Erotica has always catered to intelligent and imaginative souls: unlike porn, it does take some cerebral effort. But with so much porn out there on the Internet, one has to wonder why anybody would take the time to read erotica. On the Internet, imagination has been totally usurped, and every fetish or curiosity can be satisfied, so what does erotica have to offer anymore? The genre has long been in danger of becoming become quaint. Yet this hasn’t stopped people from writing and reading erotica. In fact, the genre is experiencing a revival through self-publishing, which is well-suited to writers and readers of racy literature. These days, you don’t have to duck into an adult bookshop – you simply press a button to have a titillating little story arrive on your reading device, and nobody is the wiser.
I was lucky enough to stumble upon a video of Jeremy Edwards, an American writer of erotica, on Twitter. Based on his compelling stage presence, I wasn’t surprised to find that Edwards’ prose is also worth attention. His writing is clean and clever, while his literary naughty bits are unstrained, original and smart. Edwards’ full-length novel Rock My Socks Off follows East Coast writer Jacob on an assignment in San Francisco, where he is supposed to be doing a feature on rocking horses for the sartorially titled magazine Hip Hip Horizon. He quickly becomes romantically entangled with an up-and-coming astronomer named Normandie (fortunately there were no ‘storming Normandie’ puns, or if there were, I repressed them). Over the course of their liaison, they manage to hump their way through any number of inspired locations and situations; and all the more power to them for doing so, because they are well-drawn and funny characters, exactly the kind of people you wish good sex upon.
As a prose stylist, Edwards is nimble as his protagonists. His scenarios, which include much heated frolicking between Jacob and Normandie, cater to both female and male fantasy. He manages to write dozens of sex scenes without contorting his vocabulary into awkward or hackneyed phrases that far more reputable writers fall back on when creating a sex scene. When a woman orgasms in an Edwards’ passage, she does so ‘wittily’ – which is quite a witty word choice in itself.
If his writing is any indication, Edwards, like Jacob, is one of those dangerous male feminists who is bursting with free-ranging libido. I don’t know how else to say this, but there is something so healthy about the novel’s characters and their sexuality, that I almost missed the repressed smuttiness of, say, a Penthouse forum letter. And if there some moments when the plot strains credulity, it is easy to forgive, if not forget, when Edwards deftly hustles his characters off to bed, where the G spot easily replaces the plot point.
I have to say, I appreciate erotica more than I crave it. That might be part if its point: erotica satisfies something more intellectual than blunt sexuality. If this is true, then the genre has a great representative in Edwards, who would be a fine writer in any genre.
Matt Henderson Ellis is a freelance fiction and non-fiction editor working with writers who publish in print and digitally.
Jeremy has read at the Salon several times. His last presentation was in August with his wife Helia Brookes, also an erotica writer. We are always honored to have him entertain with his marvelous words, style, and presence.