Please forgive me if this is not a welcome discussion, but I thought this board and its residents may have some interesting opinions I would like to hear.
This musing has been prompted by something I head from my friend Zac (aka TimelordZac), who writes ENF and public nudity comics that he commissions people to draw and shares on DeviantArt and Twitter). He wrote “Do I write porn or do I write silly stories about naked people?”
It’s something I have been thinking about a lot myself recently, both with my own work and also the fiction I like to read that follows the same themes.
I started using the descriptor ‘naked fiction’ to describe my own work because I wanted to reflect the fact that while I was trying to write ‘sexy’ stuff for an erotic market (first on Literotica and now more commercially via Amazon) I was also incorporating non-sexual nudity. So something like Brave Nude World had a fair few sex scenes for the main character, but also had the setting of a society where nonsexual public nudity is legal and becoming socially acceptable, and has a bunch of people extolling the virtues of this.
Yet at the same time, I was not writing this story to proselytize for naturism. I was writing it because the idea of a young woman riding the subway naked was exciting to me. The wider points I was making were genuine and valid but overall this was born out of a fantasy and fetish. It’s the same with the Becky and Lisa stories; the queer coming-of-age and feminist themes of the two books are wholly real, but the stories exist because fetishistically I would love to be in the company of, or at least voyeuristically observe, someone who was as liberated about nudity as Becky.
So ENF, OON, NIP, CMNF etc. stories – what we are calling naked fiction here – are fetish content, I acknowledge. They are written by people who get a thrill imagining this stuff, for people who get a thrill reading it.
But are they porn/erotica? True, there are many such stories that contain explicit sex, and many more which specifically up the BDSM/humiliation/torture angle, but that is not the entirety of the genre. As the examples talked about elsewhere on this board show, it’s a broad church, and even within the stories themselves it is a sliding scale. Tami Smithers voluntarily submits to sexual torture at the Chalfont Institute but there are also plenty of scenes where she is just walking around campus naked surrounded by clothed people.
Then you have authors like DH Johnathan and PA Choi (why do we all do that double-initial thing? I blame EL James… for so many things) whose work contains barely anything that would be considered erotic in a conventional sense, but is undoubtedly still of great appeal for people who are into public nudity/only-one-naked etc.
That isn’t even taking into account all the works which depict public nudity/ENF/only-one-naked and so on for, say, comedy (ENF especially turns up in comedies both raunchy and family-friendly). These obviously aren’t made with the fetish audience in mind but undoubtedly appeal. I watched the whole of the French comedy The Names of Love just for the scene where the female protagonist walks through the streets and boards the Paris metro completely nude before realising she has forgotten her clothes. So if we write that exact same scenario in an ENF story, is it really erotica? It’s just a comedy scene repackaged for titillation, nothing about it has changed except the mindset of writer and audience – but does that make it porn or erotica?
It isn’t just comedy, either. In the first chapter of Der-Shing Helmer’s beautifully-drawn fantasy graphic novel The Meek, the character Angora is running around the jungle naked, interacting shamelessly with other characters who are all clothed. It’s not meant to be sexy or titillating, but nor is she unattractive, and one could write the exact same scenario as a very fun only-one-naked story with a character with no nudity taboo. Would that become “porn”?
I could go on, but I won’t.
It’s entirely reasonable to look at this question and ask “does it matter?”, but for me personally as a writer, it does. Even when I began writing, I wasn’t 100% comfortable existing purely in the erotic marketplace – many of my stories have sex scenes in not because I was particularly invested in that happening for my characters, but because I was conscious of disappointing more mainstream erotic audiences who were less concerned with the nudity-fetish aspect. As I’ve grown as a writer, and gotten a better idea of my audience, I feel confident to move away from explicit but mainstream sexual content and focus purely on the nudity in at least some of my future works. Yet, would those works still be considered erotica, because I am writing them for people who find ENF etc. a turn on? Nothing in them is erotic in a conventional sense, and yet I am still in an erotic marketplace, one where potential other readers might be excluded, while those who are looking for conventional erotica would be disappointed by the lack of explicit sex.
So we may say, well, perhaps nudity by itself is not erotic. But nor do we, really, want to normalise nudity – after all, the content we create is based on the idea that nakedness is taboo, a special, intimate state; there would be no conflict, no challenge, if it were not. If nudity were normal, Becky would not be remarkable, Tami Smithers would not be remarkable, the mailgirl job would not be remarkable, and there would be no stories to tell. This isn’t “naturist fiction”, those boring, teeth-achingly worthy stories about how everyone’s life improves when they go and live in a nudist resort. Nudity must remain unexpected, challenging; and sexy.
But does that mean it must be porn?
Perhaps I am overthinking this. This has certainly turned into a very long post. But I am interested to know your thoughts.
A lot to chew on here.
“Porn” sounds cheesy. “Erotica” is too general. “Naked fiction” is well chosen. Kinsey (or whoever started this site) chose the phrase very well.
There are a lot of “silly stories” in naked fiction — dares, bets, etc. I’ve never been attracted to them; they seem juvenile. But they belong under the same rubric I suppose.
What I care about is that it be well-written. Sex can coexist with mere nudity and I suppose without it, at least eventually, the story might get boring. But nudity can be the main thrust. Blanke Schande is an example, at least in johnnycancer’s original conception (before later writers turned the campus into a big sex party). There are a lot of nuances that can be played on: the girls are naked, but they chose to be so; the guys can look but they can’t touch . . . who is in control here? As you point out, if everyone in the story were naked, it would hold interest for long.
Also interesting is the emerging genre of naked, strong women, who walk through a world of clothed people with no sense of shame. Blanke Schande girls are (supposed to be) like this, at least after the freshman semester. “Tami Beethoven” is another example. So are your novels. Often it’s the clothed people who are the embarrassed ones. Illustrating the various attitudes of the clothed world is what gives the genre possibilities.
I also wrote a novel-length story, “Dareen: The Story of Nakedgirl”, the point of which is the heroine’s nudity, and there is no sex in it at all. On the other end of the spectrum, my CFNM novel, “The Sire Project”, is centered on Kai-Kai’s ejaculations, and secondarily about him being always naked, but I tried to add characterization and a sense of a complete, other world.
(P.S. If all I seem to do is talk about my own stuff, it’s because I’m so busy that I don’t have time to read a lot.)
This is an excellent discussion topic.
The answer is NO. It’s not porn. Yes, it’s often very mild erotica, yes you should feel slightly uncomfortable because it’s not normal. But then that’s what makes it interesting. It’s a very fun subject to explore as a writer.
My theory is that most of us with this interest have had some horrific fear or interesting experience with nudity growing up and we seek to get some of those thrills back artificially through clever writing. Visuals don’t do it for us. Porn doesn’t do it for us. It’s the whole psychological thing and it’s wonderful that a whole swath of us can enjoy it. But yes, it’s rare and that is because we, as a group, are more sensitive, intelligent and reflective than most. We are thinkers. And only well-crafted words do it for our highly creative minds.
