Erotic fiction is experiencing a new wave of popularity – and, it seems a new level of respectability.
Collections of erotic fiction are suddenly everywhere. And people are no longer ashamed of enjoying it. The ‘90s, it seems, was the decade of chick lit, while the noughties have apparently been well named.
This is a genre populated mainly by women writers, who have moved from under the counter to the literary mainstream.
Louise France wrote in The Observer: “As a publishing trend it might best be summed up thus – from big knickers to no knickers. Ten years ago the bestseller lists were topped by the frustrated Bridget Jones, a fictional creation less interested in sex than in the cigarette she could smoke afterwards. Part of her popularity – and that of the clones that followed – was that she was far too neurotic to be good in bed. It was romance, not lust, which made her pulse beat faster.
“A decade on and chick lit now seems curiously chaste, as lascivious as a warm mug of Horlicks. But a new kind of explicit bedside reading, both fictional and autobiographical, means the three-for-two counter in Waterstone’s now displays the kind of X-rated material more traditionally found in a cornershop in Soho…
“True, some of these books have been risible, a publisher’s idea of a quick buck. Others have seemed absurdly opportunistic. Want to complain about your husband’s poor performance in bed? Write a book! But the best of the titles means that a new kind of graphic literature, written from a woman’s point of view, is reaching a mainstream readership. Whereas previous generations might have been uneasy about the distinctions between erotica and pornography, for many of these authors the debate is redundant. They argue that good erotic fiction explores women’s fantasies and shows them to be acceptable – what’s so wrong with that?”
It’s popular. Besides being great fun to write, there’s clearly a market for it. Why not give it a try? Karlita Diamond will get you on track with her erotic fiction course, and we can get you writing sex that won’t make it onto the Bad Sex List. You can find both these courses under the Erotic and Sensual section on allaboutlove.net.
