Advice on writing erotica

[NCJustWondering]

NC, obviously. I fancy having a go at writing erotica on kindle but want some advice from readers. I've downloaded a lot as research (ahem) - mainly short stories, mainly free - and have noticed that most of them included acts which (IMO) were mainly for male pleasure.

If you enjoy reading erotica, do you get turned on by reading something that is for the pleasure of the man involved or do you prefer to read only stories about the woman being on the receiving end (so to speak!)?

Just a quick and obvious example - are you happy to read about men receiving oral sex or would you prefer to read about women receiving it?

Also, if you are reading that kind of story, do you think it should always end in penetrative sex? Would you feel short-changed if it didn't, but if the woman was satisfied?

I am writing for a female market and am personally a bit sick of reading about women getting turned on primarily by doing things to men.

Thanks.

I've written sex with Aliens before.

I think OP has backed out nervously from the thread.

(And for some reason this thread has reminded me of a (fictional) account of writing bad sex - something involving a comparison to a fire hose).

The only alien I can think of is ET...

It was not ET!!!

Hmm- Was it a well known alien?

ET is the only well known alien surely...

"ET.... go down!!!"

sorry, that should have been "home" shouldn't it?!

I think it's important to have an element of build up and teasing, personally... Make the reader want it as much as the characters do... Agreed that there needs to be more erotica written from a female's perspective, although I personally enjoy erotica where the man is turned on by the things the women is doing / wearing / saying... I enjoy the build up and it makes me feel empowered.

I like erotica, but don't like it when it's a) totally implausible, b) overly crass or nasty, or c) too short, eg, meet, fuck, nothing else.

He did have that big throbbing finger...

It depends on if you played the game the Aliens are in.

Aliens love underpants?

Firehose, erotica and a creative writing class. All in a few paragraphs

Mass Effect.

I can't make my mind up about that book you linked to! It could be funny... It could be just bad.

I bought a book the other day claiming to be better than 50 shades (a lot of them claim that) it's phenomenally, monumentally cack. The characters "scream" through every sex scene, and during their first sexual encounter, which was quite obviously consensual, she's moaning, scratching his back, begging for it etc - He finishes and then screams fuuuck! and runs out. Doesn't speak to her for a week and then confesses he thought he'd raped her? And then she basically says "no babe, I totally wanted it" and apparently everything's fine, and then more shagging.

I stopped reading at that point, what a pile of badly written offensive shite.

Op have you gone? There are plenty of story sites out there, you can read through and see what works and what definitely doesn't.

James, which one was that.

My friend was bought, Knights Mistress. She said it was a pile of shit.

It was called Breach I paid actual money for it, too! I wouldn't mind it being so shit if it had been free, as many shit kindle books are.

Just looked up that Knights Mistress on Amazon. Just another 50 shades ripoff, almost the same plot, same type of cover. The "Bound To You" series is crap, too.

I'd rather read Mills n Boon than another of those. They try to be sexier than 50 shades, but in general it's just cruder, not sexier.

Thats why I write Fanfiction right now. I wanna improve before I dare start any of my own work.

I imagine it would be hard to come up with anything original in this genre, it's pretty limited in a way, and been done a million times.

Rule 34 of the Internet. If you can think of it, there is porn of it.

Hilarious thread!
Loving the Dino-porn

I think "sex" and "down there" are ok, at least they're subtle, not too gynaecological (definitely no vaginas or vulvas please) or offensive.

Then it's not really erotica is it. That's more of a romance with a bit of subtle sex.
If I was choosing a book and used the erotic filter on Amazon, I would expect the books in that category to be pretty graphic. I am never going to be turned on by reading the words "down there"

NB op do let us know if you'd like us to move this to the creative writing topic?

Thanks, Olivia. Yes, I'd like it to be moved to Creative Writing.

Thanks to some of you! Pretty brutal treatment from some and lots of reporting, which seems odd as it was quite a straightforward question.

It'll be better on the Creative Writing topic where people will understand better what I'm asking about. It's difficult to write in a different genre and I'd thought that there would be many readers of erotica on MN who could give a bit of advice.

I write some erotic fiction, mostly shorts, but I've just submitted my first erotic novel for consideration to Harlequin, and I am constantly finding out that it's all very much a learning process. I look back on some of the stuff I've written that at the time I thought was okay and I cringe now.

I would say, as another poster has already said, write what turns you on and write it as best you can. As a writer I have to agree that sounds like the best advice ever, not that I have always followed that credo, though I shall try to in the future.

Now as a reader I can say that personally I honestly don't mind reading about guy's getting the pleasure, it's a big turn on for me in real life to see a guy getting pleasure from what I am doing so I guess it figures I find it a turn on in books too. That's not to say I don't want to see things from a female perspective though, because I definitely don't like to read erotica that's narrated or told through the eyes of a male lead, it's just, if the female protagonist is turning her man on by say, giving him oral then that's pretty darn hot to me. I'd say the best erotica would have to be a well crafted mix of both though, where both parties wind up satisfied in some way.

If you do want to target a particular niche within the erotica genre, the one thing I would say is read a lot of the books that your target reader would, that way you'll write much better because you'll know what she'll like. Good luck and errr have some more boob biscuits

Going on from what I have read such as Fifty Shades and whatever (yes I have taken advantage of free erotica on my Kindle) I'd like to say to try and write it for the female's pleasure, or perhaps equally (!). Also, some of the language in those books are either too cheesy or too descriptive. I think women have more imagination than men (who are more visual) and you could leave stuff out so that the reader could fantasise beyond the words...Make the prose fun, cheeky and rude! The better erotic stories I have read have a solid plot around the sexy bits. Empower your protagonist!