Porn is for less sensitive, unimaginative people. People that can be simply attracted to ugly copulation and nothing else. Porn doesn’t need anything else because those people don’t want anything else. They don’t want a story or feelings. They just want copulation, pure and simple.
Similar to how young men are often not interested in romantic comedies at first, but rather just action movies. It just happens.
Naturally, if you understand what this is, it’s harmless, beautiful and healthy fun with creative writing that touches our feelings or passions or both in various ways. Writing that touches your feelings is special. If it can also touch a few other things it’s especially good. This can be a love story that has some passion scenes or some fetish stuff. Or it can just be the intimate explorations of nudity in various ways. It’s sensitive and psychological because it’s not really about the lack of clothing. It’s about the REACTIONS to the lack of clothing by both the naked person those that might see her.
We all make our favorite ENF recipes as writers. And our tastes are always changing. It’s so very subjective. When thinking about a potential new story, I like to start my ENF salad with a strong and/or smart woman. Then I think about what the meat should be to make it rich. Do I want stuff to be accidental and self-exploring? or more like the Clare and the boys next girl vibe? or perhaps both with a touch of nudity related betrayal with drama and some mild BDSM touches for spice? Do I want the bad person to be bad or should they be someone trusting but misunderstanding? or a subtle combo of these things? Some realism with just people with contrasting perspectives on life that somehow affect the protagonist? There are so many different things to explore and I tend to enjoy a little or a lot of almost everything. I’m probably not alone.
But those that don’t understand our world… will see all this blindly as porn. So it’s probably wise to keep it to yourself, unfortunately. Don’t feel bad about that. It’s just the way it is, for now. I mean, until we make our genre mainstream!
Definitely YES. It MUST remain unexpected, challenging and sexy. Otherwise, it would be a boring naturist story. Better to have a fun story that we enjoy that runs the risk of being thought of as porn by those that don’t know better.
That’s my take on it. Others might say porn is ANY visual/mental stimulation to get you off. Again it’s subjective. What might get one person hot might just pleasantly warm the cheeks of another. Some of us might be highly sexual and this stuff might bounce them off the walls. Others could be older and just like it – like having a nice wine after dinner. It just feels good and might warm the cheeks.
Names are created by people. The real world is fuzzy.
I grew up at a time when on-screen nudity on film, television, and even on stage, started becoming common. As I grew up, I realised I much more liked watching a naked woman walking down the street than any number of people having sex.
There is an element of physical arousal for me. (Much more so when I was younger.) But many years ago, I got a bit addicted to playing chess against a computer. I’m a terrible chess player but I did find winning against the computer also aroused me. Yet chess columns in newspapers aren’t considered porn. 🙂
Great thread! I appreciate the thoughtful, well-written posts. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything of substance to add. Largely, I agree in that I have had many of these thoughts and still have most of the same questions (with the exception of the lines about playing chess against a computer).
A very interesting thread! I agree that nudity in public or semi public settings needs to be taboo and not normal to keep it thrilling or in my case extremely exiting. Porn? I don’t really see how that concept can be usable. Defining porn will always be different for every individual. For some porn is something exciting and for others very negative or filthy. To me the concept of porn says nothing at all. I welcome the discussion still. I like nude beaches and public places where nudity is not forbidden or not welcome, but nudity is still very sexually loaded to me. Even there you can push the limits or socially accepted by say arriving naked or almost naked or say arriving together with a person and then strip each other. Maybe you pretend to not know each other and make it all even more erotic. Sorry if I am not really staying to the subject.
Kindly,
Mangorian (Egil)
I’m glad you started this discussion Requiax. I enjoyed reading the different perspectives on this topic.
This is going to be long winded with some tangentially related detours, but hopefully I’ll circle back to the main topic without losing coherence, so sorry in advance. My 2 cents.
I long ago made peace with myself over this issue, probably because I’ve been having the internal dialogue with myself for years, at the very beginning when my tastes were first developing. It didn’t start with writing, it started with reading, and how I’d use my library card as a teenager to check out books with shirtless men holding scantily clad women in their arms, and do so while avoiding eye contact with the librarian who was probably 40 years older than me.
I remember internalizing the essence of this topic then – am I checking out romance, love stories, erotica, or porn? When I’m reading something like WAITING TO EXHALE at the bus stop and get to a sex scene, then put the book away so I can save the sex parts for when I get home in the comfort of my room, did my book suddenly change from Chick Lit into porn?
Hell, even before that, I remember watching DAWSON’S CREEK in the late 90’s, then going on geocities and other websites in search of people to obsesses over the show with. And then I stumbled upon fanfiction. What? There was a place where I could read about Joey, and Pacey, and Dawson, and Jen being friends, and lovers, and sexual partners? And there was no fade to black? Sign me up! But wait, was this porn? Romance? Something else? Should I hide this? Be ashamed of it? Is it okay to mention in polite company that I read it?
This is something plenty of girls and women have to answer for themselves when it comes to fanfiction (which is pretty female centric), romance novels – both erotic and “almost erotic” (think Twilight or other Young Adult fiction that may not include sex, but has a stimulating aspect to it) and certain television shows and movies that are primarily consumed by women.
These things are almost always considered low brow and in some cases might as well carry the same stigma as porn, because the content is usually reluctantly embraced as a guilty pleasure, emphasis on guilt, and sometimes act as an alternative to porn for women that want kinky, exciting, stimulating stories and images but don’t want to fire up pornhub to get it.
So I was a teenager filled with questions over what I enjoyed, and if what I enjoyed was pornographic, or something else.
And if it was something else, what should I call it?
(“No mom, I’m not reading Zane’s ADDICTED for the sex scenes. The story is about crippling addiction and how it can destroy someone’s life, and this addiction just so happens to be a sex addiction. It could just as easily be drugs or alcohol.” LOL. Was this excuse any different than “I read playboy for the articles'”).
By the time I got to college, I arrived at a flippant, in-your-face-and-edgy place where I started calling it all “smut” – which for the uninitiated means “pictures, writing, language, or performances that deal with sex and are offensive” , according the online Cambridge Dictionary. I’d put “smut” in the “what are you reading” section of my social media bios, and defiantly say “smut” if anyone ever asked what I liked to read or watch, and dare them to side eye me.
It was a phase of taking words back (slut, hoe, bitch, thot, hoodrat) and empowering myself by clinging to labels and terms that should otherwise make me feel ashamed. And yes, I had a tumblr blog (a fairly popular one tbh).
While I was in that place (both my “hoe is life” mindset, and the physical setting of college) I learned that “Is this thing pornographic or erotic or ????” Is a question that has been asked for centuries, and the answer has constantly changed through the years, from culture to culture.
