If erotica has risen like a phoenix ever since El James happened to Internet, it is only because the woman of today has shed her inhibition in admitting to her sexual feelings which lay buried within her due to ages of conditioning by a patriarchal society. SHAlINI SAKSENA delves into the phenomenon of growing interest in erotic literature to somehow make sense of modern day’s fastest exploding genre
Erotica may have taken the fictional world by storm in the 21st century, but it’s ancient root lies in the Roman Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter. And, it was not just the Romans, but also Greeks who wrote erotica. During Renaissance, many poems were circulated in manuscript form to a limited readership. These were sonnets of William Shakespeare who wrote erotic poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of lucrece. Even DH lawrence has some love poems to credit. But as time passed, erotic fiction became bolder. Today, erotic fantasy, similar to romantic fantasy, has become more graphic and goes into many more details when it comes to describing sex scenes.
So, it is not surprising when American author Anne Rice, under the pseudonym of AN Roquelaure, wrote the Sleeping Beauty trilogy — The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment and Beauty’s Release — published in the US in 1983, 1984 and 1985, respectively. These are bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, masochism (BDSM) novels loosely based on the Sleeping Beauty fable. The novels describe explicit sexual adventures of the woman — in this case Beauty — and the male characters Alexi, Tristan and laurent, talking about male and female dominance vividly. The trilogy was Rice’s bestseller, outselling her first successful novel Interview With The Vampire.
According to US-based sexuality counsellor and New York Times best-selling author of She Comes First Ian Kerner, erotica has existed for years and is quite popular with women, particularly as romances. The only thing that has changed is the massive popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey by El James, which renewed interest in the genre.
“In the past five years, Internet porn has become mainstream and increased in popularity with women as well. This represents an overall trend that is recognising the untapped sexual potential of women. eBooks play a big role in the popularity of erotica. They offer confidentiality and privacy so people don’t need to feel embarrassed reading them. Also, various book selling websites have pushed the prices way down, so erotica is affordable. Obviously self-publishing increasing the market of content that’s available,” Kerner says.
The popularity of these books can be gauged from the fact that the sales of e-book in fiction rose 42 per cent over the year before, to $1.8 billion. If this is not enough, eight of the top 10 bestselling novels in August 2012 were works of erotica. In fact, a publishing house has witnessed an increase in sales by more than 56 per cent over the past three years.
The credit for this phenomenal rise in sales has to be attributed to El James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. The trilogy of erotic novels that began as self-published fan fiction, exploded on to the New York Times bestseller list, reportedly selling more than 35 million US copies last year. When Sylvia Day’s second Crossfire book Reflected in You came out last October, 2,86,000 e-books and 1,00,000 trade paperback copies sold in the first week itself. Her two books, Bared to You and Reflected in You, have sold over six million books in its first eight months of publication.
And there’s even more coming from Day’s kitty this year. She has recently agreed to a two-book deal with Cosmopolitan magazine and Harlequin to launch the Cosmo Red Hot Reads eBook series. Afterburn, the first book, releases on August 15 and the second title, Aftershock, goes to the stand on November 15, 2013.
Authors and counsellors the world over opine that the only reason why Fifty Shades has become popular is due to the word of mouth among mothers and average women, which made it “normal” to read. “Word of mouth has played a big role in its success as did the fact that it has a strong romantic tale at its centre, so it piggybacks on the popularity of the romance genre. Also, BDSM is a strong fantasy among women, more so with women finding themselves needing to take charge at work and home, the fantasy of being dominated and not having to be in charge is all the more resonant,” Kerner explains.
Seconds Manish Singh, country head, Harlequin India Pvt ltd. “Coming from a world of Cosmopolitan magazine — which focuses almost exclusively on satisfying male pleasure — it’s nice to see a story elucidating on female pleasure. It is easy to get into a sexual rut with a busy life and children. These stories combat that reality and have, hence, gained popularity,” Singh states, adding that erotica has always been popular.
“It was never a niche genre, just a privately relished one. The only thing that has changed after Fifty Shades is that it has been interesting how openly people have been purchasing it and other erotic novels. That’s proof of it becoming less clandestine and hence the popularity in India as well and that erotica is essentially defined as something devoted to or tending to arouse sexual love or desire,” Singh says.
He also tells you that writing erotica is much like taking a new lover — you can’t take for granted that your past prowess will please them. “You have to figure out what’s right for each one, what will this character want, what will she say, what will he doIJ I don’t think one should limit an author’s imagination or restrict the shape the writer wants to give the story. It is not sinful, just private,” Singh says.
