Amanda Earl has something to add

Writing labelled "literature" has dealt with every illicit and illegal activity from drugs (Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey), to non consensual sex (Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy), underage sex (Lolita by Nabokov), incest (The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz) to name only a few that spring to mind from contemporary and older literary periods. And I haven't said a word about Shakespeare or the Bible. What was once banned as scandalous pornography (Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence; erotic stories of Anaïs Nin) is now studied by academics as literature.

What is claimedabout the difference between erotica as a genre and mainstream literary fiction is that in the latter the above topics do not serve to titillate or arouse the reader. Do they not? I think that's just a dishonest fiction that society likes to tell itself so as to avoid dealing with sex when it isn't pretty or romantic. I admit to reading literary works and being aroused by the themes and the writing, but also wanting more graphic portrayals of sex. That's one of the reasons that Canadian writer Russell Smith wrote "Diana: A diary in the second person," a novel about a woman's desire to be dominated. Smith is a fairly well known Canadian
mainstream literary writer of award winning fiction. He has said that he has become tired of fiction that pans to the fireplace during sex and that this frustration was also something he experienced about his own writing.

I can't disguise my erotica as literature because I'm too brazen about it. I write to arouse my readers and myself by means of stories that depict unbridled lust for the body and the mind. This means all my characters are over 18, sex is always consensual and not between family members. Would I like to explore underage sex, incest and rape in my erotica? Yes. Because these are subjects that make for extremely powerful conflict and tension.

To answer the questions specifically:

I have many dark stories lurking in me, involving such fantastical notions as devil worship, sexual predators from Mars, bestiality, rape, incest, death and taxes. ok maybe not taxes ;).

I don't have a bad self because I believe everyone has stories of this nature inside them, taboo fantasies etc. There is nothing unhealthy or bad about having fantasies. When they become unhealthy and dangerous is when a person can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. It is not through the reading of literature that one becomes a danger to society but by repression and serious mental disorder.

Yet government censors continue in this day and age unfortunately to ban works of art that deal with sexual fantasy. Look at the terrible piece of legislative shit Canada's wretched right wing minority government is trying to turn into law: the denial of public funding to movies that
government bureaucrats consider inappropriate

It's a horrifying time to be a creator of art. I never thought my country would stoop so low.

Alas I'm not currently writing or publishing works that deal with my darkest fantasies. Not because I think it's wrong to have them or to disseminate them, but because there's simply no legitimate publisher who will publish them and if I post this kind of thing on a blog, it will either be taken down or I will be branded as a dangerous sexual deviant. And yet there's a part of me that wonders about the notion of posterity. So I probably should be writing about these fantasies.

However even responding to this post makes me twitch a bit because whoever googles me will discover, if they didn't know already, what kind of unflowery fantasies I have. Or maybe...just maybe...I want them to know ;)

Amanda Earl
amanderotica.blogspot.com. Her latest story,
"Love Lies Bleeding" about a man who finds menstruating women sexy is on her blog.


KB adds: Amanda has never been afraid to go anywhere that I can tell. Love Lies Bleeding is a good story, so pop over and read it.