Can erotic writing ever be anything other than mere titillation? A new art project aims to challenge traditional ideas about erotica, amongst other things, by encouraging readers to read others' fantasies and then edit the story, adding a touch of what turns them on too.
Radical X was set up last year as a platform for sex-positive, activist art-making and writing. It hosts participatory projects that explore the role of sexuality as a radical political force, and is a space where you can tell stories, ask questions and engage in debate. It claims to be a space for subversive, playful, critical creativity that makes links between the political and the up-close-and-personal.
Last year's project was about the relationship between radical activism and kinky sexuality, and this year's is just as interesting.Although not everyone understands activism and/or kink, many more people will have read erotic stories in their time and so the latest Radical X project, Open Sauce, is extremely intriguing. It's something both fun and challenging - online collaborative erotica that anyone can edit. Yes, you heard that right! The website describes it as giving you an "opportunity to step out of your comfort zone, and engage with the private thoughts and fantasies of others [...] As different people change the story to suit their tastes, it will evolve into something new."
It's really easy to edit the story on their website and you can see a list of the revisions that have been made with comments from each author. Handy if you want to explain why you've made a change to the text. As soon as you've read the story once, whether or not you make any amendments to it yourself, the temptation to check back and see what has changed will be great, I'm sure! Will the story be recognisable as the same one once the project reaches its conclusion?
So, what would you choose to do? You can use Open Sauce as a forum for your own erotic writing - although bear in mind that you can't be too precious about it as further changes will inevitably be made - and you can also brush up on your editing skills. It can be a place where you can correct others' grammatical errors without fear of causing offence! You can introduce some of your deepest darkest fantasies to the world and see whether they stay the course. Expand on the existing story or simply add another scene, or twist. It really is up to you.
Hopefully this project will help to open the readers' minds to new ideas, showing them that things they perhaps hadn't yet considered can be sexy. It's also reminded me that sex should be talked about and discussed more often, so any new way of encouraging people to do this is a great idea. Go on... push the boundaries a little and see what happens. Collaboration, even in fiction, is a very good thing indeed.
Lori Smith hasn't written much fiction before, but that may be about to change. Until then, you can usually find her spouting a bit of non-fiction over at Rarely Wears Lipstick.