This is so interesting, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Clearly, this is not a premise that came out of an AI even though the writing did.
On that level more than AI, the existence of this book is related to the absolute enormous explosion of weird erotica since the invention of the internet and women being able to put our erotic fantasies out into the world anonymously. As far as we can tell, from conventional male-directed porn vs what happens in women's erotic online writing: in general men like roughly ten different things, and women like an absolute infinity of incredibly polymorphously perverse stuff. (I say this with great pride and enjoyment.)
My earliest (anonymous) published works were in online slash fiction. My agent and I have actually had conversations about whether I could or should write erotica (which apparently we must call 'romantasy' for the time being), whether it's sufficiently in the mainstream now for it not to trash my reputation. It sort of sneaks into my literary work, but deniably. In the same way that it's sort of deniable (A Little Life) if your fantasy is all about men - "this isn't about me," one can say, "because I am a woman, how silly of you".
I would say, for me, it's certainly not a domesticated imagination, as much as it is an awareness of what is acceptable for a woman to write without slipping into the category of sex worker, which is, of course, a terribly stigmatised group.
(Wuthering Heights is also an example of the terrifying-to-society power of a woman writing the absolute filth of her daydreams.)
I find it a bit exciting that there might come a time where it would not trash my literary reputation?
It perhaps also feels relevant that I have never been able to read A Little Life. I think I would have felt much more comfortable with the idea of it if it had been presented as a sexual fantasy, which I could enjoy without placing myself in the mental position I'm in when reading realist or modernist fiction. Fantasy is a place of transgressive play. A realist novel about horrific abuse leading to suicide is an invitation into an abyss for me.
Love everything about this comment! You should write a post about it—a good way of soft-launching the idea of some sexier writing. I think you’d find that there would be a LOT of interest.
argh even this conversation has revealed to me that I do have an idea for a novel which is About Literary Themes and contemporary society but also would have to be full of utter filth
(I will say also that it was definitely evident to subs reading The Power that my domme imagination is one that they enjoy, and many of them have been in touch about this over the years. Sometimes in inappropriate ways which I have then told them off about, which I'm sure they also enjoyed and were certainly very obedient about 🤣)
I think — as someone who’s been involved in fandom for a good while, and who is taking cues from slashfic in some aspects — that your concerns about your reputation are legitimate, and also I’d say that the “oh but it’s not about me, it’s about men!” is not a perfect dodge. Unfortunately, I think if a woman both presents her erotic writing as sexual fantasy and is writing slash … her reputation will only remain intact if she’s writing fic.
I could be wrong though! I’m an outside observer to the core dynamics in slashfic circles (I’m a gay man and I’m old enough to accept that slashfic is a scene I can visit and engage with just fine but not a scene for me).
I agree with Naomi though — you should write a longer thing on this. There are too many thinkpieces on why women write this or that kind of erotica and not enough thinkpieces by women on anything else to do with the actual writing and editing and framing of any kind of smut.
(I agree with you about ALL — and especially, I’d be able to engage with a sexy fantasy of a crippled maybe ethnically ambiguous gay man who’s a survivor of various awful things and is so tragic and too good and will only be able to end up one way, as a tragic beautiful gay corpse. The same story framed as a serious novel might as well be telling me that my only real future is as a tragic beautiful gay corpse, ideally before I’m 50. I appreciate that ALL is a work of art but it’s one I prefer to read reviews of, not actually experience myself.)
yes "we are all utter sickos and enjoy hurt/comfort" is such a different mental space from "this is a serious engagement with the consequences of abuse".
I wonder whether (probably) those of us who have experienced abuse need those very clear boundary lines of "now you are entering a play space, nothing that happens here is real or serious" much more than people who have not.
I've noticed that for some reason this dog kink stuff has become a trend in the past year? Like I've never really seen any of it before, but then there was that awful scene inserted into the Wuthering Heights adaptation of Isabella collared & canine, and in the latest season of Euphoria Sydney Sweeney wears a dog costume while making OF content (also coincidentally—or not—both of these characters are wives of characters played by Jacob Elordi)
I wonder why this has become such a thing in mainstream portrayals of kink/bdsm? Maybe for the shock value? It's always done in a very icky cringey gross totally unerotic way that's both baffling and off-putting.
