A few months ago a peculiar thing started popping up on my radar.  Erotica has become increasingly popular, particularly the subgenre stuff that caters to, let’s say fringe interests.  I saw a few news stories about “Dinosaur Erotica”, one in particular dealt with a Pterodactyl.  My first thought was….dinosaurs almost certainly had a cloaca, not mammalian genitalia…
But then I heard about one involving a merman and I threw my logic out the window.  The merman thing was ridiculed, much as all the other books were ridiculed, but how many stories are written about beautiful mermaids desperately wanting to turn human so they can stroll into the sunset with their human beloved?  I can think of several, not to mention one major motion picture that was a favorite of my youth.  (No, not the cartoon one, I’m older than that, but Ariel and whatshisname are another example)

Then, along came this nice lady making a boat-load of cash off bigfoot porn…sorry, “erotica”.  I have seen entire missives about how this is the downfall of literature.  One person in particular said that all self-published work was basically bigfoot porn.  What?  While it may be true that my books have some strange scenes in them, never once did one of my characters give bigfoot a handy-j out in the woods somewhere.

Hmmm…..I seem to have gotten off topic….

Sploosh!

Now, I want to be clear.  The plot of a book being, essentially, mythical (or extinct) creature beastiality is pretty odd.  It’s worth talking about on social media or over beers at the bar, or whatever, because, frankly, it’s funny to think about.  Great conversation starter too.  “What’s wrong with the lady Pterodactyls?  How do they feel that the male pterodactyls are essentially mating with their food?”  Come on, try to convince me chatting about that in a public, booze-addled environment wouldn’t be a great way to spend some time!
My problem is with the people who are bashing it.   I only have a single question:

How strange is it really?

Think about it….I read mostly science fiction, anybody want to critique those storylines for “believe-ability”?
Young boy playing video game, destroys entire alien race.
Amish space explorers colonizing and farming other worlds.
Creating a human body out of other pieces then bringing it to life with lightening.
People wake up inside a cube trying to kill them.
Super heroes fighting zombies.

All of those storylines are weird, but good and very unique.  I would go so far as to say that strange scenarios are kind of the hallmark of fiction, at least science fiction.

Real turtle porn is the next big thing

So, let’s stop insulting the basic premise.  I mean sure, it’s weird as hell that a T-Rex is going to magically turn into a man and then make some lady’s teeth sweat, but that’s just fiction for you.
What I really see going on here is a niche being filled (read into that what you will, giggity).  It has been a long standing fact that women prefer written sexy stuff to pictures or videos of sexy stuff.  Personally, I think that’s because most mainstream porn generally depicts women “enjoying” things that 99% of women would hate, but hey, what do I know?

Basically, these stories are campy and fun, many include a good dose of humor, AND, here’s the important part, if a lady is caught reading one she can laugh it off and say “Oh these stories are so silly…”

“I want to be clear, I’m not looking for a girlfriend…”

50 Shades of Grey has taught us that many folks really do want to read erotica and will happily choose to do so if they feel that they can read it without shame, even better if they can talk about it with their friends.  Sex is seriously messed up in this country (as well as others I assume, but I live in the US, so that’s my data set).  Men watch porn, this is known.  It’s one of those “boys will be boys” things.  But society has tried to beat into women that they shouldn’t really be sexual, or at least that they shouldn’t like pornography.  It’s dirty.  It’s wrong.  Blah blah blah.  Obviously, this is not true of everyone, but I do think it is true of a large number of people, especially in the 40-100 year old age group.

These books are actually good for society!  That sounds crazy, right?  Follow me here….They allow people to indulge themselves in a perfectly safe, perfectly harmless world.  Instead of being repressed, many are creaking open the door a little bit and admitting that maybe they do like erotica or porn or whatever you want to call it.  This is a good thing.  Repressed desires do not a healthy society make.  I’m not implying that EVERYONE should be reading monster porn, or any porn at all, it’s not for everybody.  I’ll stick to science-fiction adventure books myself.  The point is, I think many more people do want to read erotica, but they fear all the various stigmas attached.

Sure, maybe all these books aren’t perfectly written, but some of them have a “B” movie kind of appeal.  No one is claiming that Sharknado had good acting, good writing, good effects, a budget, anyone even remotely sober on set, you get my point.  Still, Sharknado was a smashing success, at least as much as can be expected from a ridiculous B movie.
I have heard other possible reasons for the rise of erotica.  The one that holds the most credence with me is the E-reader.  No longer can everyone around you see the book you are reading.  I can imagine that would go a long way towards people being open to reading new stuff.

The fact that “Moan For Bigfoot” could earn the author 30 grand in a month is a big wake up call.  People want to read sexy stuff.  If you think the writing in those books is terrible, maybe try writing some yourself.  It might be fun and, you know, the whole 30 thousand dollars thing…  Sure, maybe bigfoot sex isn’t exactly sexy to some people, but as a man with size 16 feet, I would politely request that you keep an open mind.