by Carol Queen
JC: Those dish gloves!
AB: Oh yes, “Dish Gloves to Die For.” Yeah, I thought erotic writing had to be this very narrow sex-specific thing and that wasn’t what I was writing about, so getting a chance to read it in the Circle and discover that that was OK liberated me to the point where now we have a murder mystery [Paws for Consideration] that has dungeon scenes in it, right? So all of that can be traced back to both the craft and the confidence building that’s come out of being a part of the Circle. And hearing the other voices, too. So, that’s what I remember.
What happens at the Erotic Reading Circle?
JC: One of the pieces that we get at the Circle is that you put your words out, and you get an immediate response from folks while you’re reading, as well, so you get to hear where somebody thought something was funny, or people thought something was hot, or something was alarming … and then after we’re done reading folks are telling us, “this was really hot for me” or “here’s something that was really strong for me about this piece” … To have your work met with respect and received as a [worthwhile] piece of writing, to know that folks are taking it seriously, that they’re saying “Here’s what I really loved about it” and “Yeah, I really liked this character” and “It was hard for me to believe they would necessarily do this” and “I wonder about …” is such a validating thing for us as writers.
CQ: [At the Erotic Reading Circle,] we get this great mix of people who do write very seriously for publication, thinking about their audience, having been trained sometimes or just sort of being natural good or pretty good writers and then we get the people who just heard about the Circle and have this one thing and they think they’ll come and read it. And to treat everybody just the same in that Circle to me is one of the miraculous things that we can do. I’m sure I can think of, well right now I can think of one person who is actively looking for publishing options for everything she writes that I’m pretty sure she walked in the door not being in that space at all, writing for herself, and now she’s getting published and she’s going to hit the “Best of—” collections soon if she hasn’t already.
JC: That’s right.
CQ: And that’s so awesome to see and experience—but somebody who walks in the door having just scrawled something for their partner and their partner responded so well that they decided to come share it with somebody else—it’s so beautiful. The intimacy of that [sharing] helps those of us who really want to be craftspeople with erotic writing. It’s a kind of a different craft—it’s the same but it’s also different than the craft of writing in general, right? You know you can do everything right in an erotic story and it may or may not have the investment of erotic charge that we hope it will have. And that’s a sort of a special sauce; I don’t even know if I can say how to put it in there but I feel like at the Circle we totally know it when we see it.
AB: And that it comes in such different packages, I mean it’s not like you show up and everybody is reading a cigar story—the diversity of erotic expression just blows my mind, and that’s part of why I show up as much as I can, almost every month, because like I never know what it’s going to be. Is it going to be a sci-fi futuristic dystopian weird chapter 11 fascinating book happening? Is it going to be a movie script someone is working on? is it going to be something about an erotic dance as somebody’s dying? There’s such a diversity of erotic expression, it frees me to think all things are possible.
The uses of erotic writing
AB: [Carol,] you referenced that people are often writing either memoir or from their own experience or something—you know, I think one of the fun things for me is using erotic writing as a halfway step: “I don’t know if I really want to do that thing, so I’m going to write about doing that thing that I’ve never done.” To find the words I have to find it through my body so I will get to sort of test drive it in a really safe way, and then bring it to the Circle and read it and test drive it again in that way. And then I can decide if I actually want to go out and do it, or if the writing of it suffices on that occasion.
JC: Right on.
AB: I don’t think I knew that about erotic writing, that it had this almost like psychological playground aspect to it. It’s fun.
CQ: It’s really fun. One of the things that’s wonderful about doing it in San Francisco (although this is not to say that you wouldn’t find this happening elsewhere, too; I don’t want to privilege San Francisco in that way, although clearly it’s true of here) is that you’ll find four or five other people in the circle who are likely to have some knowledge about whatever it was you [tried] and, depending on who they are, they’ll tell you whether you tied the knot right in chapter 2 …
JC: Exactly.
CQ: Or you’ll get a sense of whether you hit the mark for that particular kind of erotic behavior or space from the responses of people who already have that as part of their oeuvre or, best case scenario, you could find somebody to try it out with, but that’s not ever really been the point. I mean, maybe there’s been some cruising at the Erotic Reading Circle but it’s so about the writing, it’s kind of interesting actually. I can imagine in many other places that this would be the hottest game in town! We’re valuing writing and erotic experience and erotic vision and language and all of the stuff that gets packed up in these pieces, more than anything. And because it has always been—and this is part of its history, too, and clearly part of its present—a place where people could be together in a group where they would maybe be the only person of their flavor in the group … it’s kind of a teaching space. It’s a sexual diversity appreciation space.
AB: Right. One of the things I love about the Circle is the norm of talking about the protagonist of the story, as opposed to [saying] “when you [did that] …”, “when you said …” It’s about what your character said, and so there’s a certain separation that happens, and yet there’s so many stories that I can still hear the person reading—it really matt to me that it was that person reading that story, and I don’t know if it was about them or not and I don’t really care if it was.
JC: And it makes room in the space for this breadth of what erotic and erotica can be, right? That we can have this diversity of voices and this diversity of subject matter, and that each writer can have such diversity of voices … that the erotic can embody so many different parts of our lives, that we can have such a variety of emotional responses, too, which gives us lots of permission as writers [and as erotic beings.
CQ: Erotica is a genre that’s getting a little—I’m not sure “respect” is exactly the right word, but attention, clearly. And it’s getting so much attention that everybody’s going to be doing it now, who knows, but I don’t know that I’ve seen our groups get bigger and bigger and bigger since Fifty Shades or anything like that. What I do feel like I see here is the way that the Venn diagram of erotic content meets all the other genres.
