On writing wicked

I’m at Eden Connor’s blog talking about why I write such dirty, wicked things:

I have always seen the world in shades of consent. When the teenage boy leans in for a kiss, does the girl give explicit consent first? Probably not, so he learns early on to search for clues. Or maybe he learns just to go for it, and deal with the consequences after.

It doesn’t stop there. Even when we’re older, the entire dating ritual is an elegant-awkward dance toward mating. The first date, the third? Wait until they’re married, and then what – is consent implicit?

For me, the issue of consent has never been confined to erotica. It’s in all fiction, everywhere, because that’s the crux of conflict. In fact, I can write in couched terms, pretty it up, and sell it as anything I want. Science fiction, horror, general fiction. It’s only if I want to be direct does it come up, because then I’m writing about sex, which by default of our genre structure makes it erotica, and that’s what’s under fire.

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