I was being hassled by some people on the EROS (Erotic Writer's) Workshop about the kind of stories that I want to write. I did a web search for the definition of erotica and I found the webpage of a professor that writes articles on the philosophy of sex. I thought he had a sense of humor so I sent him the following real email. I changed his name before posting this.
Dear Dr. Booble.
I really enjoyed your webpage at http://www.booble.edu. I was doing a websearch for articles about +eros and +"definition of pornography" and your webpage kept coming up over and over again.
You are really cool. I want to come to New Orleans and rock your nads.
Why was I searching on this subject? Well I'm on the Erotic Writer'sWorkshop on-line mailing list (EROS). I made a post asking that they make a new category just for goth horror erotica because the rules say that otherwise I have to label my erotica as SNUFF, which I don't want to do. I don't think they are the same thing. Anyway, without anybody ever having read anything I have ever written, I got BS from somebody who thinks that goth horror erotica isn't erotic. In fact, this is what he told me:
Niether are erotic.I responded with a private message asking him the following:
Both are simply psychotic.
Take your sick art,
To someone who gives a fart.
You can find them in,
A mental institution or a state pen.
Can you please explain what is erotic? How do we know when something is erotic? I mean, it's easy for you to tell me that a whole area of writing is not erotic but I will not completely understand you nor be able to agree in complete confidence unless you provide some criterion by which an objective person might divine this.He replied:Also, it's spelled neither.
Check your dictionary for the psychiatry definition of "Eros: a. the libido, b. instincts for self-preservation." (The Random House College Dictionary, 1988.)So, I was looking for some material to use to reply to him. Can you please tell me how to tell when something is erotic?Snuff and Goth are not about self-preservation, they are the exact opposite. They are sick, criminally insane, not erotic. They do not belong in an erotica writers workshop! Erotica is about life. Eros was the god of life, the god of love, not the god of death.
People who think death is erotic, need a shrink, I think!
Dear Dr. Booble, please, I leave it up to you to tell me if I'm criminally insane. After reading your webpage I have come to be seriously attracted to you in ways that may be less than wholesome.
Here is my fantasy about what will happen when we meet:
First, I will move to New Orleans and enroll in Booble University. I will do this 1) to be closer to the man that rules my world and all my passions and 2) I want to be closer to Anne Rice, living Goddess and heroine and 3) I want to eat lots of cheap jumbo shrimp.
You will see me in your class and be awestruck by my sensuality and the perverse but mysterious smile on my face, the one prompted by the mere sight of your masculine beauty as you stride back and forth before your students like a caged, hungry tiger. I will slip the cap of my pen in and out of my mouth and cross my legs, repeatedly, excited by your presence.
And when I get my first midterm paper back, I will be there, in your office during office hours, alone, begging you to reexamine my grade.
"It's so close to an A, Dr. Booble!" I will plead with you. "I'm 4.0 GPA right now. This could hurt my chances for grad school!"
Carefully, we go over the paper together and I explain why I think I should get a better grade. You steeple your chin and nod, and I gulp, worried that I am pressing my luck.
"You realize, of course, ennui, that changing a grade after the fact is not just a simple matter..."
"Oh, puhleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze, Dr. Booble? It means so much to me!" I say as I cast myself across your desk at you. My eyes well up with tears! I see a sly and not completely gentle smirk form on your lips. You reach out and stroke my hair and the back of my neck. I cast my eyes down."
"My place, 8pm. Bring your paper. And be ready to negotiate."
You leave me asprawl as you walk to your next class, a swagger in your step. The message you have sent me is clear and unmistakeable.
8:00 PM. I'm there, on time, in my black vinly marilyn dress, when you open your door. My body is moist and sticky from both the dress and from the humid New Orleans weather. The smell of magnolia blossoms intoxicates me, as does the mere sight of you.
Can he read my mind? I wonder to myself. Can he sense how he stirs my appetites? Am I in his mind nothing but another slut puppy student, a whore for a better grade, one more notch on his academic bedpost. You lead me into your house, and I wonder how many other women have been here before me, their smooth white flesh the sacrifice at the altar of your high academic standards.
"So, how much do you want this better grade?" you ask me as you mix me a long island iced tea. To answer you, I pull the dress over my head, revealing myself to you in my black thigh-highs and my leather thong bikini. The chill of the air conditioner makes my exposed nipples harden before your eyes. You stand and stare at them, nod, and smile that same wicked smile. You know I am yours to do with as you please, and I know what will please you.
"I want a better grade this much," I tell you, as I glide into your arms, making you spill part of your drink. My lips slide up to yours, kissing, sucking, as my fingers seek out all of your little buttons and zippers and secrets.
You pull away from my kiss briefly to whisper, "I think... I think your grade is definitely going to go up."
"Yes... I hope so Doctor... Ummm... I think something else is going up, too!" I whisper as my teeth nibble at your chin and my fingers fondle your penis, engorging in my hand, hard, red and throbbing with the same desire that I, too, feel in my naughty bits.