Paintings of nude people have gone from obscene to high art. Statues of nude people have gone from private only gallery’s to public museums attended by schoolchildren. One country’s banned pornographic film is another country’s romantic comedy.
It’s really subjective. Art is subjective. It’s so subjective, a single person can have a different answer depending solely on his or her mood at the time or the medium or environment where they took it in.
Take Kate Winslet in TITANIC [23-year old Titanic SPOILERS!] when she slipped out of her robe and got on the bed, I mean the couch. I might watch that scene in a packed theater, with buttery popcorn in my lap, and want to laugh my ass off at how cheesy the whole scene is, feeling no heat whatsoever, maybe a mild “awww, they are so clumsy and cute” at most.
Or I might watch it while sitting with my partner on our bed while we’re having a cup of wine, and by the time it’s over, when Rose says her figure drawing experience “was the most erotic moment of my life,”
I might be like “guuuuuurl, mine too!”
[21 year old EYES WIDE SHUT Spoilers] The weird, creepy, cult orgy in EYES WIDE SHUT is cold, and terrifying to me, but add some different music, and I might find it kind of hot. Okay wait, I just googled that scene and no amount of editing can make those masks hot.
Scratch this example.
[38-year old BLADE RUNNER Spoilers] I used to find the ‘seduction’ scene in Blade Runner kind of hot, but after watching it recently, um, yeah, I no longer see seduction, I see non-consent and coercion, and what used to look romantic to my eyes now looks like a scene from a horror movie that doesn’t know it’s a horror movie.
Values, attitudes, and worldviews change and affect how we view art. It can even chip away at our perceptions of its intrinsic qualities.
Pole dancing, as an example, was once seen by many as just being slutty, erotic dancing. Ask someone 40 years ago, and they would say strippers and bimbos did pole dancing. One probably would have said pole dancing, by its very nature, was lewd or lascivious. But now there are non-sexual fitness classes with pole dancing, where soccer moms and even young people get a workout by trying to twirl on the pole.
(On another note, I went to Miami a few weeks ago for a bachelorette vacation, and we tried a pole dancing class, and let me tell you, it was serious fucking work. Women that can use their leg and arm muscles to keep their bodies on those poles are tremendous athletes. The last thing I felt as I tried to twirl on that thing was erotic or sexy energy).
There are even competitions around the world featuring pole dancing. Who knows, maybe 100 years from now, it will be an Olympic sport.
I took the long way around to basically say that I no longer feel the need to satisfy the age old “is this thing pornographic?”
I used to have debates over the difference between porn and erotica, low brow vs highbrow, an appeal to emotions and intellect vs appealing to prurient interests, and all of their permutations, but I don’t think I ever really came close to feeling like the question was satisfied. In fact, the discussions kind of started feeling like those debates I had where me and my smartass friends argued all day about if a hot dog was a sandwich or a taco.
Stories are usually complex, they have various components to them that could fit any number of labels and boxes. And I guess I’m okay with my stories falling into any of those categories, if that’s how people see them.
We all collectively define this stuff, carrying our own baggage, tastes, and worldviews into the process.
Is it porn? Sure, to some people. Is it erotica? Uh huh, why not? Is it a fun silly story about a naked person? Yup, it’s that too. Is it fit to be considered mainstream? If the zeitgeist embraces it, then yes, see 50 Shades of Grey.
We can’t will the labels on the stuff by articulating it with perfect precision and reasoning. It is what it is, and what it is will be subjective.
Now, with that out of the way, I do want to say that I absolutely recognize that answering the question as a writer (hopefully professional writer one day) certainly has practical value.
If I ever do commercially publish a naked fiction story, how will I market it? As porn, fit to be included with hardcore sex stories? As erotica, fit to be included with softcore stories? As naturism, fit to be included with non-sexual stories about nude people frolicking in nature? Or can it ever be a mainstream story, fit to be included with your standard fictional titles that may or may not have love and sex sprinkled throughout the tale?
I’ve read debates play out on twitter with naturists or nudists objecting to exhibitionist stories being labeled as naturist or nudist, and I read about when Requiax decided to no longer label his stories with those tags. I think that’s the way I will go, to avoid misleading potential readers that might be offended with the misuse of certain labels.
But beyond that, I think “porn”, “erotica”, “exhibitionism” and such are terms I’d use, just because that tends to be what people search when they want to read anything like this. I want to meet the reader where they are and make the content easy to find. From there, my responsibility is providing an accurate blurb that gives a stronger indication of what to expect inside the actual pages.
Naked Dan seems to be one of the more successful authors with publishing our brand of story, so that is a template worth copying, but what I find kind of funny is even within his work, there are wildly different opinions about whether the story is pornographic or not. Reading the reviews for THE VOLUNTEER, there are some that thought the story with Dani with too “porny” because Dani masturbates or feels sexual excitement throughout most of the book, and others that felt that they wish the sexual content would have been more detailed and dirty.
One reviewer in particular read The Volunteer as a summer reading prompt, where she was tasked with reading a nudist book, and presumably bought the Volunteer based on the cover and blurb description, not knowing that the story would have erotic or any kind of nude in public fetish baked in (or to be honest, the main ingredient).
She absolutely thought the book was pornographic, a book that by most of our standards would be considered pretty tame. I think that probably is how a lot of mainstream readers would view most of the naked fiction we write. And I think that’s a fair observation. We lean hard and heavy into the excitement of the themes. If someone comes to these stories cold, without being primed or particularly interested in enf, or oon tropes, how can they not see the story as just a niche kind of porn or erotica?
At this point I’ve read (or listened to) The Volunteer probably four or five times, and I do think perhaps Naked Dan included so many references to masturbation and sexual thoughts because he was writing for the ASN board, posting updates periodically and he didn’t want to disappoint those that needed some good sexy stuff in every chapter.
It makes me wonder how the story might have changed if the novel was written more traditionally, without regard for making sure each chapter had some kind of emotional or sexual climax, so to speak. Would it have featured less erotic content?
When Requiax says that he has written sex scenes in his stories – not to benefit the characters or story – but to avoid possibly disappointing a potential audience looking for particular content, that is when I think the danger of stressing out over this question comes into play.
With that admission in mind, I can recall reading A BRAVE NUDE WORLD and thinking one of the latter sex scenes was perhaps superfluous. Not because I don’t enjoy reading sex in public, or didn’t enjoy reading the sex scenes (I did), but because the scene seemed to be there to check off a box and make sure the story had more sex for those looking for sex.
Not all of the sex scenes mind you, the sex under the street light felt entirely natural and organic and furthered the plot and character development. The sex scene in the middle also contributed to the plot and characterization (and made me a little angry at the protag lol).
But in hindsight, I can see how maybe one of the two sex scenes towards the end could have been written for the genre, rather than the writer’s own desires. (And even then, an argument could be made that those sex scenes were written to bring the character full circle as she reconciled her love of being nude with the fact that she also was sexual, and that she no longer had to feel guilty about how those two sides could exist separately or intersect with each other).
