When you think of porn, you probably picture a cable guy getting seduced by a busty customer. But that type of erotica—the type that's geared toward men—is just mainstream porn. There's also porn—both visual and written—for women, LGBT people, and other groups. Rachel Kramer Bussel should know: She's written her own erotica and has also edited more than 60 women's erotica anthologies. She has even more in the works, including Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 3, which is currently taking submissions.
We talked to Kramer Bussel about what her work has taught her about women, porn, and desire.
How did you first get into writing and editing erotica?
I was in law school and reading a lot of erotica at the time. I saw a call for submissions for a book of celebrity erotica titled Starf-cker. This was 1999, so my immediate inclination was to write about Monica Lewinsky. I did, in a story called "Monica and Me." It got published, and I've pretty much been writing sexy stories ever since. My anthology editing came directly out of having short stories published in other editors' anthologies.
Is there such a thing as "women's" erotica?
Yes and no. There's erotica, including my own books, being marketed as "women's erotica," which I think can be a valuable thing for consumers if they are looking for books written by women that are about women and that showcase the work of women authors. Many women who likely would have been too nervous about publishing erotica a decade ago because they feared being judged are now doing so because it's become far more socially acceptable and mainstream, which I think is wonderful.
However, I know I have plenty of male readers who also enjoy my "women's" erotica, so I don't ever want to be shortsighted about who's reading or who might be reading. I think far more expansively about all fiction and believe that anyone can be the audience for erotica written by anyone. There are plenty of men writing amazing female characters, as well as vice-versa. "Women's erotica" is valuable, though, to those looking to read about women's lives, and probably one thing that distinguishes that from some erotica about men is that we're then usually talking about what else is going on in a woman's life beyond just who she sleeps with and how she has sex. To make a broad generalization, erotica geared toward women is about how the rest of a woman's experiences play into her sex life and choices around sexuality.
Why do you think it's important that women have access to erotica created by women?
I think this is more universal than gender in the sense that people want to read stories that feel authentic to them, especially when it comes to sex. There's nothing worse than getting into a novel or story and then feeling like, "Wait, nobody I know would ever do that." I would say that's the main thing women are looking for from erotica "for women," and what I try to do with my anthologies, is offer variety. Not just in terms of the types of characters, but things like including single women as well as women in relationships, along with where people are having sex and what kinds of sex they're having so readers don't get bored.
Are there any themes you often see come up in erotica created by women more so than men?
The biggest commonality I see when I put out a call for erotica by women, without specifying a specific theme, is stories about submissive women exploring BDSM. I think that's part of what made Fifty Shades of Grey such a runaway bestseller and that even women who aren't into kink in their personal lives are curious about and hungry for stories where power dynamics, which we all deal with in our everyday lives, are so explicitly laid out and then eroticized.
Yes, women are interested in practices like spanking and bondage and being in submissive/dominant relationships, but I think beyond the specific ways BDSM plays out, what's refreshing about kinky erotica—and why women authors gravitate toward it—is that it's a space that allows women to ask for what they want outright and to own those desires. Often, you'll see stories where the dominant partner, of any gender, is commanding a woman to expressly articulate her filthiest, naughtiest, most out-there desires in order for them to be fulfilled. She's being "forced" to say "I want this or that," and that might be something that would make her, and likely many of us, blush or squirm or be filled with uncertainty. But it is also something that completely turns her on, even if she doesn't know why.
Sexuality is so fraught for so many women that even saying something as simple as, "I want to kneel on the floor at your feet," can be complicated because then we often ask ourselves, "What does it mean that I want to kneel at someone's feet?" Especially if it's a man you're submitting to, it can make you question your feminism, your autonomy, and your identity, all of which makes submissive erotica especially ripe for exploration on the page. That's also why it crops up (pardon the pun) again and again. I think there's really an endless demand for kinky erotica that showcases the wide range of reasons women want to submit and what they get out of it and how their submissive desires can play off a dominant's creativity.
Let me be clear that not all women are interested in writing or reading erotica about submissive women. Plenty of authors are also writing about dominant women and about nonkinky sexuality. That's just one of the largest themes I've encountered year after year, and that interest doesn't seem to be waning.
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