Are You Exploiting Yourself with Sex Writing?

Jayme Whitfield says:

I’m not exploiting myself and frankly find the idea laughable. No man made me choose to start working on a career as an erotica author; society didn’t browbeat me into it either. I made the choice because I wanted to share something I enjoyed and as an added bonus, might actually be able to earn a little money at it. How many people long for that opportunity?

For those who are looking for a ‘deep’ discussion on the topic, I can only say that in my opinion, this entire debate isn’t really about sex writing, but about control. Yes, erotica often portrays women as sex objects, but sometimes we ARE sex objects. So are men, or there wouldn’t be so many cabana boy jokes around. As writers, we have the unique ability to control the images and fantasy we induce, thus taking the control firmly in hand. As I read that essay, I couldn’t help wondering if the problem the writer had was actually the context of the writing rather than the content. As an example, consider when Jennifer Armstrong wrote, “she often fails to put these adventures in screwing-just-for-the-fun-of-it into any meaningful cultural context.”

Why do they have to have a cultural context to be ‘okay’? Isn’t that decree just an attempt at controlling how women- and men- express themselves? So is the issue, at its heart, really about us being independent and equal or is it actually about that very same control that populates the stories? (I won’t even get into the idea that the essay itself is exploiting the topic, pandering to the very same thing it questions)

Part of being human is being stimulated by the images of sexuality we come across; those images can run the gamut between crude and refined and they’ll all find an appreciative audience- its how sexuality works. Its obvious why sex writing is an increasing industry; its something that can appeal to everyone on the face of the planet at some point in their lives, regardless of all the typical things that alienate readers from a genre. Why should we be ashamed to engage our creative skills in that market?

For me, it really is very simple. I enjoy what I write- I find it erotic and entertaining, or I wouldn’t write it- and hope that other women also find enjoyment from the words I put on paper. I can’t help but wonder, now, why there has to be a deeper meaning to it than that?

Breukelen_girl says:

I’m with the Hell no catergory. We write about sex because it excites US as much as it excites readers. Besides, not all its written for male pleasure or reading right? I don’t think you can be exploited if you are in control of what you do and know with a clear objective in mind, what you are doing.