Are you looking to get no respect as an author? Are you looking to get pre-judged by friends and family for your work? Do you want a genre that encourages pen names and anonymity because of the hostility towards it from the general public? Well have I got the genre for you!

I've been called a pornographer (there's no graphing involved!) a pervert, a sick-o and a slut (the joys of anonymity. No one knows which gendered insults to hurl so I get both). Why? Because I write erotica.

Erotica is derided as an easy genre. Even before 50 Shades it was a genre stereotyped for bad writing and weak plots. Erotica books were just a series of strung together naughty scenes and no one cared about anything but the masturbatory appeal (not that that isn't fun). Added to this was a judgement about the types of people that write erotica. Men like De Sade can be thanked for giving the impression that we're all sick, evil people who need to be locked away. Even truly great authors like Anne Rice had to use pen names when dealing with the genre.

So why do it? Clearly I'm a good enough writer for a more "respectable" genres right? Right? Compliment me damnit! Well, ok fine, lets just assume I'm good enough then. Why wouldn't I write romance, where the sex is implied, or YA where the sex is implied or horror where the sex is implied and then punished? Well for one thing I like sex.

Sex is a biological necessity. It is a drive that can be stronger than the drive to eat because it propagates our species. It feels amazing, its healthy and we (as a society) despise it. Now, sure, promiscuity and unsafe sex can cause a lot of headaches but sex in general carries a stigma that is just absurd. Don't believe me? Look at the show Vikings. They can blood eagle a guy and be rated PG14 but if they dare show more than a second of nipple or butt, if they have the audacity to show a penis or vagina.......hard R instantly. Even the act of love making has to be quick, awkward and done covered in cloth. I'd scream to heaven that it makes no sense but believers in heaven actually have a lot to do with the reasoning for it.

Somewhere along the line human beings got this idiotic idea in their heads that pleasure is a bad thing. Not just sex with a partner (which might cause fights or unwanted pregnancy) but even masturbation. The simple act of pleasuring yourself with a couple of fingers is considered taboo. Why? What harm does it do? Better yet, what good does it do?

Sexual pleasure (whether alone or safely with a partner, a couple of partners, the entire football team, however you do it) is healthy. It relieves stress, it burns calories and it frees your mind. We live in a hard world. We're in the midst of a major social shift, political strife is exactly where its' always been (one bad day away from Armageddon) we're getting poorer and few of us have some great cause worth living for. We need vacations. We need a bit of escapism to take us away from all the shit in our lives. Something that is harmless fun, something that feels good, something to make us dream again. That something can be attained with 2 damn fingers on the right bit of flesh between your legs.

Erotica can be intelligent, well written, plot driven literature. It should be, in my not-so-humble opinion, but whether it is or not is secondary. What matters most is that it provokes fantasies. Does it get you day dreaming about that hunk or that goddess. Does it make you want to lock yourself in the bedroom or bathtub and assault yourself with pleasure until you can do nothing but lay there with a dopey grin on your face? No genre does that like erotica. Horror makes you wonder if those shadows are empty, comedy makes you giggle (which is almost as good but doesn't last as long), adventure takes you away for a time but adds imagined stresses to your life.

Erotica is my genre because of all the genres out there it is versatile, it is invigorating and most importantly it is the easiest escape into fantasy. So think what you want about the quality of the writing, the depth of the plot, the perversions of the sex. I write vacations to pleasure freaking island and I know we could all use one sometimes. We're built for it.