Bonk The Dinosaur - well, why not?

You've probably heard, by now, that the 'latest thing' is dinosaur porn.

 

 

Yes, we can start with a good laugh at the spectacularly shit photoshopping on the cover, even though, conceptually, the cover is a work of genius in that it signals exactly what you're going to get from the book. We can, if we've looked into it in the slightest, have a bit of a mutter about the fact that the 'authors' of this genre (apparently two American students) are charging upwards of three quid for very, very short stories about shagging extinct reptiles while wearing some sort of brass bra, and quite probably lipstick and suspenders as well. We could maybe quote and mock the admittedly bloody awful prose style - yup, you thought EL James made Dan Brown look like Stephen King; Christie Sims and Alara Branwen make EL James look like at least the average Sun leader writer.

 

My own immediate, personal reaction is, of course, furious jealousy that these two utterly terrible writers, are getting worldwide publicity when I am not. I doubt that there are many erotic writers who don't feel at least a flicker of it. But there is something quite interesting about the way this concept has suddenly exploded all over the media. It's being treated as something amusing, a bit strange and maybe a little bit icky, but so far no one is screaming and shitting the bed about it being an Awful Threat To Our Young People, and no one is demanding it be classified as Extreme Porn and banned.

 

Of course, a lot of people would say that it's only a story, and therefore there is no need to worry about real women (or indeed real dinosaurs) having been coerced into performing sex acts for entertainment or other people's financial gain. But Darryn Walker's piece of equally badly-written and entirely preposterous fiction, Girls (Scream) Aloud led to him being arrested, charged and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, though he was eventually acquitted. While it's likely that Walker got into trouble because his story was about real, named individuals even though there is a longstanding tradition of fanfic about both copyrighted fictional characters and actual living celebrities, there's also the possibility that erotic fiction that is written, aimed at and consumed by women rather than men is perceived as silly and unimportant. The concept of mythic-beast-shaggery was dealt with in a male-oriented, male-created film, The Beast (Walerian Borowczyk) which basically features a bloke in a monkey suit with  a giant willy being wanked off by some woman's feet. Oh and a girl sticking a rose up her chuff and some horses having genuine horse sex. The film is variously described as subversive, dangerous, beautiful and truthful, and was banned for decades: having seen it at some 'transgressive' film festival years ago, my verdict is more along the lines of 'unintentionally hilarious'.

 

Some people's sexual tastes are, well, weird. They are not shared by the minority. That doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong. There is one faulty brand of cod-feminism which insists that any kind of paraphilia (sexual interest in something other than a partner's erogenous zones) is exclusive to men, and that women want 'love', but there's plenty of evidence that women can be just as sexually interested in objects, concepts and physical impossibilities as men might be. Just grab yourself a copy of My Secret Garden - the huge range of women's fantasies in that book include all sorts of BDSM, bestiality, supernatural stuff. The truth that if you can think of a thing, someone, somewhere, is wanking over it applies just as much to women as to men. Mostly, though, niche smut tends to be screamingly amateurish. Back in the Guild Of Erotic Writers era, we often had to try to explain to would-be authors that very, very few people are going to be as thrilled as they are by 3000 words on the precise flavour of the thirty different cheeses that your protagonist shoves up his ringpiece, and you really don't need to do a drawing in the margin of the specific brand-name box with a hole in it that is the object of your desire.

 

Author Aishling Morgan, aka Peter Birch, achieved well-deserved success by being the first - and is quite possibly still the only - author to combine an interest in fairly out-there filth (nappies, pony play, lactation, mutation) with an ability to write well, and Googling for 'dinosaur porn' doesn't lead you to any product that isn't by these two particular authors - or is just yet another Eek Boo Hoo Tee Hee opinion piece on the 'phenomenon' - which consists of about seven short stories and nothing else.

 

The authors have, apparently produced a lot of other stories which they describe as 'beast sex... designed to unlock your darkest fantasies' and which apparently feature orcs and weretigers as well as giant lizards. I'm ever so slightly inclined to get in touch and ask them what they could do with the concept of the Illuminati and a story of Prince Philip and Peter Mandelson turning into giant lizards while bonking some picturesque pauper.

 

Actually, maybe I should write that one myself. Two pages and £3.99 on Amazon. That will do. Or maybe what I need is, you know, some really filthy thoughts about...

 

 

 

 

 

Minor Erotic Writer Fail

Back in the days of the Guild, when erotic writing was on all of our minds a lot, we used to discuss the way in which almost every experience could be turned into some form of erotic story. I have, admittedly, long maintained that there is nothing in this world that someone, somewhere, wouldn't want to have a wank over, and I say this as a former reader of erotic fiction submissions who is still haunted by the Bloke With A Thing About Teatowels. Whose manuscript was illustrated with little drawings of... oh go on, work it out.

(image 'borrowed' from seller of fabric items)

And I did also have a bit of a chat with the Countess at the weekend over where and how Stuff turns into Stories, and it's not just a matter of 'Oh, I'll put you and your entourage of naughty boys into a book, because there's all  these filtration processes and clever stuff wot I does and all that...' It is, in fact, quite entertaining to look back at a piece of work and pick out the odds and ends that almost unconsciously made their way in there.  But I'm going to have a job putting this week's experiences into a horny one-handed read, I think.

Basically I have been, very briefly, in hospital, and I am now utterly baffled by medical fetishists. I couldn't find anything arousing at all in the blue pyjamas and nylon hats most of the staff were attired in. And, as a top in BDSM terms, I'm not wild about being chopped into and given pain, even if the drugs were pretty damn good. I suppose if I ever decide to have another go at horror fiction I might utilise the Walk of Doom, where you follow a medical professional down endless corridors, in your barearse nightie and your own slippers, to the place where you will be laid on a bed and operated on, but it's probably been done already. 

Though the main gripe I really had about the whole business was the lack of anything good to read once my own choice of literature (a fairly lame bit of vampire romance, since you ask) had been locked away. Four month old Mail on Sunday supplements, leaflets on incontinence or planning your funeral, or the final horror: Hello magazine. I think perhaps I should gather together some of my stock of out-of-print erotica by other people and donate it to the local day unit. Or, if I have to go back in there again, maybe I should try to think of this poor chap.

(image found somewhere on the web and used by someone else taking the piss out of it)