By Lisabet Sarai

Imagine that you’re the publicist for a company that makes laundry detergent. Your employer has just released a new version of their top-selling product. It’s your job to get the word out, design and schedule advertising, create a buzz and find ways to hook new customers.

However, the most influential advertising venues have placed significant restrictions on the ads they’ll accept. Specifically, you can’t use the words “laundry” or any of its derivatives. “Detergent”, and “clothes washing” are also banned. Furthermore, the guidelines state that visuals may not include pictures of washing machines or articles hanging on a clothesline.

How in the world are you going get anyone to buy your product if you can’t tell them what it is you’re selling?

As it happens, bath soap is not subject to the same rules. Hence, you can opt to call your product “soap”, hoping people will understand it’s really detergent. This approach entails a serious risk, though. People who really don’t want detergent may buy your product, and be seriously annoyed about being misled.

Sound like a silly scenario? These days, authors of erotica face exactly this situation.

Suppose I’ve written a new erotica novel, featuring BDSM and multiple partners. (Hardly a far-fetched supposition, as I’ve written many such books.) I really need to publish it on Amazon because, let’s face it, that’s where the vast majority of readers buy their books. If I want my book to be visible to those masses of potential customers, rather than relegated to the so-called “adult dungeon” where nobody will see it without specifically selecting adult content, there’s a long list of words I have to avoid in the title, blurb, and increasingly, in the keywords. In addition, I need to be extremely careful about the cover imagery. I mustn’t include even a hint of bare breast or bottom. I’m not allowed to show a hand holding a whip. Even a tastefully shadowed, artistic snippet of nude flesh may get my book banished.

Indeed, it has gotten to the point where you cannot be honest about the genre of your book. Categorize your opus as erotica (because that’s what it is) and off to the dungeon you’ll go. If you plead and grovel, maybe—just maybe—they’ll reconsider. The chances are slim, though, especially if you’re an indie author who’s self-publishing your inspired smut.

The rules aren’t nearly as specific as the ones I cited for detergent, though, and they’re not consistently enforced. Some titles may slip by the censors while others will get a red flag. Some covers that scream “sex” nevertheless remain visible to six year olds, while many less blatant images end up hidden behind the X-rated wall. Best selling authors seem to get more lenient treatment than newcomers. The Excessica executive assistant says the people who vet publication submissions on weekends are pickier than those on weekdays.

Maybe they’re in a bad mood because they have to spend Saturday or Sunday working. Is it really fair that they take it out on us poor, struggling authors?

One strategy for adapting to these ridiculous restrictions involves labeling your writing as erotic romance rather than erotica. Sometimes this works. In fact there’s not any sort of hard line between erotic romance and erotica. My own stories often include romantic elements. Much of the time I don’t feel too uncomfortable selecting the accepted instead of the proscribed genre. For some of my books, though, it’s just too much of a stretch. A happy ending is the sine qua non of romance. If I publish a story that lacks the traditional HEA or HFN but claim it is romance, I’m going to have seriously pissed off readers, and one-star reviews. They wanted soap, but they got detergent. In fact, they’re justified in being upset.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been busy editing and formatting the first ERWA anthology, Unearthly Delights. I had to ditch the original subtitle, “Paranormal Erotica”, because Selena advised that might land us in the dungeon. Okay, that’s not a big thing. I actually like our new subtitle better: “Tales of Paranormal Desire”. I’d suggested “Paranormal Lust”, but someone suggested that “lust” might grab the censor’s attention.

Got to be careful, don’t we?

We went over the blurb with a fine-toothed comb, eliminating anything even slightly contentious. I think we still managed to capture the feeling of the book—hopefully without triggering any objections—but it galls me to have to waste time on these considerations.

The ultimate absurdity, though, is the fact that we apparently cannot say that this is an “Erotica Readers & Writers Association Anthology”. Selena thinks this might guarantee a trip to the dungeon. We’re limited to using the acronym “ERWA”, even though many readers won’t know what this stands for. That’s right. We can’t get the full benefit of our brand because it includes the word “erotica”.

I’m both astounded and furious.

How did one company ever get so much power?

What can we do about it?

Should we really accept, with utter meekness, these increasingly absurd constraints?

Contrarian that I am, my reaction is to start writing the filthiest smut I can imagine. Because you and I both know there’s a market for that kind of thing.

I just need to find those readers. Somehow.

During my sex goddess years (somewhere between my introverted bookworm period and my semi-respectable married lady period), I delighted many lovers with my willingness to try new things. I’m not talking about dangerous stuff here, just sex in unusual circumstances. Whipped cream, for instance (the kind that comes in pressurized spray cans). A peep show booth in the seedy part of town. A blow job delivered on the ramparts of a historic Canadian castle. Another under a blanket on a Greyhound bus. Hot wax. Olives eaten out of my pussy. I was open to almost any sexual adventure, and indeed, I had many.

Those days are long gone (though they live on, thinly disguised, in my books). I’m still experimental, however, when it comes to my erotic writing. Indeed, I am constantly tempted by new themes, new sub-genres, and new markets. For example, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing some futanari fiction (even though I’ve never read any), after enjoying Sally Bend’s fantastic reviews of the subgenre. I find the mixture of female and male sexuality to be intensely arousing, so I believe I could make it work. (If I really plan to do this, though, I should probably do at least a little research!)

