What’s your limit to literary steam? How far should the characters go when it comes to erotica? How far should the writer take their words when describing it?
Are you a flirty, quick-glance, floaty-curtain-scenes kind of reader? Maybe you like the suggestion of what’s about to happen than what happens when it’s happening.
Perhaps you like something that goes a tad further. Forget about implied intentions. Show me devouring hot kisses and slick flesh. Show me something that makes me turn around to see if anyone sees what I’m reading!
My style of writing starts with floaty curtains but moves from there. I appreciate what these softer symbols offer, but not all fiction is sugary sweet—certainly not mine. I bring this up because I recently had an unusual reading experience. It involved adult themes in a second-hand book I bought at a craft market.
Tit-sucking was almost scrawled out of existence (the novel is an adult thriller) on page one.
It got me thinking: How many other people are offended by such words and make edits like these? And, if a boob on page one is too much for one individual, why would they keep reading?
And why obliterate words at all? They are still there, I see them—and one must first read them to know to destroy them. Was it done as some form of misguided justice to protect the next reader? Or was it a knee-jerk response to a bad life experience that they wanted metaphorically erased?
As it happened, the reader did turn the page. They persisted with their special edits right throughout the book—the scratches getting deeper whenever a penis popped up!
Someone had deep-seated issues with sex! Death and murder were acceptable. Sex needed special attention!
It’s not unusual to see edits in second-hand books. A misspelled word is rewritten in the margin, and poor grammar is circled, but gouging out words and sentences is a totally new one to me.
How about you? Do you make edits in books? Have you seen them made like this before? Would you obliterate words like tits, boob, pussy and cock from the books you read? Do you have a preference for the kind of erotica you like? Drop me a line.
-Michael Forman (Author of Adult (sometimes erotic) Fiction, see below)
“Forman’s writing style is artful, with the protagonist Mitchell’s warped thought processes masterfully exposed. The author has a powerful and vivid command of language and his word pictures are stark and disturbingly real.”
– Linda J Bettenay, author of ‘Secrets Mothers Keep’ and ‘Wishes For Starlight’.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.