Quote by GrushaVashnadze
This competition has, at least, prompted some fascinating discussions on the subject of what "debauched" actually means...

Quote by KimmiBeGood
You know your Alison series needed to be read in its entirety to see what it was really about. I know you never write just to be filthy ... you always have a much deeper storyline. I wish more had committed to reading Alison til the end to see how truly brilliant that series was.

That is very sweet of you, Kimmi. However, why the past tense? Alison Goes to London is alive and well, welcoming new readers all the time. I think it's still the best thing I've ever written here. Please tell your friends!

However - to tie your comment in with the above discussions on this "debauched" competition and what it means... I find it is important for me, in creating, appreciating or judging any work of art (and there's no reason why dirty stories can't be art), to clarify in my own mind the relationship between style and content. "Debauched" is a stylistic instruction: it tells us what sort of images, dialogue and events are likely to appear in the story. But it does not tell us the content, i.e. what the story is wanting to meaningfully say.

There is a lot of emphasis on style in the creative process these days - on Lush as much as elsewhere. That is not intrinsically a bad thing. Many people read stories here to have a damn good wank - and for that purpose, style is everything. Others here are more concerned about literary qualities, e.g. vocabulary, imagery, dialogue - a more respectable set of priorities, to be sure, but also principally about style. As a theatre musician myself, I am used to this: audiences and critics alike like to talk about the performance - the singers, the acting, the sets, the orchestra (style) - as much as or more than what the composer/author was wanting to say about the world in creating this work (content).

However, a really good work of art invites us to go deeper - because it may be trying to tell us things about ourselves, our relationships, the societies we live in, the universe we are part of. This can be as true in smut as in literature, theatre, music, art. Two examples out of many on Lush that I am impressed by are Jaymal's Lusts of the Flesh and curvygalore's Tobias series - very stylistically different from each other, but both with profound thought-provoking content.

But here's the rub - and it ties in with what you say above: a reader or audience member (or even a judge!) can only truly appreciate the quality of a work by getting to the end of it - whether it is a quatrain, or a short story, or a novel. It is a bit like unwrapping a Christmas present: the paper is lovely, and so is the gift tag, but often the box needs to be opened, the contents removed and viewed from several angles, before true appreciation sets in. You're not going to appreciate Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice if you give up before Darcy's first proposal; nor Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades if you leave at the first interval; nor H-G Clouzot's Le salaire de la peur if you give up before Yves Montand gets into his truck. In the Lush context, the style of Curvy's Tobias series is witty and endearing - but once I got to the end of it, I found myself amazed, shocked - and utterly delighted. Similarly, the debauched filth of Jaymal's Lusts of the Flesh makes for a damn good wank (er, a friend told me...), but once I realised where the protagonist had got to by the end of the story, I found myself deeply personally affected.

So, if I find myself in the position of having to assess someone else's work of art (and I do in a professional context, in the music world), then I have a series of choices to make. If I like and am comfortable in the particular style in which the person has composed or performed, then I will feel confident in my first impressions of the quality of its content. But if I am not, then it will take me far longer to feel able to assess that content honestly and competently.

So, to bring this back to debauchery (and who wouldn't want to do that?) - if I start to read a story on Lush and find myself faced with something I find filthy, vulgar or disgusting, then, if I like that particular style of filth, I will probably be very happy. If I don't, then, as a private citizen, I can, without guilt, drop it. But if I have a reason to provide a formal assessment of it, then I am duty-bound to read the whole thing. For only then will I have "unwrapped the present" and be able to assess with integrity the quality of its content.

So, thank you - please do encourage your friends to read Alison. The first three or four chapters may seem like EvilAngel.com-style porn - but that is just the style. The content unwraps itself through the rest of the novel, and is complex and multi-layered - concerning politics, religion, racism, the warping of ideals, mind-control, cognitive dissonance, friendship, and love.

As far as this "debauched" competition goes, it is so exciting to see so many different types of content attaching themselves to stylistic debauchery. I am sorry I have not had the time to read more of the wonderful stories there are! May I just give a shout out for dolphinman's The Frog Prince. Dolphinman's stories are frequently of the type which absolutely demands reading through to the end. His style initially appears gauche and disjointed - but then I realise he's playing with the reader - and by the end, I am floored.

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