I don't think "good taste" and "bad taste" have to do with embracing or avoiding the sexual. It's the way it's done that matters, and lately we've been getting lots of sexual content and very little actual eroticism.
Petplay is an ever-present side alley of BDSM, especially (in my very subjective estimation) in like, kinda medium-protocol lifestyle-ish circles? A niche within a niche within a subculture of a subculture.
I have no idea why it’s going mainstream suddenly. But then again, I have no idea why heterosexual high-protocol 24/7 D/s went mainstream with “Fifty Shades of Grey”. That’s an equally niche shtik. Fandom probably has something to do with it. But that’s a boring answer, because within SFFH, fandom often has something to do with it.
I also agree that most portrayals of kink are kind of cringey and unserious. But I think that’s kinda unsurprising, because a lot of kink stuff is deeply unerotic or even kinda gross when it’s not your thing. I have no real idea how to square the circle of writing that kind of niche theme (as in, any kind of specific sex act or erotic premise) and making it appealing to people who are neither already into it or are going to be discovering they would be into it. Maybe I’m just not skilled or imaginative enough yet, though!
We'll have to agree to disagree on A Little Life. But it did get me thinking about good writing that has felt like unshackled Id.
The two examples that come to mind immediately are from TV shows - NBC's Hannibal and Richard Gadd's ongoing Half Man. They both have that quality of feeling very personal, and very erotic.
In novels, weirdly I find myself thinking of Moby Dick. Yes, it's not explicitly sexual, but there's something deeply personal and deeply sensual in its treatment of whaling, community, whale anatomy, to say nothing of Queequeg.
This post reminds me of a novel that I admittedly haven't read (Leash) by an author whose other work I've read and loved (Jane DeLynn). I believe it was published about 20 years ago and has a somewhat similar premise; the narrator enters a dom-sub relationship where she acts as the dom's dog full-time. She does it willingly, it's more a recreation of the real-life experience than a full-on fantast as in Shy Girl, but the similarities are there.
DeLynn has written pretty frankly about sex in all of her books, so I don't know how reputationally damaging Leash was to her career. And crucially, she was writing about gay life and gay sex in a literary way when that was further outside the norm than it is now, so she was already more of a counterculture figure.
I wrote on a similar subject about AI, inspired by an article in Kirkus daily feed. Is Ai the deadly villain or a convenient time-saving tool when used responsibly in the creative writing process?
I'm glad a few other people have actually read it. As someone who originates from very similar online writing spaces that Ballard inhabits, what struck me on readthrough was actually the lack of conventional online "works of total authorial dedication to the modestly extreme premise" ethos to it. She spends so much time not a dog, not doglike, not aspiring or fearing to be doglike! The setup is the eros; Jude has to be saintlike in his beauty and goodness or his debasement is either un-horrific or un-erotic, depending on why you're reading ALL.
In the case of Shy Girl, the sheer amount of the book spent setting up perhaps authorially gratifying details (the friends, the dates with Nathan that really don't simmer with erotic tension, but hit fairly hollow beats in circular conversations; Gia isn't truly afraid of him, even when he puts her in a cage!) left me not distrusting of AI's capacity to write competent eros - it surely can be used for this - but in this case, IMO, the author's desire to legitimize her own erotic interest in the dog-noncon-imprisonment was the source of the weakness of the novel as much as the stylistic component. The first like two thirds read like a fairly vague litfic novel about a protagonist with OCD grappling with poverty and rejecting the lifeline of a job she wants out of a kind of ennui and magical thinking about Nathan. This sort of story though, to be compelling, really does require either very talented writing or the promise that she turns into a dog at the end. I think what 'broke it', in addition to the AI writing being uncompelling, was all the trappings that legitimized, literarily, but didn't interact with the intention.
Yeah but she just wasn’t interested in writing a book about being a dog. She was interested in writing a book that turned her on :) And she definitely seems to have succeeded in that aim.
I agree it could’ve been better, but I don’t know if she had the capacity to make it better than it is. What’s amazing is just that it’s somewhat compelling even with all its flaws.
This is so interesting, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Clearly, this is not a premise that came out of an AI even though the writing did.
