Talking Shop: Revisiting Better Porn with Better Proportions

This week I'm revisiting an old Talking Shop post, because it's a favorite subject of mine. Hope you enjoy!

A general rule of thumb for me: never mention cock size.

  

 

Honestly, we all know there are more relevant (and more important)things to describe than how many inches he is. That's not to say I wouldn't call a character well-endowed...but I find anyone taking the time to estimate size down to the literal inch is wrecking my lady boner.

 

Now, please don't get me wrong. I love Kresley Cole's stories. They are a delightful pleasure between heavier tomes like Affinity or Toxic Parents. She's got some very bright and enjoyable stories, and mostly likable characters. 

 

I say mostly because, especially early on, her characters tend to fall into predictable, formulaic structures. Here's where, as an author, I find fault: 

 

• Every male is "the biggest she'd ever seen".

• Every female is worried she may not be able to handle his girth.

• Every male is "almost 7 feet tall".

• Every female is small but beautifully busty and curvy, with a delicious hourglass figure (even the acrobats, athletes and ballerinas). 

   

 My apologies to Kresley, because she does paint a lovely world and I do recommend her books. But stereotypes are, as we all know, stereotypes. Not every woman has that perfect hourglass, and frankly any other body type is still perfectly capable of being deliciously erotic. It takes good erotic writing to pull the eroticism from any description. Unfortunately, given pervasive social preconceptions, it's easy for erotic authors to rely on "the staples"... and, to overuse them.

 

Let me remind you, authors, that each one of these figures is sensual and sexy. It takes a new and different level of skill to find and describe the unique eroticism of each--and that makes it valuable to you as a writer. Plus, it's just plain hot.

 

 

 Cock size, no matter what anyone says, is a relative pleasure. There are men with terrific tools an no concept of using them to effect. This, incidentally, doesn't mean they aren't worth writing about! Personally, I adore a great story about a man learning the ins and outs of pleasing his woman (har de har har).  

 

And there are men who can rock a woman's world through positions and movements, regardless their size.  This is a bit of elementary sex ed, I think, but my point is that better erotic writing comes from understanding the value of writing differently than our steretypes lead you to expect.  This is why I never directly reference cock size: doing so puts the weight of my erotic description on a simplistic formula, and takes the individual value of a sex scene several notches down. If every man is "the biggest", well... what do we take from that? Frankly, even if I were to describe him as particularly small, the same is still true. If every woman regardless of her lifestyle and exercise habits is a shapely hourglass with perfectly-sized, flush and voluptuous breasts, and a neatly shaven pussy, honestly, we're just watching the same porn over and over again.

If you are an erotic writer, I challenge you to avoid any literal or even highly-specific mentions of size. Describe your leading lovers in other ways: discover the eroticism in a woman with lush inner labia or flat, barely-there breasts. 

 

 

A good way to get some visual inspiration is looking through erotic photography or nude art.

 

Ultimately, body types should vary just as much as personality types and background stories. You wouldn't write every story about the shy, bespectacled naughty librarian and the tough, perfectly chiseled cowboy, so why give the same cock to every man or give every lady the same shape? 

 

Remember: if you find yourself going back to one style of description, push yourself to try something new.