood play, and pseudo-incest but cheating is off-limits?
Please educate this poor confused writer 🙂
*****
Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several
editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic
Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and
co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house.
She owns Erotica For All, and is book
editor for Cliterati. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join
her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9