LA Times' book blog Jacket Copy (and me) on why women CAN write about sex

Carolyn Kellogg at the LA Times' book blog Jacket Copy quoted me extensively about the whole "women can't write about sex" story that The Erotic Review editor Kate Copstick has stirred up.

Here's a snippet of what I emailed to Kellogg:

I think the number one critical element is honesty, meaning using your most natural voice to write about sex. Trying to make it sound more 'porn-like' by deliberately using words that you wouldn’t normally use almost always reads in a stilted, clichéd way. Honesty, too, about sexual desire; I think part of why so many writers, male and female, use pseudonyms (approximately half of the authors in my erotica anthologies) is because it allows them more freedom to go to the often dark, disturbing, odd, etc. places their sexual imagination takes them.

Make sure to click through for the HOT kissing photo (by someone called masochismtango on Flickr, an awesome Flickr name if I've ever heard one!).

Women don't know how to write about sex says female editor of The Erotic Review

I'm planning to write more about this, but in case you missed Kate "women can't write about sex" Copstick, the new editor of The Erotic Review, check out Tracy Clark-Flory's piece at Broadsheet, where she quoted me, debauchette, Lux Alptraum, Tracy Quan, and Susie Bright, and Jezebel nailed Copstick's ridiculousness and gave a sweet plug to In The Flesh (this Thursday, free cupcakes/sex toys/books!).

And to be fair, here is one of the exact quotes:

I think women, too many of them, whether it's nature or nurture or politics, they're not straightforward about sex.

Remittance Girl had this to say:

It's not that men and women write about sex differently. I've read male erotica writers who are all about context, all about emotion. I've read women writers who are about nothing more than scratching the itch. Every writer brings their own understanding of sex to the table when they write about it. The best ones can suck you into a glimpse of their sexual space and turn you on there.

Dinosaurs like Copstick need to go away. This isn't about gender, and it hasn't been for years. And that the magazine doesn't even has on online edition of its own speaks volumes about the stuck-in-the-seventies mentality resident there.