Writing for genre vs writing for our own unique desires is something I’ve been wrestling with myself.
I’m working on two mailgirl stories right now. And there are some aspects that are common to mailgirl stories that most readers of those stories kind of expect now. I recently read a mailgirl story on literotica, where several of the commenters took issue with the writer changing a core aspect of mailgirl stories.
This kind of alarmed me at first, because looking at my outlines, I’m changing a lot of things. And beyond the changes, I’m also shifting the focus a bit, expanding on the “what if this thing really existed” and not including as much “here is the sexy minute to minute, second to second, day of a naked slave girl at work.” So much of it is non-erotic. I guess it would kind of be like writing a story about Vampires without the blood sucking focus. Is anyone trying to read this? And is it really a vampire story?
And now it has me thinking, damn, will anyone even like this approach? Am I wasting my time outlining and writing something that may only satisfy my intellectual and emotional curiosities? Should I just give the readers what they want and expect? Scrap that chapter that’s mostly just two mailgirls girls talking and throw in a nice, conventional enf moment where they have to spread their pussy to a bystander for reasons?
And at that point, I have to remind myself of who and what I write for. Before I seek comments, before I seek financial compensation, at my root, why am I reading and writing this stuff? Why do any of us read (and if you’re an author) write this kinky shit? which brings me to ReaderMan’s theory.
“My theory is that most of us with this interest have had some horrific fear or interesting experience with nudity growing up and we seek to get some of those thrills back artificially through clever writing.”
[Removed original anecdote, off topic and too detailed]
Let’s just say I agree wholeheartedly with this Readerman!
I think I’ve said this before, but the first time I actually sexualized or found naked in public stuff to be wildly and pointedly erotic, was when I read THE RELUCTANT EXHIBITIONIST by Seahawk (I read Falcon’s original story years later). I was in college by then, searching literotica, and somehow I stumbled upon the story and got sucked into the adventures of Wendy Wilson.
Every part of her adventures gripped me, but what still stands out to me now is that I most enjoyed reading about the downtime in-between the naked in public parts. Specifically, my initial favorite chapter was chapter 4, where Wendy has to attend a combined frat/sorority party and intentionally lose a stripping bet.
And the height of my enjoyment wasn’t when she was actually naked in front of her college, but the parts preceding that moment, when she is riding around in a truck with the other girls, talking about what is about to come, shopping in a store as her stomach twists in knots. Then spending time with her at the party as she tries to enjoy herself while waiting for the dreadful moment where she has to bare (and bear) it all with a smile on her face (per the rules of her blackmailer).
None of that stuff was necessarily essential to the plot of the story. Most, if not all of that chapter could have been condensed into a paragraph or two. But Seahawk chose to let that part of the story breathe, and I honestly believe if he didn’t do that, I probably wouldn’t be writing this embarrassingly candid and long post on a naked fiction story site that I cobbled together.
It’s that slow burn that I live for. The coloring outside the lines that make the picture more memorable. The dread and contemplation. The naked in public dancing was the whip cream. The orgasm was the cherry on top. But the tastiest bit to me, was everything underneath when she still had her clothes on.
The delicious anticipation and wrestling of one’s thoughts and emotions throughout the The Reluctant Exhibitionist helped to make sure my visit to that section on literotica wasn’t just a one off.
That writing satisfied an itch that I didn’t even know how to scratch. It was like getting a back scratcher for the first time and finally being able to reach all the way behind my back and deeply scratch at just the right spot.
For the next ten years or so, I continually satisfied that itch by reading all of Seahawk’s stories, then sifting through the seemingly endless list of stories in the Exhibitionist and Voyeur section on Literotica, finding authors like Requiax, rd75000, and Jappio , reading their stuff, then re-reading Seawhawk and Falcon’s story and tracking down the ASN Storyboard, only to find a wealth of amazing stories to read there as well, including ongoing series(like Tami Smithers and the Mailgirl stories) by various authors.
I’d been able to satisfy my itches pretty thoroughly, until a few years ago when I really wanted to read a naked at the oscars red carpet story, but couldn’t find one. I’d written dozens of stories before but never anything in the naked fiction arena, so I decided “what the hell”, if only to get it out of my system. I wrote way more than I intended or wanted to for that story, but damn if the scratch didn’t feel good.
That’s generally how I end up writing the things I write. Wanting to read a specific kind of story, not quite finding one hitting all of the high points, or with all of the ingredients, and deciding to just do it myself. That’s how I fell into writing enf stuff at all, after so many years of being content just reading them.
I realized there were other pockets in the whole enf, oon space that I felt were lightly explored, lightly represented, or begging for more emphasis, particularly in the mailgirl stories. And thus began my original outline for a single mailgirl story, that eventually spiraled into an outline for two different mailgirl stories that will later converge.
From GRRM: “I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.”
I wish I were a gardener, because I’d probably write much quicker, but I’m absolutely an architect. My outlines are ridiculously long and detailed (seriously, I pretty much write a novel before I write my novel), and during my time collecting my thoughts, character arcs, and plotting for these upcoming stories, I have been scratching, scratching, scratching at so many itches stemming from my life experiences. And I realized I’m not just satisfying urges to scratch at what happened way back then on that hot scorching day.
I’m scratching at memories of my first interview in a corporate office. Memories of nights out with coworkers and friends. Memories of unemployment and joblessness. Memories of dissatisfaction with my body. Memories of gaining confidence in my body and changing my wardrobe. Memories of workplace gossip, backstabbing, and sabotage. Memories of being humiliated and made to feel inferior by senior colleagues. Memories of severe imposter syndrome.
And while I scratch at these memories, I’m finding a way to put all of those memories and experiences into my smutty little story about girls being blackmailed, coerced, or convinced to run around offices naked for a living.
What I like about certain iterations of mailgirl stories, particularly from writers like Seahawk and LizStanton, is they combine several of my interests into one wicked tale; yes the naked in public stuff, but I’m also a sucker for shady organizations, corporate espionage, crooked businessmen, evil executives, and master manipulators.
When I’m not reading smut, I’m usually reading thrillers or non-fiction about white collar crime, devils dressed in suits and demons walking in heels, loving the twists and turns and fall from grace’s that those stories provide.
I think that is what compels me to go ahead and add my contribution to the mailgirl universe with MAILGIRLS AND MUSES and THE MAILGIRL’S ADVOCATE.
But as I go through how the chapters of these stories will play out, I realize a lot of the content won’t be erotic, won’t immediately tease titillation, won’t adhere to every established trope of what a mailgirl story should be. Not all of the chapters will even have a sexual high point.
Sure, it will contain naked girls carrying mail around the office. And yes, the chapters will contain some BDSM, some servitude, some blackmail, and a whole lot of darkness, but I think the focus, the form or composition, the way these common mailgirl tropes are presented, will go a longer way towards determining if these mailgirl stories feel like mailgirl stories to readers.
