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| This is just about the hottest fucking book cover ever. |
Back in October the women's blogging powerhouse site BlogHer put out a call for submissions for an e-anthology of real life sex stories focused around the theme of desire. They asked for stories that put the reader in the moment, that communicate real, authentic desire. And then there was the hitch:
"Submissions cannot be anonymous -- that is, we need to know your name -- but we will consider publishing some entries anonymously. Look, here's the trick: If a post is good enough that we want to forward it to everyone we know, yeah, it can be anonymous. But we're mostly looking for openness about sex."
Today I found out that the anthology had died. How was its demise announced? As the last paragraph of the announcement of a new anthology in the works about food. It couldn't have been too difficult to directly contact the (very few, I imagine) submitters to let us know the fate of our work.
A few weeks ago over on Always Each Other I wrote about the phenomenon of women's lifestyle bloggers avoiding the topic of sex on their blogs. Given that, this outcome doesn't really surprise me, since the BlogHer network is primarily focused on lifestyle bloggers. It's evident in the categories across the top of the home page and in the topics of the various conferences they hold. I'm still waiting for the BlogHer Sex '13 conference announcement (and waiting, and waiting...). I guess we'll all just have to go to Eroticon instead.
Focusing the topic on sex and desire isn't what killed this anthology. For heaven's sake, just look at the collective work of Alison Tyler, Violet Blue, and Rachel Kramer Bussel if you need any reassurance at all that there's an interest in and a market for anthologies full of S-E-X. And my other internet home, Fleshbot, runs a "true sex story" feature almost daily. From the hits I get on AEO I can attest that people read it.
What killed this anthology is the demand for authors to give up their anonymity in talking about sexual desire. Surely this caused many who would otherwise have considered contributing to keep their thoughts to themselves. After all, if your core identity on BlogHer is as a mom blogger, a food blogger, or a health blogger, a racy essay about the molten hot core of your desire using your real name just doesn't fit in.
What to do? I would love to know/see what people submitted to this anthology, so I posted on the call for submissions for the sex anthology AND the call for the food anthology and asked the women who had already submitted or who considered submitting to get in touch with me. I'd love to see this anthology become reality, if there's interest and good submissions out there.
What do you think? Is there a desire for an anthology of this kind of sex writing? At the moment I have no idea how to do this and pay contributors, but I figure it's worth a moment of exploration. If you're interested, post something in the comments or email me at writingliza at gmail.
Oh, Liza, this is SUCH a good topic for discussion. Nikki and I were just talking about it this morning but in reference to finding a real life female play partner. We run into all sorts of people (male and female) talking about being open and/or kinky online. But when we ask for a real name or, heaven forbid, to meet in person... they vanish.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me sad. I don't expect every person to talk as openly as I do. However, women should be able to proclaim themselves sexual beings without fear or judgment. It doesn't matter your proclivities. For heaven sakes, we're human beings with sex drives. Why can't we talk about it?
The anthology is a fabulous idea. Count me in!
Another great post, Liza B, and a great topic for the fore. As you and I both know all too well, retaining one's anonymity after being brave enough to dip a toe in the sex blogging/erotica realm is sacred, not because we are ashamed of our sexuality, sexcapades, or anything to do with our sex lives in fact, but because that, despite our ability and inclination towards sexual openness, there exists a lot of people that deem the subject of sex taboo. Deviant. Unhealthy. And because of this a stigma remains - we are deemed sluts, and not sluts in the good sense (delish!), but as a derogatory label.
ReplyDeleteThis stigma and labeling is surely a major factor as to why contributors to a real sex anthology would not want their true identities revealed. Whilst being proud of their work, and wanting to share their experience with others, the backlash could be vast and have significant negative impact on their lives - work, friendships, relationships etc etc. BlogHer, or any other publisher of this kind of writing, must be sensitive to this or risk an anthology failure.