What else calls to me? Would you believe monster erotica? For some reason, I have this mad urge to write a BigFoot story. I suspect that fad has long since sputtered out, but I’ve never been one to be influenced by trends.

Then there’s adult incest. Talk about ignoring current events! At this very moment, booksellers are scrambling to crack down on this theme (see, for instance, Smashwords’ recent announcement), but hey, I think it could be hot. I’ve definitely read incest erotica that got my motor running. I’ve only written one such tale however (A Breed Apart), which is in any case a bit of a cop-out because the brother and sister are paranormal creatures for whom coupling between siblings is the normal practice. I’m sure I could do better (or worse . . .)

The last experimental itch I actually scratched was an impulse to write a pure stroke book. I’d been reading and enjoying Larry Archer’s lively, warm-hearted smut, and decided to try my hand at a book in the same genre – indeed, set in the same world. I expect to publish that in the next month or so. My erotic romance readers will probably be scandalized – as will the folks who enjoy my “literary” erotica.

But so be it. People probably didn’t approve of my defending my dissertation without a bra either.

I recognize that my tendency to jump all over the genre map does nothing to help my sales. My back list includes romance, suspense, steampunk, science fiction, paranormal, historical, fantasy, gay erotica, lesbian erotica, humor and of course lots of kink – M/f, F/m, F/f, M/m . . . In a world where readers crave predictability, I’m like the weather in New England.

I can’t help it, though, anymore than I could stop myself from agreeing to lick ice cream off my lover’s erection. I mean, I could force myself to choose a genre and build a brand, writing one book after another of the same basic type. But why should I? I’d be miserable. The books probably wouldn’t be much good either, especially the third or the fourth or the tenth.

In the real world, I work as a scientist/engineer. Maybe that’s why I love doing experiments. Or perhaps I’m just easily bored.

So what do you think I should write next?

Whatever it is, I’m willing to consider it.

Reggie Jackson was asked by a reporter of my acquaintance what would have happened if a particular game-winning hit had not gone his way. It was a stupid question, asked by someone who, while he was a very decent human being, just wasn’t too bright.

Reggie’s forbearance was admirable. The hit did go his way; there was nothing else to be said.

But the reporter persisted, “but, Reggie, what if …?”

Reggie’s patience finally evaporated. “If? If don’t mean shit. If the Pilgrims had eaten a cat instead of a turkey, then we’d all have pussy for Thanksgiving!”

Reggie’s point was succinct. What’s the point of pondering what never was?

I generally adhere to Reggie’s point of view, but still, like the rest of us, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if only history had meandered along a different course.

I was brought up in a working-class home, but I should have been a rich kid. I don’t say that in the sense of, Well, gee, I shoulda been a rich kid. I mean, I really should have been a rich kid. My father was a rich kid. Unfortunately, he was also an orphan. His mother was carried off during the 1918 influenza pandemic. His father died just a couple of years later.

His parents were wealthy. My dad’s sisters had ponies for pets.

His father and his brothers were principles in a high-end furniture manufacturing and retail business. They sold their furnishings to very discriminating, wealthy customers. After his father died, my dad became the ward of his very rich uncle, who was president of no less than three interrelated companies centered in New York City and Boston. My dad was sent off to an expensive Catholic boarding school.

But alas, his millionaire guardian was a skinflint – the kind who tossed nickels around like they were manhole covers. He used to tell of writing to his uncle for spending money because the other kids at school enjoyed sweets and going to the movies. His uncle wrote back, stating sweets were bad for his health, and watching movies in the dark was bad for his eyes.

So my dad said he needed a new suit. His uncle had him go to Brooks Brothers in Boston and order up a suit on his account. My dad got the suit, then promptly took it down to the next street corner and sold it, and that’s how he got his spending money.

Then came the Crash of ’29 and the ensuing Great Depression. My dad had inherited stocks that, while at the time had a good piece of their value knocked out of them, nevertheless recovered. The companies that issued them survived the rough times and continue today in one form or another. But his uncle persuaded him to sign them over to him during the downturn, in the belief they would rebound quickly. They didn’t rebound quick enough. His uncle died in his room at the elegant National Republican Club in midtown Manhattan, across from Bryant Park. A will was read, but creditors pounced like locusts. My parents found themselves in the midst of the Depression dead broke, except for a couple of hundred bucks.

Throughout his life, during which he worked hard as a construction laborer, my dad amused himself by tracking his lost stocks, chuckling that we’d all be rich if only he hadn’t listened to his uncle and held on to them.

Ah, what might have been.

I like to think of myself sometimes as a dissolute scion, a playboy. Sports cars and trophy chicks sunning themselves naked on my private yacht. A one-percenter, perhaps blowing scads of dough on visits to exclusive sex clubs, in pursuit of the next shocking level of debauchery. A well-heeled, licentious libertine: Let them eat cake; I’m having my cake and I’m eating her too.

Ah, but then, would money alone make my tastes any more extravagant? This is a guy who gets sweaty and uncomfortable in fancy restaurants. Not that I frequent many of those.

Nah, I’m too pedestrian, too damned catholic (yeah, with a small c). You can only spend so much money in a lifetime. I’ll be satisfied with enough to get me to the finish line.

Still, it’s fun to imagine keeping a stable of pony girls. Nah … forget I even brought that up.