Hello, Catherine,

I always regretted that I wasn’t able to publish with FFP when it was still running, and I lament that loss of chance. I really respect and admire what you and Robin were doing, and I’ve been searching since for other publishers that truly push the bounds of good taste and taboos.

I think it’s simply gotten to a point that we’ve been told for so long that BDSM and menage and homosexual relationships are taboo that some have truly started to believe it. The fact that most publishers and distributors don’t allow bestiality, rape or incest, to speak nothing of necrophilia, reinforces this idea.

Thank you for your comment and I truly hope there is more support out there for the truly boundary pushing press. Without it, we’d never have been graced with Lady Chatterley’s Lover or Lolita.

But here is another thing: in the year and a half of running the press, I learned that to most erotica writers “taboo” is not really taboo at all. We received submission after submission of BDSM-style stories despite making it very clear that we didn’t consider BDSM to be taboo at all. Our guidelines were very specific; we wanted the bestiality and necrophilia stories, the lust murder fantasies, cannibalism, the whole nine yards. The erotica community simply did not deliver.

Yes, the main goal is arouse, but I would say there’s a lot of grey area between erotica, romance and pornography. Romance appeals to a more emotional and intimate relationship, I think and the difference between erotica and pornography is the difference between a fillet mignon and a Big Mac. One is made with dexterity and effort to be enjoyed every bit of it, if a bit overrated and the other one is to consume as fast as you can and leaves your fingers sticky.

Most porn have plots, though I would call them more “scenarios” than actual plots but there’s a whole lot of people who reallly don’t care about it. The plot is meant to complement the experience of the viewer regarding sex but more often than not seems to fit more as an ornament than a complement.

By the way, interesting tidbit about that Tribe! I have been thinking something similar to add to the fictional indigenous group I have been fleshing out lately for a story.

Oh gods, hentai is terrible for the pained moan. The forced seductions. The I’m saying no but meaning yes but maybe nos.

I definitely like the idea of two consenting individuals going against societies taboos and doing something because they’re so passionate about one another. That’s very hot. I love interspecies (humanoid) as well – like the troll/blood elf pair my partner and I roleplayed in World of Warcraft. Because of the racial tension between elves and trolls, it just added so much more conflict and passion to their relationship.

They were in love, and they didn’t care if someone thought they were messed up because of it.

I like relationships like that.

Taboos are definitely cultural. We try to pretend that there are moral absolutes, but there are not.

I remember reading a sexuality textbook that spoke of one Tribal group in which they welcomed boys to adulthood at 13 or so by having an older, sexually mature woman have sex with them – and teach them how to pleasure a woman. Here, not only is that taboo, it would be illegal.

I find it fascinating to look at how society influences not just cultural norms, but the definitions of abnormalities.

As well, most porn films and books, at the very least, try to have some plot so they’re not solely to arouse. It may be their main purpose and goal, but isn’t the main purpose and goal of erotica to titillate and arouse? Or even romance?

Thinking about the topics most consider taboo, I guess to me the hottest combination is a taboo and consent. Yes, that includes even things such as gore and vore. I guess I just like seeing people have fun, even if it hurts them. They chose it, they enjoy it, so why not? And even more I like the narrative of breaking taboos without it ending up hurting anyone. Things like sibling incest, BDSM kink and interspecies romance (between sapient beings) are often positioned as something that people end up doing if they’re messed up in the head. It’s sad. To me, sex is and should be a positive thing.

In the Venezuelan classic Doña Bárbara, the hero is implied to end up with his 14 years old cousin’s daughter in a romance. This is presented as not only just positive but completely normal. That was the norm then. My grandfather had sex with goats as a teenager as it was the norm in his little village in The Venezuelan Andes.

Pornography is everything that is done with the intention of sexually arouse and nothing else. You can include explicit sex, rape, incest, etc. and still use it to make a point or a statement but, as Umberto Eco defined, if a movie all what they do is walk around waiting until they have sex, then it’s a porn. Personally, my limit on what is taboo comes when there’s cohertion: rape, vore, etc. since pornography by default is meant to be enjoyable and joy obtained from the removal of someone else’s joy is abuse.

As Alan Moore once argued, by making pornography in general something shady and sleazy we have been forced pairing something harmless and enjoyable with more dangerous and unhealthy elements.