You fall back onto the couch, and I kneel and remove your pants the rest of the way, slurping you deep into my mouth, humming, my face nodding up and down in your lap as you let out small whimpers. My fingers touch and stroke you like the feathers of a divinity. My lips envelope you in a way you have never experienced before. My tongue glides and slaps and tickles and teases you on every bumpy little ridge and smooth slippery slide.
"ennui!!" you gasp to me as I lick you in places that decent people don't have names for.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"I'm... I'm... going to cum soon. Very, very soon..."
"Oh Doctor, please! Please come in my hot wet mouth! I need your hot white love lotion. Fill me. Feed me. I want to consume you. I want to feast on your love. On every little bit of you."
"ARRRRRRRrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!" you scream as I bob and suck, swallowing every drop as your sperm leaps forth from your fountain of love, burning my throat with it's heat. It tastes just like... jumbo shrimp!
"I know what you had for lunch," I giggle as I scoop up one last drop with my long black painted fingernail. I lick it off my finger and suck it.
You sit before me, wasted but not softening, a puddle of mush, and I love it. I curl up in your arms and kiss you, the taste of you on my mouth and fingers and skin.
We talk for a while about your philosophy of sex. You mention how erotica should encompass more than just "lovey-dovey vanilla sex," as you mention in one of your articles on your webpage (I'm quoting out of context, yeah yeah yeah beat me whip me chain me just use me!)
I ask you, "Do you really mean that?" with a glint in my eye. You detect something in my question and I can feel your interest perking up against my bare thighs.
"Why do you ask me that way, ennui?" You grin mischeivously. "But I should get up. You must be starving about now."
"Indeed I am!" I say, as I extend my pseudopods, lashing you to the sofa beneath me. My eyes glitter with delight. "Feed me, Doctor. Feeeeeeeeed meeeeeeeeeee..."
My mouth opens and slowly lowers onto your lips for another open mouthed kiss, but there is something about this kiss that seems to disturb you more than the others did. Licking, sucking, biting, my lips and tongue envelop yours. My thighs writhe on top of you. You are suddenly afraid, and I can feel you try to scream through my kiss,but I swallow your scream, eating it, devouring it. Nourished, I moan my pleasure.
You pull back, gasping for air. I open my eyes slowly, ecstatic. You stare in jagged horror at the point where my pseudopods join and penetrate the flesh of your limbs, the mixed bodily fluids coursing through our now joined veins.
"We will always be together..." I whisper to you, as I rise up and penetrate the soft flesh of your abdomen with my spiny oviduct. You cry out in horror again. I lick the sweat from your forehead as I plunge deep.
"Yes, scream, Doctor! Scream. I'm so hunnnnnnnnnnnnngry......"
My lips press against yours and devour the life from you as I deposit my thousands of tiny white eggs inside of you.
Your mindless gibbering sounds excite me even more, but I feel close to you at this moment, and I snuggle my head under your neck.
A couple of months later, I come by to check on you. I tell you of my continuing and undying love for you, and that I will always remember you, and that our children, our thousands and thousands of children will remember you. And I know that they would tell you the same as I see their sluggish movements under your skin which is now crinkly and translucent, like very old cellophane. Your eyes roll back and forth in your head, and I know you are still alive, as I hoped, because, yes, I still love you Doctor, as I always will. And you try to move your lips to say something to me, but I can't make it out. I know it must be I love you, too. I know that is what you are whispering. I'm so hungry to hear those words from your sweet lips.
Anyway, that is my fantasy, Doctor Booble. I'm so wet right now! I have to go masturbate or else I'll explode.
Could you please respond to my email? Do you think that I am criminally insane? Should I try to write erotica that's more vanilla do you think?
Should I transfer my units to Booble U and study this with you?
My webpage addy is www.hummahumma.html
BTW, I'm going to post this on the EROS workshop. ;)
Always completely yours and only yours, Your eternal love slave and slut puppy,
ennui
Note to the EROS workshop:
There's not much point in critiquing this. I wrote it in the Netscape mail editor on the spur of the moment without any spell or grammar checking.ennui
He actually answered the email!! Here's Dr. Booble's Response:Dear Andrea/Annabelle/ennui--
Really have no idea with whom I am corresponding. You sign letter ennui (the bored one); email address is "Andrea" (the dull one); web site is Annabelle's (the cow). You should clear up these confusions; they suggest a bit of imbalance. :)
As to the question: what is the erotic? A tough question, as you know. But an entertaining walk through the philosophical terrain is provided by (name of a book here). Take a look.
As to the dummy who wanted to separate eros and death: s/he clearly knows nothing about Freud (who wondered and wrote about the myriad connections, interpenetrations, betwen eros and thanatos), nor about even Woody Allen, for that matter.
I react in two ways to your fantasy story, which had two parts. The first part (as even you can see) was mundane, adolescent, not evocative of anything interestingly or profoundly erotic; but the second part--which surely did link together, in insect-style, eros and thanatos--was very good. Even brilliant, in a way.
Good luck in your research and writing.
Dr. Booble
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