Writing Messy Tales

I started writing this short essay alongside preparing my very first tale for Literotica's Winter Holiday 2021 Competition. I'd conceived the story as the first in a series of 'Messy Tales'. I wanted to reflect on why I'd started this form of writing after being a long time scribbler just for myself. I also wanted to sketch future plans.

I hoped that by sharing experiences and thinking about what I wanted to get out of this writing, it might help to set a good path for myself and be of interest to other developing authors. What's actually happened is I've unexpectedly changed direction even whilst writing. Strangely I hope that turns out to be even more helpful. But more on that is for the end of this piece.

For now let's start with a bit about myself. I am a man in my forties and happily married with my partner of two decades. We have children. I am in love with them and they love me. My life and highest vocation is invested in supporting them to fulfilment to the greatest degree possible. The same is true in reverse. Yet I am not comfortable with any constricting single label to define who I am, and that includes in relation to sexuality.

I am a good father and partner, and yet to be that I need to pursue my own avowedly independent life too. I am strong and strongly masculine in many ways and yet my make-up has clear feminine streaks. I am largely straight and have never been with a man or else another who is gender-queer in whatever form. Yet the mostly abstract thought of it has attracted me at times, as does non-normative play with my partner.

As I indicate, I am not any single label and don't need a label in order to be whole or to feel whole, sexually or otherwise. In bed my tendency is to like being in vulnerable positions where I could be dominated, and where a less kind partner could make me believe I even wanted it, but where instead I'm loved and attended to with a well-judged combination of firmness, care, attentiveness and kindness.

Part of it is about pure unadulterated physical desire. I find it a tremendous turn on to be with someone who knows what they want and will take it from me, and at the same time willingly seeks to give pleasure even from a position of dominance. However it's not just that. Finding the strength to be vulnerable before another helps me, even in a small and limited way, towards understanding the experience of those who have more traditionally been in vulnerable positions.

Expressed another way my preference in bed plays a role, however limited, in building empathy in multiple directions and imagining a more complete equality. Yet building such empathy is not remotely enough if it does not translate into concrete action and change, as I've self-discovered where I have been confronted by my own shortcomings. Even so and however it's achieved, it is surely one important pre-condition to genuine and lived equality. As much very much includes lived equality with the women in my life.

With supreme trust and when they want it too, I even want to be used with reckless abandon by my partner for their own pleasure, whilst knowing that they won't debase me in the process. In my case liking this kind of dynamic is not about wishing to be feminised or submissive. It's about wishing for equality shared in a non-conventional kind of way, expressed through a different kind of strength that puts a premium on trust, empathy and ultimately on friendship and love.

When I know it's wanted I do also like being in the dominant position where my partner has to trust me totally. As much can certainly be about giving free expression to own desires, but it can also mean repaying that trust with immersive attention to them, to their body, to their desires, and to their needs, wherever they may lead.

If they really want me to go further and unrestrainedly use them in reverse I can do that. Being so much bigger and stronger I am reluctant to take this role on equality grounds. I need to be enormously certain that that's what they really want. But if they can convince me that it's absolutely what they desire and need, then I will let loose.

Once again the reversal and vulnerability implicated here can seem unequal at first. But if it's mutually consensual and deepens trust, as much can be mind-blowing for both partners. Indeed, to me and however the scenario plays out the immersive experience of fully being with another can, overall and at its best, be the most mutually affirming and strength building experience of our lives.

The stories I had been conceiving looked to draw out different elements of these core thoughts. Overall the possible stories I had thought of involved a mix of fantasy and reality. The general idea was to aim for the kind of high quality tone and thoughtfulness people have used to describe Demi Moore's new erotic podcasting, and to avowedly avoid infamous "My Dad Wrote a Porno" territory. I confess I haven't listened to either yet, but I presume people will recognise the general quality distinction I'm trying to draw.

Sometimes a single story might reflect the essence of a real experience or several different real experiences melded together. Other times it could be pure fiction even if built around a kernel of emotional truth. Other times even inside a story there would be a mix. They might sometimes be fun, funny and playful in an erotically charged way, and at other times more thoughtful, quiet and reflective. It was likely they could contain plenty of express erotic content at times, and at others that that content might tend to be under the surface. Sometimes they might be poignant or even sad.

The stories I had thought to develop would never be perfect. Partly that's because no one's writing is ever perfect. But more importantly it's because extraordinary love making and melding with another itself is never perfect. Even, and perhaps even especially, at its fullest and most expressive love making remains a work in progress between people. And it's always changing if one is attentive enough with each other to notice. Here I'm influenced by a favoured film maker whom I referenced in my first story, Jim Jarmusch.

Jarmusch has always shied away from showing love making on screen because of its complex and shifting imperfection. For him love making can be "funny, tender, a little rough, wild, soft, frustrating, incredibly satisfying... so when you isolate a sex scene between two people, are you going to define their sexuality in that one way? It always makes me a little nervous as a storyteller."

Taking up his implied challenge, with imperfect and messy words I imagined building just one picture of what fulsome, varied, shifting, growing, non-reductive and whole sexuality could look like. I imagined loosely knitting together different stories told from different perspectives and reflecting different locations, attempts, characters and life stages. Yet through starting to write I discovered for myself the truth in what Jarmusch was concerned about.

In my case, and at least for now, I honestly don't think I can do full justice to my stories as I would wish to tell them and as I imagine them. Or at the very least I don't think I can do so through expressly erotic-focussed writing. Amongst issues for me was that I found striving for the level I wanted even harder than I thought. It's given me renewed respect for those who write about intimate and erotic life richly, respectfully and well.

Don't get me wrong here, as I feel as though my first try was a perfectly acceptable and fun-focussed attempt. Indeed I was proud of how well I was able to do on a first go. It locked into a handful of elements concerning what it can be like to re-connect playfully after all we have collectively been through during global pandemic. Emphasising playfulness as a kind of restorative experience felt about right at this particular moment. I was grateful for the positive response from readers too. But having given this a try, and at least for now, I am going to work on different creative writing possibilities.

I nearly didn't finish and publish these few short words of reflection. But then I thought and hoped they might help others who are trying to develop their writing. Perhaps you're also starting out, have something to say, and are trying to work out how best to express it? Or maybe you have noticed some of the other challenges I indicate and wondered about how to resolve them? Perhaps you might be trying to work out what genre, focus and style is going to work best? Might these few words help you as you think about writing on erotically intimate life and your own best creative direction? I genuinely hope it helps, even if it's only in some or other small way.

Whatever your own questions and challenges might be, my hope is that sharing my own might be helpful for others. For me, asking these kinds of questions is leading me away from erotic writing for now. Having thought about what I want to express I suspect I'll make more progress taking my writing in another direction. But I see no reason why another might not come to a completely different conclusion, and use the process of getting really clear about what you want to achieve with your writing to propel your erotic story telling forwards. I'm still going to keep writing and hope you do too.

Despite what I've said I'm going to leave the door ajar to publish avowedly messy erotic-focussed tales once more. I don't at all want to definitively close this off if I experiment with other writing and decide I want to come back and explore this space further. Whatever the future holds I've enjoyed the chance to come out from behind my own scribbled notebooks and publish. Providing that opportunity for beginners is surely one of the very best elements of Literotica. I've learned much from it. I'm confident that through trial and error I'll find my own best writing path or paths, and very much hope you find yours too.