In “Mailgirls and Muses”, I’m primarily interested in hanging with the girls and getting inside their heads; laughing with them, and crying with them, and exploring their lives as women with diverse backgrounds and personalities, despite all being mailgirls.
I’m interested in their fears and goals, their regrets and fantasies. I want to examine what makes them unique aside from the numbers on their naked bodies. I want to know the why and the how they broke this social taboo and became what society views as ‘corporate sluts’ using their bodies to get ahead .
I want to feel bad for the girls all but forced into being mailgirls. I want to feel excited for the opportunists that chose to become a mailgirl on their own volition. I want to pity the weak girls and envy the strong girls.
I want to see the girls bond and see the girls fight. I want to watch them fall in love and watch their heart break. I want to see them in bondage and see them liberated. I want to see them succeed. I want to see them fail. And if I get uncomfortably horny while I’m with them on their mailgirl journey, that’s the extra point rather than the touchdown.
In “The Mailgirls Advocate”, I’m primarily interested in going behind-the-scenes, in the shadows to spend time with the wealthy and influential, the politicians and executives and market makers, to see just how these devils in suits and demons walking in heels make it possible to turn regular girls into mailgirls and muses.
I want to plainly look at the supposedly civilized society, including the economic and political conditions, that would allow mailgirls to exist. I want to locate the spaces where animalistic lusts and greed compete with the goodness of humanity. And since I’m slightly off my rocker, or maybe just masochistic, and pessimistic towards human nature, I want to see the lust and greed win out in double overtime on a buzzer beater.
See how I would rack my brain and destroy my confidence if I tried to determine if this stuff should be considered erotic, porn, or something else? It’s a weird concoction of all of it, I think.
It’s not that what I’m working on isn’t erotic or thrilling at all.
There is sex. There is public sex. And masturbation. There are mind blowing orgasms, rock hard erections, and soaking wet pussies. I just think it’s a story you might get aroused while reading, rather than a story you read to get aroused. That may be a distinction without a difference, but it sounded good in my head so I went with it.
Let’s head back to my scratching analogy.
I know where I’m itching, I know where to scratch to make me go “ahhhh, that feels so good”, but if I start focusing on scratching other people’s itches, (forgive me for wearing this analogy out), following their orders like “more to the right, no the other right, a little lower, a lot lower, harder, wait not that hard”, then I’m going to grow frustrated and probably lose interest in satisfying anyone.
Plainly spoken. We absolutely have to write for ourselves first, Requiax. Our sensibilities have to be coddled and put on a pedestal. Yes feedback and wanting others to enjoy our work matters too, but not at the expense of not indulging what we find interesting, or satisfying, or worth exploring. I think it makes for better writing, more honest narratives, stronger characters, and more compelling conflicts.
I believe writing for our own satisfaction makes stories about a common subject more unique and authentic, and less repetitive and “haven’t I read this before?”
If you want to write a full length novel without a single sex scene, where the protag’s nudity, and her scattered thoughts are the entire focus, write THAT story. The best version of that story, I believe, will always shine brighter than a weaker, perfunctory story that better fits a box you believe your story needs to fit in .
I believe Readerman is doing that very thing with Emi and his story THE RESORT AMBASSADOR (judging by the comments and the few chapters I’ve read) and that is much more valuable in my eyes than the alternative.
We should always accept feedback that helps us write stronger stories, technical and practical advice that improves our writing. But let the flavor of the content be your thing. As a reader, I want to hear your voice, not the competing voices of others shouting over you.
I haven’t sold a single book, or hell, even posted a single chapter from my outlines, so perhaps my advice is actually pretty awful. So take it with a grain of salt.
I’m just glad you’ve entered that place where you’re both comfortable with what your audience wants and what you want to write. It makes me even more eager to read and purchase your future work. And it reinforces my own beliefs and convictions to not bend too much to the will of a mainstream audience.
This post was edited to be more on topic.
I’ll comment here as I go along because this is way too big of a post to hold it all in memory at once. lol…
About the porn question… yep… you can’t argue with the ‘it’s subjective’ line of thought. Excellent elaboration on that perspective. I totally agree. Even though I said (from my subjective perspective) ‘no, it’s not porn’. But I also said it’s not black and white and hinted at the subjectivity of it all. I like your answer much better than mine. You have obviously thought about this a great deal more than I have. It was fun to read your experience struggling with this through the years.
Yes, we shouldn’t worry about trying to fit a mould. What we (okay I) want more than anything is YOUR perspective on the genre. Different is fresh. I want my intellectual and emotional curiosity satisfied too, so don’t even go there. As writers we all tell each other, write for yourself first. Because otherwise the passion behind the ideas and scenes will also begin to dry up. They need to be our personal ideas and interests, so that we can better touch the reader.
I’m going to keep this in mind when writing. I too am a huge fan of Seahawk’s stories. Actually, I think he did this a lot with his mailgirl story as well. The ‘dread of upcoming escalations’ (not the same, but close?). Yes Danica’s clothes were already off but she didn’t go outside yet. She didn’t see her old co-workers yet. I think Blair’s SACL story was also excellent with the traditional slow striping of Jill. That long calm before the storm was milked… oh so very well in his story. Blair also likes to infuse uncertainty in everything, probably part of his secret sauce. Makes us readers not sure what will happen and so we ‘hope’ for this and that.
Thanks Kinsey. I just noticed that it’s quite nice to be quoted. And I loved your childhood story. These pivotal moments in our lives are powerful.
Now that I think about it… the ‘possibility of getting caught’ is the secret sauce of so many good stories.
Such a great paragraph. (Note to self) As writers, we all need to let the surrounding build-up parts ‘breathe’. Conversely, I like how some writers also ‘milk’ a good scene. Say the scene that we have been building up to, for so long, doesn’t to end too quickly. ( I probably already said that. )
I loved this candid post. It was brave and I hope that we can all write posts like this from time to time. Thanks for sharing!
My story reading path to this sub-genre and secondary interests are so very similar. Funny how that so many of us, regardless of gender or sexual identity, can simply enjoy the same stuff. I love that our potential for ‘community’ is so huge.
I’m an architect as well. Maybe I architect too much as I don’t have a lot of confidence in my actual writing yet. Too many technical issues and troubles with writing intimately which makes my writing less deep and less touching than I would like it to be. So when I finally finish re-architecting for the umpteenth time and re-condensing and re-mixing and adjusting. And finally start architecting the actual scene… well… I sometimes drop some seeds accidentally and if I like what comes up, I let it grow… keeping an eye on it so that it hopefully aligns with my bigger plans. I suppose we all do that to some extent. It’s an excellent way to describe it… the architect and the gardener. I’m glad that you shared what GRRM wrote about.
