The erotic awakening of S
A Toronto erotica writer reveals the tricks of the trade
Mar 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Jen Gerson
Staff Reporter
By day she's a Toronto computer programmer. By night – and sometimes during her lunch break – she writes erotica.
Maddy Stuart, a nom de plume, is a 24-year-old with a penchant for exploring the literary boundaries of lesbian bondage fiction.
Her work has been published in two erotica anthologies, Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage, and Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes published by Alyson books, available online through Amazon.com.
I.D. chatted with the budding scribbler about lusting at a shoe store, trying to make it as an erotica writer and what her mother thinks.
Q How did you get into this?
A I've always written creatively and all of my writing has taken an erotic bent. When I picked up my writing again seriously about a year and a half ago, I found that it naturally led in that direction. I came across a website that had an open call for submissions and so I sent a few things out. They published the first few stories I sent out and I was overjoyed, so I kept doing it.
Q So give me an example of how you come up with a scenario?
A Well, when I was a student, I had a part-time job at a shoe store, selling shoes on commission. So that turned into a lesbian-erotic story between the sales clerk and the customer. It was also a shoe fetish story.
When you're a sales clerk, you're in a subservient role where you're trying very hard to please someone else and you do the things they ask you to. But you're also trying to flatter them and coax them into your way of thinking. You're trying to make them see themselves in a new way. And there's something like that that's a lot like a seduction.
Q Do you think that a lot of salespeople flirt with their potential customers?
A It depends a lot on the store. I was working in a women's shoe store and a lot of my customers were, presumably, straight women. So there wasn't a whole lot of flirting going on except in my head sometimes.
Q Is this your day job?
A My day job is as a computer programmer and erotica is something I do as a hobby on the side.
Q Do you ever get caught writing erotica at work?
A When I write at work, I usually write during the lunch hour or after my day is finished. I actually try my best not to write anything too explicit at work, anything that might be too steamy. If it would be not good for someone to see at a webpage, then I don't want to write it at work.
Q When you tell people what you do, do they ever get uncomfortable?
A That's happened very rarely. The most common reaction that I get when I tell people is that they think it's kind of funny.
Q Do you ever wish this would become a full-time job?
A I do frequently wish that. I haven't made a whole lot of money from it so far. I think I have to be a lot more prolific than I am.
Q How many do you think you'd have to write to make a living at it?
A I think the best way to become successful writing erotica is first, to become successful as a writer and second, to flip it into another genre.
There's this trend with romance novels where the sex is getting more explicit and there's more of it. A romance writer can have some success writing erotica as well.
But the kind of erotica I'm interested in writing is published by independent presses, gay and lesbian presses, small presses, that kind of thing. It's a fairly small, niche market so there's not a lot of money in it.
Q What's the difference between erotica and porn?
A This distinction that most people make is that pornography is intended to arouse or titillate to get the reader off and anything that doesn't work toward that point is extraneous and can be ignored. Whereas erotica is still trying to arouse the reader, but it's trying to be artistic. It deals more with emotions and ideas.
The distinction between erotica and pornography is that erotica is trying to find out what's sexy about things and situations that don't relate to body parts.
For example, pornography may focus on someone's breast or someone's body. While erotica might think about what's sexy about someone leaning against a lamppost or the way her back looks when she's playing the piano.
QD o your parents know what you do?
A I have told my parents, yes.
Q How did they react?
A I didn't tell them until I had actually published something so, when I did tell them, they were actually proud of me.
Q Did they read it?
A No, they haven't read it. I don't think they want to.
Q What does the connoisseur look for in good erotica? How does one distinguish between good erotica and crappy erotica?
A I'd say what the connoisseur looks for is trying to explore the nature of what is sexy without talking about specific body parts.
If the writer can create a mood, eroticism just comes in the air. It's in every mood and every movement. Then something like an apple is erotic.
