Before I started reviewing, I had never touched an erotica. Flash forward a few years and I have officially had my fill (no pun intended) of erotic novels. There are only so many cocks, heaving bosoms, and dripping orifices I can take.
I am a plot-based reader. Regardless of genre, I want a good plot I can follow along with. What I do not want to read is sex just to have sex. Most of the eroticas I have read seem to take this route: Characters meet, clothing falls off, they mount each other, and the plot disappears. That has always been my biggest complaint with erotica and why I really don’t review them or I stick to authors I’ve read before and enjoyed.
Don’t get me wrong, I have read some erotica that makes it a point to have a great plot and good sex. I have read some erotica I’ve loved, but for the most part, erotica doesn’t do it for me. I skip sex scenes in the Anita Blake series, so you can well imagine I am skipping a ton of pages in erotica. I am all about that plot and while sex is great, I don’t need to read it every single chapter. I get it—they like sex, they’re compatible, but don’t saturate (again, no pun, I swear) me in it.
The sex doesn’t bother me so much; it’s the cheesy descriptions that do me in. Laving, heaving, dripping…just not attractive to me. But you all know by now, certain words squick me out. Hell, I don’t find most sex scenes visually appealing when I think about them, but erotica to me is over the top.
I am also a visualizer; when I read, I think over the scene in my head, and with erotica, I get easily distracted:
“How is that physically possible?” to “Ouch, she’s got to be drier than the Sahara by now”
And the descriptions of body parts, I’m telling you, if any man said he wanted to milk me like a cow, he’d be dead. DEAD. Moo?
I was sent one erotica by a friend that had me laughing so hard at the over-the-top descriptions, I was convinced I might pee myself. Comparing a vagina to a salmon is in no way attractive; why would anyone think it was?
While erotica is pretty popular, it’s not my bag. I’ve tried, I really have, but it just doesn’t do anything for me.
Am I alone? Do you read erotica for the sex or the plot or what? I want to know—heck, suggest some good ones for me, change my mind. But don’t send me anything with salmon.
Natasha Carty reviews Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy on her website Wicked Little Pixie and lives in Toronto, Canada, with her cat, Seamus.
