Feminist Erotic Fiction: What does it look like?

"Porn for Women" from xkcd

We received a number of erotic fiction submissions to the Carnival but have made the decision not to run any fiction this Carnival.  The reason for this can be summed up with the phrase “male gaze“. Which, to put it simply is the idea “of men as watchers and women as watched”.

Quite frankly there is no point submitting work to a Feminist Carnival, even a kinky one, if your work is written solely for an audience of heterosexual cis men. It is pretty safe to assume that the audience in a feminist space is going to have some women in it. It’s probably also safe to assume that a feminist audience is going to be highly critical of stereotypical depictions of gender, especially in a sexual context.

Now Lissy has wasted much time in trying to find some kind of concise guide or 101 to feminist erotic fiction and has just got bogged down in feminist literary criticism full of big words and academic jargon. All of which was more concerned with what feminist erotic fiction isn’t rather than what it is.

So, I’m going to kick some ideas out about what feminist/ feminist friendly erotic fiction might look like and ask you for your opinions as well.

The first point I would make is that feminist erotic fiction should at the very least try and present female characters as more than just disembodied parts (breasts, ass, cunt etc.).  (Though now I’ve written that I’ve started writing a story in my head about about a woman experiencing herself as a series of dis-embodied body parts during a bondage scene… )

Anyway, the point I mean to make is that if you could exchange a female character for a plastic sex doll and it wouldn’t change the story then not only is your story not feminist, but it’s probably also not a very good story either…

Also I might be a straight chick but I’m pretty sure lesbian sex scenes should be able to pass the Bechdel Test…

1. it includes at least two women,
2. who have at least one conversation
3. about something other than a man or men.

Two lesbians talking about men in the middle of sex just seems odd to me…

And maybe I’m just a literary wanker but having a female character behave like a male character doesn’t work when she just keeps going on about how great her breasts are… or am I missing something and blokes go around all day with their internal monologue stuck on “Phwoar I’ve got a big cock.”?

And I’ve still managed to crap on more about what feminist erotic fiction isn’t than what it is… any other ideas?