So, with erotica becoming 4,000 per cent more popular than most fictional bestsellers today, the genre is here to stay. Perhaps inevitably, the books have now inspired their own fan following, raising the possibility that this offshoot of one mega popular series can spawn a mega popular heir of its own. Anyone who thought these books will die down have been proven wrong with the Crossfire series even surpassing the sales of Fifty Shades. Crossfire sold a combined six million copies worldwide till the beginning of this year.
But this doesn’t mean that erotica writing has not run into castigations. There are some who could not finish reading Fifty Shades because of its semi-porn content. “literature can’t be benchmarked into a particular form of writing. Every book has a flavour all its own which becomes the key selling point of the book and the author. Anything creative requires an open mind and anything controversial always draws criticism,” Singh says.
However, Dr Alka Pande, consultant arts advisor and curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre who has written several books like The New Age Kama Sutra for Women, Chinese Erotica and leela has a different take on the subject. “First, we must define erotica. Are we talking about a nayika (heroine) who is confident, who exudes sexuality and knows how to present herself in a way which is sexual, or, are we talking about semi-pornIJ
“Fifty Shades, in my opinion, has nothing to do with erotica. There is a dominant male and a submissive woman. Where is the nayikaIJ On top of that, the language leaves a lot to be desired,” Pande says.
Does this mean that women have become more open to porn and want to play a wide range of sexual adventuresIJ “Yes. Recently at Good in Bed, we surveyed over 3,000 men and women on sexual adventurism: Overall, participants indicated that engaging in sexually adventurous behaviour increased their sexual satisfaction, with a large majority indicating that their partner’s satisfaction was also improved by engaging in such behaviour. Women were significantly more likely than men to have engaged in a wider variety of sexual activities, indicating that women are more sexually open than society constructs them to be. For example, women were significantly more likely to have engaged in talking dirty during sex than men, as well as sharing fantasies verbally,” Kerner tells you.
Raelene Gorlinsky, publisher of Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc, opines that the kink that these books sell has made people curious.
The Internet has brought an awareness of kinky sex to the masses. Erotica and erotic romance books give them a chance to explore the kinkier side of sex in the safety of their homes without taking risks. Earlier women were told that certain sexual feelings were sick and depraved. These books show them that other people have these feelings too and are dealing with them in ways that are not destructive, but actually enhance intimacy.
“Therefore, the Internet and the increasing use of eReaders are probably the two biggest reasons for the increase in sales. Now, women can shop for erotica from the privacy of their homes and they can read it without anyone knowing. The other reason is the sexual liberation of women. Women are more aware of how their bodies work and are more free to explore their sexual desires. Women have been told for so long to bury their sexual desires and to feel shame about them. Reading about strong, independent women who are not ashamed of their sexual feelings helps women to own up their feelings,” Gorlinsky explains, adding that it doesn’t mean that women love their partners, lovers, husbands do what they are reading.
“For most women, it is fantasy. They find it exciting to read, but don’t necessarily want to try it out themselves,” Gorlinsky, whose publishing house sells around 500 erotica books per year with a backlist of 4500, tells you.
She attributes the timing of the El James’ trilogy to its popularity. “Timing is a big part of it. Her books hit the market when erotica was already out of the closet. Women had been buying erotica openly and publishers were starting to take notice. E-readers, book clubs and the Internet, all contributed. James also coat-tailed on the huge success of the Twilight series and had built a very large following in the fan fiction world. But what made it such a huge phenomenon was the American media echo chamber. That is, when a story hits a major media outlet and every other media outlet follows it. The US media caught the Fifty Shades of Grey fever and every television show, radio show, newspaper and magazine in the country ran stories about it, joked about it and discussed it,” Gorlinsky states.
Meanwhile, the authors have not only raised the bar of quantity but also intensity. They have certainly written more of it because it has become so lucrative. Writers who never could have made a living before from writing are doing so now, some even becoming rich. However, if one is talking about raising the bar on the intensity of sex, yes. “Some things we considered quite extreme when we started publishing erotica and erotic romances in 2000 now figure in romance books which aren’t even labeled erotic. Writers have taken to writing increasingly intense scenes with more adventurous types of sexual encounters,” Gorlinsky says.
The fact that women are more in control of their own bodies, less ashamed of their sexual urges, more willing and able to explore their sexuality, and men have discovered that this reality does not threaten their relationships with women but quite the opposite, makes their sexual relationships more satisfying. Hence the growing popularity of these books. “Erotica has literally taught many women to enjoy sex and be orgasmic,” Gorlinsky concludes.