Female writers have a big advantage with ENF. I always envied Molly’s and other female writers writing because they have the ‘insider advantage’. Us guys writing about this is probably also interesting… it reveals what we like to fantasize about but many of us guys also like realism and we often fall short on the insider knowledge of actually being a woman. Your first chapter of your JL story posted here is another example of fantastic and intelligent realism.
OMG I can hardly wait for your mailgirl thrillers! How can one go wrong with highly realistic characters in a mailgirl setting? A great story makes you feel a lot of things, hopefully strongly at times. It sounds like your stories will be two delightful smorgasbords of emotion and tension.
Haha… I kind of forgot that we were looping back to this. Yeah, I agree. Or just don’t think about classifications. Just write the story. That’s it. I feel strongly about serious writers that worry about this stuff. A great story is a great story. Ideally it should be that first. We shouldn’t apologize for our uniqueness, writing about fun and exiting things or if we slow down to have a better story. We should celebrate these things!
Writers should not hold themselves back. We should be unleashed!
Haha… I’ve been commenting along as I read. I see that we agree on the writing for ourselves first. 🙂
I love the slow burn. Many of us do as you can tell with Blairs Summer at Cache Lake story.
Such a good line. I HAVE to quote it! (I might have uppercased YOUR to emphasize that word.)
Excellent last paragraph. I too sometimes fret over where I am taking things. Wondering if I’m going to get roasted by a flamethrower or not. Or worse, disappoint some of my favourite readers. Or wonder if mainstream readers (friends) might think it’s too weird (haven’t shown anyone yet). Fear and doubt can creep in when we are away from writing for a time and we start to wonder about things. Our notes start to loose some shine. We need to stay true to our visions. Your post here has strengthened my sometimes wavering convictions. Thank you Kinsey.
I’m pleased to see a discussion I started has prompted such interesting feedback and thoughtful posting.
I think I’m going to post a reply here about four separate aspects.
Firstly, a bit more about my own thoughts.
I think on the whole, the label of “porn” has been shown to not really have a place here. That’s not that surprising to me, as when I think of pornography it’s primarily a visual medium. The compatriot whose thoughts prompted this discussion trucks primarily in visual arts, namely ENF comics, so I suppose from that point of view his thoughts would be on whether or not he is creating pornography, whereas for prose writers the label would be erotica or non-erotica. So let’s sweep the P-word aside for now.
As for erotica?
When I first started writing this stuff for other people to read, I did so on erotic fiction websites. I did this (started writing and posting) because I’d found that these sites hosted stories I enjoyed and found exciting, where the nudity was more sexualised. I was inspired by the authors I read there to create my own stories and because they posted on erotic fiction sites, I figured that made what I was writing erotica too.
And, as has already been mentioned, I felt obligated to make sex scenes a part of some of my stories so as to fit with my understanding of what was… expected in erotica.
I wasn’t part of any community of like-minded writers then; I was just a guy reading stories and trying my hand at creating my own. But as time has gone on and I’ve interacted more with fellow writers and talked to them about their work I’ve developed a greater understanding of things like fetish and how the creation of fiction can be used to celebrate and enjoy a fetish without needing to necessarily fit into a hole labelled ‘erotica’.
These days, I would consider myself a fetish writer for the particular fetishes where nudity is the main element (so being naked around clothed people; being the only one naked; voyeuristically seeing a person naked in an environment where nudity is not the norm; exhibitionist nudity; embarrassment nudity; and so on), rather than a more universally-erotic writer. Although this is conceptually a more restrictive label than the catch-all of ‘erotica’, I find the idea actually more liberating, as it frees me to create stories and content where the only common denominator is nudity, and the rest can be whatever I feel like.
But I still find myself engaged with a world in which what I write exists as ‘erotica’. Although I’m by no means the only author in this community who markets books through Amazon, I’ve probably done it more than a lot, and I always categorise what I publish there as ‘erotic fiction’; erring on the side of caution mostly. It doesn’t reflect what I think about my own work, but it does reflect what I think others will think about my work.
The example Kinsey gives of the reader who read The “Volunteer” and experienced discomfort because they felt it was “porny” is a good one (as The “Volunteer” is not marketed as an erotic book). I’m mindful that although to my mind Best Friends with a Naked Girl is a queer coming-of-age story, or Sophie is a light-horror fantasy about a woman who falls in love with a supernatural being, they may well not be received that way by readers who are seeking to avoid erotic content. Although on the one hand I will always say emphatically that I don’t really give much thought to what others think (I write for myself), on the other hand I absolutely do care what others think, especially when it comes to making sure my books find the right marketplace on Amazon; and in the end I choose to write for a small community looking for fetish content rather than shooting for a mainstream market and winding up with a bunch of one-star reviews because people were surprised by how pervy the book they bought ended up being.
Secondly; Kinsey’s very astute comments on Brave Nude World.
I always start, when I talk about BNW, with the disclaimer that it was, in fact, my first novel. Best Friends... got published first, because it was the one that was finished, but about 70-80% of BNW was written before I began turning the original Lisa and Becky stories into a novel. It was the experience of publishing Best Friends… that caused me to go back to BNW, dust it off, finish the story and put it into publication, but I didn’t really apply a lot of what I learned about writing to that book; it was more the book where I was working out my learning in real time.
In terms of the sex scenes, it’s probably true that not all of them need to exist, and were I to write the book again, I might make some different choices in the narrative. The general theme of the book is Rachel ‘working through some things’ – as she begins to explore public nudity, the idea was to show how this impacts on her life in work, in her friendships, and in her dating life, as well as her wider engagement with the changing culture of the country; and her changing, even fluctuating, feelings about herself as she negotiates this new world. And, ultimately, it’s about a year in the life of a 24-year-old woman in a major US city – she has sex about as much as you would probably expect.
That said, I would be lying if I didn’t have the thought, at the time, of ‘the reader is probably getting bored by now of the fact that Rachel hasn’t had some sort of sexual encounter in a while, so I had better bring the narrative back around to her love life…’ That’s the part I’d change now, if I wrote it again (although I feel happy with the novel overall, I don’t think it’s necessarily the best representation of what I can do and like to do with this type of fiction).
Thirdly; The “Volunteer” – more of an aside really. I first read this in its draft form on Literotica, which has perhaps informed my perspective, but I always took The “Volunteer” as a sexualised work rather than a sexless naturist story, not just because Dani masturbates a lot, but because the central premise to me is basically pure only-one-naked/forced exhibitionist; essentially it’s the distant cousin of the Tami stories, and I enjoy both for largely the same reasons.
Fourthly; formative experiences. I thank Kinsey for sharing hers, and concur with ReaderMan; it is, I’m sure, a common truth that a lot of us could probably find something in our childhood or adolescence that gave rise to our particular interest in this type of content, which is more than just your average person’s interest in seeing or imagining the object of their desire with their clothes off. I know I can cite a few examples, certainly.