On that level more than AI, the existence of this book is related to the absolute enormous explosion of weird erotica since the invention of the internet and women being able to put our erotic fantasies out into the world anonymously. As far as we can tell, from conventional male-directed porn vs what happens in women's erotic online writing: in general men like roughly ten different things, and women like an absolute infinity of incredibly polymorphously perverse stuff. (I say this with great pride and enjoyment.)
My earliest (anonymous) published works were in online slash fiction. My agent and I have actually had conversations about whether I could or should write erotica (which apparently we must call 'romantasy' for the time being), whether it's sufficiently in the mainstream now for it not to trash my reputation. It sort of sneaks into my literary work, but deniably. In the same way that it's sort of deniable (A Little Life) if your fantasy is all about men - "this isn't about me," one can say, "because I am a woman, how silly of you".
I would say, for me, it's certainly not a domesticated imagination, as much as it is an awareness of what is acceptable for a woman to write without slipping into the category of sex worker, which is, of course, a terribly stigmatised group.
(Wuthering Heights is also an example of the terrifying-to-society power of a woman writing the absolute filth of her daydreams.)
I find it a bit exciting that there might come a time where it would not trash my literary reputation?
It perhaps also feels relevant that I have never been able to read A Little Life. I think I would have felt much more comfortable with the idea of it if it had been presented as a sexual fantasy, which I could enjoy without placing myself in the mental position I'm in when reading realist or modernist fiction. Fantasy is a place of transgressive play. A realist novel about horrific abuse leading to suicide is an invitation into an abyss for me.
Love everything about this comment! You should write a post about it—a good way of soft-launching the idea of some sexier writing. I think you’d find that there would be a LOT of interest.
argh even this conversation has revealed to me that I do have an idea for a novel which is About Literary Themes and contemporary society but also would have to be full of utter filth
(I will say also that it was definitely evident to subs reading The Power that my domme imagination is one that they enjoy, and many of them have been in touch about this over the years. Sometimes in inappropriate ways which I have then told them off about, which I'm sure they also enjoyed and were certainly very obedient about 🤣)
I think — as someone who’s been involved in fandom for a good while, and who is taking cues from slashfic in some aspects — that your concerns about your reputation are legitimate, and also I’d say that the “oh but it’s not about me, it’s about men!” is not a perfect dodge. Unfortunately, I think if a woman both presents her erotic writing as sexual fantasy and is writing slash … her reputation will only remain intact if she’s writing fic.
I could be wrong though! I’m an outside observer to the core dynamics in slashfic circles (I’m a gay man and I’m old enough to accept that slashfic is a scene I can visit and engage with just fine but not a scene for me).
I agree with Naomi though — you should write a longer thing on this. There are too many thinkpieces on why women write this or that kind of erotica and not enough thinkpieces by women on anything else to do with the actual writing and editing and framing of any kind of smut.
(I agree with you about ALL — and especially, I’d be able to engage with a sexy fantasy of a crippled maybe ethnically ambiguous gay man who’s a survivor of various awful things and is so tragic and too good and will only be able to end up one way, as a tragic beautiful gay corpse. The same story framed as a serious novel might as well be telling me that my only real future is as a tragic beautiful gay corpse, ideally before I’m 50. I appreciate that ALL is a work of art but it’s one I prefer to read reviews of, not actually experience myself.)
yes "we are all utter sickos and enjoy hurt/comfort" is such a different mental space from "this is a serious engagement with the consequences of abuse".
I wonder whether (probably) those of us who have experienced abuse need those very clear boundary lines of "now you are entering a play space, nothing that happens here is real or serious" much more than people who have not.
I've noticed that for some reason this dog kink stuff has become a trend in the past year? Like I've never really seen any of it before, but then there was that awful scene inserted into the Wuthering Heights adaptation of Isabella collared & canine, and in the latest season of Euphoria Sydney Sweeney wears a dog costume while making OF content (also coincidentally—or not—both of these characters are wives of characters played by Jacob Elordi)
I wonder why this has become such a thing in mainstream portrayals of kink/bdsm? Maybe for the shock value? It's always done in a very icky cringey gross totally unerotic way that's both baffling and off-putting.
