Writing Erotica as a Man

Please fish out your tiniest violin and get ready to play a mournful tune, because I’m about to tell you just how tough it is to be a cis man who writes erotica.

Unlike almost every other genre and sub-genre of fiction, erotica is both written and read primarily by women. That is true of mass-market erotica, true of indie published erotica, true of sex-blogging and amateur erotica, and overwhelmingly true of slash and fanfic. While women who write literary fiction are apparently eight times more likely to get attention from publishers if they submit their work under a man’s name, in erotica they can write as themselves without fear of being pushed to the bottom of the pile.

Which is great for them, but what about meeeee? As a cis man who mostly writes straight erotica, I don’t enjoy any of the structural advantages afforded my peers in the crime fiction or sci-fi genres. I struggle along in the knowledge that not only must my work succeed on its own merits, I might actually have to put more time and thought than other authors into understanding what my audience wants to read, if I want it to pass the credibility test.

If it wasn’t bad enough that I have to compete on a level playing field, rather than one tilted decisively in my favour, there are even one or two opportunities I’m denied specifically because of my gender. For anyone who writes short-form smut, Rachel Kramer Bussel’s ‘Best Women’s Erotica’ is pretty much the biggest anthology out there – in commercial terms, anyway. Can I submit my work to it though? Nooooo, I cannot. Because I’m not a woman.

I also have to watch people gleefully sharing memes that highlight just how bad some men are at writing about sex, and about women’s bodies in general. Sure, 90% of those guys are pompous, arrogant windbags whose thinly-disguised and anatomically improbable wank fantasies are taking time, space, and money away from talented women who don’t want to adopt a male pseudonym in order to get published, but do the comments always have to be so mean?

Finally, there’s the suspicion I encounter as a man operating in a space where women want to feel like they can write about sex in a safe and open way, without being harassed, abused, or mistaken for provocateurs just looking to get laid. It’s almost like they think men might have an ulterior motive for writing erotica, or for joining community initiatives and events that place them in overwhelmingly female environments.

It’s. All. So. Unfair.

Of course it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s the odd benefit, I guess. Funnily enough, while it’s certainly not perfect (*cough* trans representation *cough* black voices *cough*), a genre led and shaped by people accustomed to being marginalized elsewhere in the literary world is more aware than most of how important it is that all viewpoints are represented. I’ve been given opportunities and platforms that I might not otherwise have enjoyed precisely because I’m a man.

When I’ve put the work in, and produced something genuinely good, I feel like I’ve been able to offer a different perspective to most other erotica writers, which in turn has opened doors and led to a level of praise disproportionate to the quality of my output. In a genre where cis male voices are often conspicuous by their absence, I have very little competition for the attention of audiences who do want to read fiction written by men. Yes, maybe I have to battle past an initial assumption that my fiction will be porny and distasteful, but hasn’t that just made me a better writer overall?

And let’s be honest folks, if you’re a man who can write about sex, you’re probably going to find no shortage of women keen to find out what else you can do with your brain and fingers. Y’know, if that’s your kind of thing.

Damn. Is it…is it possible that being a man who writes erotica isn’t such a struggle after all? Should I actually just shut the fuck up about all the tiny barriers to entry I face in my chosen genre, when I’m surrounded by cis women and trans people who would encounter much, much bigger obstacles if they wanted to write crime fiction, or biography, or TV screenplays, or LITERALLY ANYTHING THAT’S NOT EROTICA OR ROMANCE? Should I instead count my blessings that my gender has probably opened as many doors as it’s closed, and that I’ve learnt so much about writing sex – and writing women – from all the amazing, inclusive, nourishing people I’ve met in this community?

Yes. Yes I should.

And you know what I really, really SHOULDN’T do? Pretend to be a woman in order to game the system. Pretend to be a woman because I want to get published. Pretend to be a woman so I can catfish and sext with people on Twitter who think I’m someone I’m not.

This isn’t fucking Shakespeare in Love. Erotica is not a literary genre where men are forbidden from working. We’re not marginalized or exploited or abused. Opportunities exist for us, and where we do have to prove that we know our shit, that we’re doing this for the right reasons, that we belong, those demands are neither onerous nor unjustified. We may not look up and see open sky above our heads, but unlike women who just want to get their novel in front of a literary agent without adopting a male pen name, we’re not bumping up against a glass ceiling either. Progress is possible – we just have to work for it.

Pretending to be a woman instead? Yeah, that’s not working for it.

In his ‘coming out’ post yesterday, Sorcha Rowan compared his starting position to that of a woman wanting to write science fiction. “Would you really buy lesbian erotica from a dude?”, he asked, and clearly we’re all meant to assume that the answer to that question is a resounding and universal “no”.

Well I call bullshit on that. Is it harder to sell lesbian erotica as a dude? Absolutely. Is it impossible, in a fragmented literary market and a genre where self-published fiction is dominant? Nope. Even if it was, would that put you in the same position as a woman looking to work in a category of fiction where for literally decades agents, publishers and readers have ignored and marginalised female voices? Where the main industry awards had to deal with annual campaigns by ‘unrepentantly racist, misogynist, and homophobic’ alt-right authors to block recognition of ‘niche, academic, overtly leftist’ nominees? Absolutely not.

Look, everyone has a right to anonymity. The right to work under a pseudonym. The right to an entirely fictitious persona, even. But this isn’t Emily Brontë writing as Ellis Bell because it was literally the only way for her to get taken seriously. This is someone making a calculated decision that the easiest way to get access to a space and a revenue stream dominated by women – and by all accounts, to get access to the women within it – was to pretend to be one of them. And that fucking sucks. It sucks even harder when your rationale for behaving that way is so dismissive of (or oblivious to) the very real barriers faced by women and minority groups in other genres.

Joking aside, being a cis man who writes erotica is not always easy. There are challenges and frustrations. But overall I think that’s a good thing, both for us as writers and for the safety and integrity of the wider community. People ought to know who we are, and we ought to be accountable for what we write. Men who decide to write and present themselves as women are trying to sidestep that process. That would be bad enough if they were doing nothing more than writing and publishing their erotica, but when they’re also flirting with and seducing the women who read it, I’d say their behaviour crosses over into something much more problematic.

If you’re a man who writes erotica, it’s fine to wish that the genre – and the community of people who write and read it – was more inclusive. I mean I think there are better targets for your indignation, but whatever. Just please realise that even if it feels like you have to work a bit harder to make progress, you still face nothing like the ingrained prejudices and structural disadvantages encountered by women elsewhere in the literary world; and that your response to the small amount of adversity that may exist should NEVER take you into territory where you’re actively exploiting the trust and goodwill of the people around you.