What has the literary world learned from the blockbuster that was Fifty Shades of Grey? Ahead of her appearance at The Telegraph Hay Festival, Dr Brooke Magnanti examines women's relationship with erotica and publishing post EL James.
Photo:
AP
The Telegraph -10 May 2013
Has erotica changed the literary landscape? That's the topic I'll be taking
on at The Telegraph Hay Literature Festival in a
couple of weeks, along with Nikki Gemmell, Jojo Moyes, and Linda
Kelsey. With the hype and high sales of Fifty Shades of Grey
finally starting to settle down, what are we left with, and what does it mean
for writers and readers?
What seemed to surprise people most of all was the notion that women were -
shock, horror - interested in sex. This is a perennial 'discovery' by the
mainstream, who every 10 years or so revisit the notion that the female of the
species is as sexually motivated as the male, claiming this is something "new",
then cue panic.
It's neither new nor a reason to panic.
Who, after all, buys Mills & Boon and Harlequin novels, with their covers
featuring women falling into the buff and bronzed arms of men? Women do. Who
writes the slashfic (slash fiction) and fanfic (fan fiction) online that takes
sexually fantasising about well-known television and film characters to a whole
new level? Women do. Early studies even suggested as many as 90 per cent of
fanfic writers were female. When search engine data is analysed, who is more
likely to Google the terms "free sex" and "adult sex"?
Believe it or not - women
When the erotica craze was in full swing, I turned down a request from my publisher to hop on the band wagon. In part, at least, because I believe you can't fool the reader - a cynically-written book will always be found out. But apart from authentic passion being something that transcends taste, what else have we learned from the phenomenon, and will it last?
More
When the erotica craze was in full swing, I turned down a request from my publisher to hop on the band wagon. In part, at least, because I believe you can't fool the reader - a cynically-written book will always be found out. But apart from authentic passion being something that transcends taste, what else have we learned from the phenomenon, and will it last?
More
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