I don't think "good taste" and "bad taste" have to do with embracing or avoiding the sexual. It's the way it's done that matters, and lately we've been getting lots of sexual content and very little actual eroticism.
Petplay is an ever-present side alley of BDSM, especially (in my very subjective estimation) in like, kinda medium-protocol lifestyle-ish circles? A niche within a niche within a subculture of a subculture.
I have no idea why it’s going mainstream suddenly. But then again, I have no idea why heterosexual high-protocol 24/7 D/s went mainstream with “Fifty Shades of Grey”. That’s an equally niche shtik. Fandom probably has something to do with it. But that’s a boring answer, because within SFFH, fandom often has something to do with it.
I also agree that most portrayals of kink are kind of cringey and unserious. But I think that’s kinda unsurprising, because a lot of kink stuff is deeply unerotic or even kinda gross when it’s not your thing. I have no real idea how to square the circle of writing that kind of niche theme (as in, any kind of specific sex act or erotic premise) and making it appealing to people who are neither already into it or are going to be discovering they would be into it. Maybe I’m just not skilled or imaginative enough yet, though!
We'll have to agree to disagree on A Little Life. But it did get me thinking about good writing that has felt like unshackled Id.
The two examples that come to mind immediately are from TV shows - NBC's Hannibal and Richard Gadd's ongoing Half Man. They both have that quality of feeling very personal, and very erotic.
In novels, weirdly I find myself thinking of Moby Dick. Yes, it's not explicitly sexual, but there's something deeply personal and deeply sensual in its treatment of whaling, community, whale anatomy, to say nothing of Queequeg.
This post reminds me of a novel that I admittedly haven't read (Leash) by an author whose other work I've read and loved (Jane DeLynn). I believe it was published about 20 years ago and has a somewhat similar premise; the narrator enters a dom-sub relationship where she acts as the dom's dog full-time. She does it willingly, it's more a recreation of the real-life experience than a full-on fantast as in Shy Girl, but the similarities are there.
DeLynn has written pretty frankly about sex in all of her books, so I don't know how reputationally damaging Leash was to her career. And crucially, she was writing about gay life and gay sex in a literary way when that was further outside the norm than it is now, so she was already more of a counterculture figure.
I wrote on a similar subject about AI, inspired by an article in Kirkus daily feed. Is Ai the deadly villain or a convenient time-saving tool when used responsibly in the creative writing process?
I'm glad a few other people have actually read it. As someone who originates from very similar online writing spaces that Ballard inhabits, what struck me on readthrough was actually the lack of conventional online "works of total authorial dedication to the modestly extreme premise" ethos to it. She spends so much time not a dog, not doglike, not aspiring or fearing to be doglike! The setup is the eros; Jude has to be saintlike in his beauty and goodness or his debasement is either un-horrific or un-erotic, depending on why you're reading ALL.
In the case of Shy Girl, the sheer amount of the book spent setting up perhaps authorially gratifying details (the friends, the dates with Nathan that really don't simmer with erotic tension, but hit fairly hollow beats in circular conversations; Gia isn't truly afraid of him, even when he puts her in a cage!) left me not distrusting of AI's capacity to write competent eros - it surely can be used for this - but in this case, IMO, the author's desire to legitimize her own erotic interest in the dog-noncon-imprisonment was the source of the weakness of the novel as much as the stylistic component. The first like two thirds read like a fairly vague litfic novel about a protagonist with OCD grappling with poverty and rejecting the lifeline of a job she wants out of a kind of ennui and magical thinking about Nathan. This sort of story though, to be compelling, really does require either very talented writing or the promise that she turns into a dog at the end. I think what 'broke it', in addition to the AI writing being uncompelling, was all the trappings that legitimized, literarily, but didn't interact with the intention.
Yeah but she just wasn’t interested in writing a book about being a dog. She was interested in writing a book that turned her on :) And she definitely seems to have succeeded in that aim.
I agree it could’ve been better, but I don’t know if she had the capacity to make it better than it is. What’s amazing is just that it’s somewhat compelling even with all its flaws.
Is this the written equivalent of how, if you want to make money drawing, there is literally nothing you can do that pays as well as furry porn?