It would be interesting to discuss this in more detail but I feel like it’s a step away from what is being talked about here, which is more about genre/classification and authorial intent. I’m also mindful that such a discussion would almost certainly involve talking about experiences in childhood or early adolescence and thus, despite our best intentions and genuine innocence, might risk becoming something which gives an inappropriate impression of this site.
Technically speaking, the Sistine Chapel is porn. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t also a brilliant masterpiece. Michelangelo would have, no doubt, agreed wholeheartedly with Kinsey Bay.
The act of writing a story is so very much bigger than the genre we are writing in, even if that genre isn’t mainstream. We are but humans, exploring what it is to be human, in different settings of interest. Be it sci-fi, where our body parts are cruelly harvested for aliens or less extreme stuff like a lack of clothes in an office setting. Healthy and open-minded people know that exploring the psychology behind pushing people to get undressed or being that person who is struggling with a lack of clothing in a public setting is not a lesser form of art. The concept of mainstream art is always changing and isn’t a good thing to measure against. The best art is brave and takes chances.
Requiax, I totally overlooked that you began this discussion citing a comic creator, and went right to talking about prose. I still think “it’s subjective” fits for his question, but for some reason I do think I’d take more issue with people labeling my comics porn than my written work. I have no idea why there exists a double standard here. Maybe because if I was writing and illustrating ENF comics that carried various tones from comedic to dramatic, I wouldn’t want someone treating it like a porn magazine, leaving it with sticky pages and such? Whereas I don’t really imagine someone treating their reading experience with a novel that way? I’m not sure.
I personally would label his content “adult comic.” Adult can act as a euphemism for porn, so that may also be problematic wording for him. I just googled him and see that he self-labels his work “NSFW Comics” which I think is a strong compromise, especially since his work is a visual experience, so where they read it really matters.
For the record, I wasn’t really talking about comics, it’s just that someone who creates comics had prompted me to think about this subject, and because he used the word “porn” I used it too.
For me ultimately the thoughts I have about this have been prompted by connecting with communities of like-minded readers and creators. That has encouraged me to feel more free to move beyond writing “just” erotica to creating content which is still exciting to people with interest in nudity-based scenarios of all kinds (in the same way that someone who is really into spanking might like a story in which the only adult content is a lot of spanking scenes), but doesn’t conform to the general idea of what is “erotic”.
But, thinking about it, I suppose comic creators are where I’m taking a lot of inspiration for this, because visual artists tend to have genres/classifications like “lewd”, “ecchi”, “NSFW”, where there is nudity and naughtiness but not necessarily what you would consider “erotica”, and I think (for me) that’s kind of where I see at least some of my future writing sitting.
Glad to have found you. I’m FlaGuy aka Paleface. This is a great thread. Looks like we will need a second spool very soon. An admin might be able to add arrows to allow shrinking and expanding responses just to keep things tidy [thanks]. The Admin will also determine if I go too far off base with my comments.
I think the discussion will be improved by some ideas that come from a story. In a book Why Men Are The Way They Are the author tells the tale of the standard romance novel. These are so very repetitive it gets ridiculous but then we humans are surprisingly predictable. Please indulge me.
The young heroine begins as the married or enslaved chattel of the basic man in the particular historical age. Here she wonders if she will ever escape and if things will ever change. The hero comes with the revolution and kills, often indirectly, her husband. Eventually she is seduced by the hero and finds his cause is actually just and he’s not really so bad. She soon shares his role and turns out to have the skills needed to change the world with him (who knew?). This happens with any amount of sex or bloodletting depending on how cool the cover art is.
This is much briefer than his description and glosses over several important parts. I did not believe this could be accurate until I stepped into my sister’s bookshelf. While I grew up embarrassed about nude pictures and carefully hid the magazines I scrounged she had this very explicit sexual porn on display and shared it with others. I got the wrap for being the disgusting boy while she and her friends kept score of all these busy heroins. Such is life.
The reason I bring this up is about fiction in general and how it is attractive to us on this site and to others on theirs. In particular you will find the thrilling parts of the romances happen at the layers or transitions of the story. Each is where the woman is faced with the new reality and must move into it or hang back. She may see her friends move ahead and meet with disaster which makes her more cautious. There are all kinds of ways to play it as we know.
It is however Always a description of her experience of change. Moving from her old to new life she struggles with doubt of the future as well as guilt about if she wanted this secretly. As the story moves ahead there are yet more transitions to experience and have doubt and guilt about.
In the ENF world transitions happen in similar layers such as “Should she agree to this”, or how has she been tricked. Then getting naked, how tough that is. Is there a way back. Then walking away from the “comfort” zone and becoming more and more permanent. As fiction these are necessarily contrived outcomes but must be staged in a nearly plausible way given a built up character and environment. Nothing new for any of us.
On a side note to romantic transitions; I have been at many weddings and in every one of them I noticed a woman fainting. What I have learned is that these non-participants were overwhelmed with the transition the bride had achieved, pretty much that she’s landed the big one. Imagining that for herself put her over the edge and so, down she goes. I find that to be the height of any story I enjoy. Seeing the moment that the decision is being made to actually move forward with nudity or the next challenging exposure.
An important point to be made about nudism, which I think is well understood. Anyone who has spent any time at a nude facility or location, never mind a proper nudist, will tell you that the embarrassment does not last long. People are adaptable and will learn that what they are doing is OK and will be tolerated after a short time. One of the challenges with these stories is to keep the subjects embarrassment going long after that normal time would have passed.
We all have different ways of doing that thank goodness. We simply remind the reader that the subject is still not comfortable and is dreading the next group of people or event where they will continue to be exposed. The point is that it still matters whereas on a nude beach it would not. The goal is to keep alive that quiet discomfort and occasional fear that would go away if the character learns that nudity is not so bad after all. After many weeks Tami is still afraid to walk out of her dorm room without checking for people.
Making it believable that it still matters is our creative challenge.
The question of porn is what the thread is about but I had to set the table. Since I used to post on Leviticus’ site I found to my horror that the BDSM stories were, not necessarily there but further afield, were let’s just say extremely strong. I have since run into story sites where the tolerance of violence, humiliation and pain makes what we are writing about, ENF or CFNM etc., the softest of high school fan fiction.
Still the question is valid. By definition if we get off on it then it must be at least erotic fiction. Porn is just a term for the intolerable erotic fiction or video of someone else. Our comparatively mild eroticism is probably best described as fetish as has been stated. There are many others. Naked Fiction is a very good name for ours. Naturist fiction is the other stuff you’ve described and a whole different idea.
I think what matters in even the “worst” of the porn or BDSM stories is that the subject has in some way agreed to be there, vaguely consensual even when forced. All along the way a BDSM story is not just about the ways they tear the flesh but on how the subject feels about it. If they were truly dismissive of the victim then there would be no story. Who cares if she is afraid or in pain or humiliated. So what? No, instead she is reminded that she is being seen and has agreed to be treated badly. How will she ever escape? What will she tell the others?
In a similar way the video porn sites have, if any, the same appeal. These are where there is some risk. Are they using protection? (Who still remembers that?) Will they get caught? Will things ever be the same again? Will they be seen by those they know? This is largely the way seduction does and has always worked. The subject is convinced to do what they have already decided to do. All along the way they have to make allowances to go just outside their comfort zone. The thrill comes when they are no longer in control and are just hoping things will work out. I think it goes back to our experiences of puberty when our new body was showing up and our own transitions took exploring. Our innocent childhood bodies were now less so.
In any event we and porn sites are giving people what they want, particularly what they do not have. That is, access to sex and stimulation, either visual, if that is all that’s needed, or intellectual if we have already seen it all. I find that the most explicit videos will do nothing for me, except rarely when you might see her decide to take things further than planned.
What I do enjoy is finding a still picture of a lady suggesting a caption that tells me about how she may or may not be embarrassed. There’s the thrill. I start writing and I’m on my way.
Nice to find you all here. I’ll enjoy your comments.
FlaGuy
Kinsey,
I thoroughly enjoyed your loooooong post. You warned us at that outset that it would be long. Knowing that going in, I resigned myself to making it to the end in one sitting. In the end, I wasn’t able to, but it certainly wasn’t because the way you approached the subject matter was not enthralling. It was. Such a wonderful autobiographical account!
I consider myself beholden to ReaderMan (for inspiring you … specifically how his post caused you to tell us the story of the girl playing naked in her front yard). I really loved how you went to play with her, but tried to shield her from the street. I also loved your reaction and thoughts about her mother’s appearance. I have to say that the tale made me curious about the girls approximate age, but I know why it’s not in the story. She’s clearly very young, so I’m sure it’s best as is.
I look forward to reading the two Mailgirl stories that you mention (anything else you write, for that matter). Given your writing skill and your background, they promise to be most enjoyable.
Blair
PS: thank you ReaderMan … for the mentions (Jill in Summer at Cache Lake) in your followup post.
Wow. This is an interesting thread.
I give my distinction about porn vs erotica in three little pieces, because like everything else it is a spectrum with many degrees of difference:
“Porn” is about the act, the build up may or may not exist at all, but that is not the focus of the story or film.
“Erotica” or “softcore” is less about the act and more about the build up, the feelings, and the fallout.
For “Romance” the attention is squarely on the romantic feelings and the act may or may not happen at all, since the sex act is inconsequential to the emotions.
So yes, there is a whole spectrum at work and the tools to convey many things for a skilled writer, and many stories that self-classify as one have aspects of the others.
I can say I am proud to write Naked Fiction, the best broad label for the romance, comedy, tragedy and introspective stories we seem to write here.
I fell backwards into writing this. A few years back I was doing some private commisions in the realm of Foxy Boxing stories, stories of women fighting topless or naked in front of paying crowds. I don’t think I ever wrote any sex scenes into these stories as the notes I would recieve from the clients would be “more breast punching” and “a little less story”. These stories were closer to porn as the focus was on the act, in this case a professional fight, but many clients liked reading about the training and build up as well. They just did not want many relationship tangles and have everything focussed on a the payoff (the fight), and and wanted to feel the emotions and physical pain of their boxer whether they win or lose (a lot of clients wanted to see their girl lose). But I was doing this on someone else’s dime, it was not really my fetish. I was a erotica writer with a little boxing experience.
So in order to spark imagination for these stories, a true necessity as someone was paying me for 5-to-10k of words describing punching over and over again, I kept a folder in my DA profile to stimulate my old brainpan. A lot of pictures of athletic, confident, and sometimes shy naked women. The DA algorythim being what it was started bringing me SliceReality’s art, which lead me to Seahawk’s stories, and my world expanded.
For all the Mailgirls stuff I posted their are ten I’ve started and dropped. I am definately a gardener, I start with one scene and grow it from there, spreading out into a full story and hopefull soon a whole novel. One of the things I like best about MG fics is the psychology, some women want the job, others are coerced or begrudginly forced as if they have failed and this is their pennacne. So much goes into a mind that decideds to partake. And the world, the corporate, legal and socio-economic forces that would reward employers for using Mailgirls, the reactions of the fellow staff, the changes in a draub corporate environment, so many things to explore. And the rules are not se in stone yet, there are many aspects to explore in the “corporate nudity” subgenere.
I like writing Mailgirl fic because it is a growing genre. I jumped on near the start of something that is expanding and getting bigger. If you do a google search their is a porn company that produced a mailgirl video. Its a BDSM/light spanking vid from the preview but there are the naked women, numbers drawn on them delivering mail in the office. I guess it is actually some form of legitimacy, there must be people intrested if someone is making a porn video of it. Somebody owes Seahawk and Liz some money.
So yes, I will gladly contribute to Naked Fiction, hopefully finish the story I started and move on to my next project.
I would like for everyone to keep writing. I really feel like we have been spurring each other on. This is the best community on the net as far as I’m concerned. Let’s keep it going!
@sbjdaniels (post from February 25, 2020)
This mailgirl video sounds very interesting. But I wasn’t able to find it.
Could you please post the link to the video? If it is not welcome to post such links on this website, could you please send me the link via private message?
Thank you very much!
Search “Spanking the mail girl” on google. The production company is AntonFilms 😉
I found it!!!
Thanks a lot!
Kinsey Bay, you wrote the following two paragraphs up above:
At this point I’ve read (or listened to) The Volunteer probably four or five times, and I do think perhaps Naked Dan included so many references to masturbation and sexual thoughts because he was writing for the ASN board, posting updates periodically and he didn’t want to disappoint those that needed some good sexy stuff in every chapter.
It makes me wonder how the story might have changed if the novel was written more traditionally, without regard for making sure each chapter had some kind of emotional or sexual climax, so to speak. Would it have featured less erotic content?
Yes, I was writing for the ASN audience when I did the original draft of The “Volunteer”, and I’ve also wondered how I would have handled the book if I had been writing it like I write my other projects. I did add more sexual scenes because of the audience. I also felt committed to a chapter once it had been posted, so I didn’t go back and change much after the whole thing was written since each chapter had built on the previous ones.
I am writing a sequel, although life has hampered my writing time so much that I’m only 20,000 words into it. Since I changed points of view, I came up with the idea that The “Volunteer” is actually a book that Dani wrote and is being published in the sequel. I have Dani talking about her desire to be honest coupled with her editor’s desire to have more sexual content in the book. Dani very reluctantly put her masturbation scenes in the manuscript, but she makes it clear that she had rather not done that. (I did post the first few chapters of this sequel on ASN shortly before its demise.)
I haven’t posted much on here, but I have checked in from time to time on my phone. I’m not often at home on an actual computer that has a private Internet connection (as opposed to a work one), and I’m not going to write a long comment on my phone. So I’ve just been silently lurking. I always appreciate it when people mention The “Volunteer” in a positive light.