JC: Right. Yes, yes, yes.
CQ: Like the night of the gay zombie story, I thought to myself, “A gay zombie story!” Of course. Our first ever gay zombie story here at the Erotic Reading Circle. Maybe I said that out loud. But there’s something about what the other genre will bring, how it reveals each kind of writing in a different way because it’s a mash-up of two things that might be distinct in other libraries … here the erotic is part of virtually everything that gets read at the Circle. Or at least sexual commentary. We make it sound like it’s all fiction and memoir, but it’s essays, too, sort of sexual philosophy, it’s that one guy who was writing a how-to book based on his experience as a medical doctor. I mean there’s so many different pieces to what we can do [at the Circle].
AB: As you’ve been recounting certain stories that have been read, and I’m remembering those, it makes me feel like the Erotic Reading Circle is like live theater. It’s a moment in time, people come, they share a story and then, you know, they may go away and we many never see them again. This anthology [is] an interesting snapshot, basically some fabulous writ
ing that’s happened in the Circle, [though that] doesn’t fully capture the experience of the Circle.
JC: Something we’ll invite folks to do as they purchase the book would be to hold your own Circle, or hold a salon, invite your friends, invite folks right into your space and think about reading these pieces aloud, because all the pieces in the book re-embody the Circle.
What can the Circle hold?
CQ: A circle is a lot of things. It’s a shape of holding, going all the way back to baskets and pots and things that we know from archeology … it’s also a spell. It’s a spell, it certainly is a pagan spell, there’s no question about that. But, you know, I can think of other spiritual entities that always met in a circle. And there’s something about that [that connects with] the degree to which we’re making sure that we give each reader respect.
JC: Another powerful piece of the Circle is that we don’t put any restrictions on what people can read about. [We don’t say,] “Don’t bring this kind of writing, or this kind of erotica, or this topic.” Folks have brought risky, edgy, dangerous content, stuff that makes some people really uncomfortable even to sit with, stuff that can really push our [personal or political] boundaries. And what does it mean to receive that work respectfully as a piece of writing? To respond to it, giving our authentic open response, not knowing what’s autobiography, what’s fiction—making space and engaging with it respectfully is a powerful gift of this Circle. And it’s a really tender place.
CQ: And surprisingly few people that we’ve known of, I think, have not found that to be congenial or have found anything threatening enough that they felt like they needed to leave. I mean, we don’t always know why people go and don’t come back, but I can only think of one person that I know for sure who got triggered [and couldn’t return]. I can think of a recent piece of writing that was edgy, that the writer of it said, “I’m trying to determine how edgy this is by bringing it here,” and let us become part of that decision-making process. It’s like a self negotiation, isn’t it, to know when you walk in the door that you might have something that you don’t want your name on or that you are not sure if it’s going to fit into an anthology or maybe it’s a little non-consensual for that or whatever it might have been. And asking, “What’s here that I need to keep, what’s here that might be negotiable? Talk to me.”
Starting your own Circle
JC: Let’s say there’s this group of folks who would like to get together and start their own Erotic Reading Circle in their town. How would you describe the “ground rules,” the practices of our Erotic Reading Circle as we’ve envisioned it here at the Center for Sex and Culture?
CQ: I’d say that everyone is welcome to read their work or others’ work, to listen, and that everyone is welcome to give positive, supportive, thoughtful feedback. Know that anybody who ever puts pen to paper, or clicks or touches their gizmo or whatever tomorrow’s technology is of making creative writing happen, already has a whole world of people behind them saying you shouldn’t speak up, you can’t say that. Even if they’re not writing about sex. I mean everybody has had somebody in the world probably tell them they should shut up. And we want to do the opposite thing for the members of the Circle and encourage them to speak up, to write, to get it going. And I think almost everybody who would ever come to such a thing as an Erotic Reading Circle gets that. I think once we say that kind of opening—the preamble that you almost always say, Jen—I think people get that right away. Oh, we want to make this a safe space.
JC: I think what I invite us to do is remember that at the Erotic Reading Circle we have a real breadth of understanding of what the erotic is and so folks can be invited to bring material that is of all different varieties and contents. That we want to keep readings to about 10 minutes. That we really want to listen intently and attentively to each other’s work. And [pulling from the Amherst Writers & Artists method], we request that if folks have specific kinds of feedback that want to receive from the room to let us know. That otherwise we really default to saying what’s strong for us, what we like about a piece of writing. Especially if it’s a brand new piece of writing, I encourage us not to think about how we’d critique it, because [the writer] has those voices already in their head telling them what’s wrong with this piece. It’s really helpful to get from the room that other side, to hear about what’s strong, what’s working in the piece. Also, that the writer can come with specific questions (“I’m really wondering how this voice is working”), so when we’re giving more critical feedback the writer is really driving that. We can say, you know, “you wondered about if this is hot,” so we can give pretty immediate response to that. And so I feel that’s what I … what else do I say? And I like the specificity around wanting this to be a safe space and wanting this to be a space where folks feel ready to take risks. That it isn’t actually always comfortable—it’s often not comfortable—but we can sit with discomfort and we can hold each other in it and we can hold each other’s writing in that, which I think strengthens us as writers and also as folks in the world that we get to do something risky like this and be met with kindness and generosity, which is something you were talking about earlier.
AB: And I love the simplicity. It could sound like those are very simple instructions, yet I think all of those very simple things create the safety. One could overlook them easily, but I think they’re incredibly important to the potency that comes from creating a strong container. For somebody trying to set up their own Circle, even though those things sound simple, don’t not do them. Because they’re actually critically important.
CQ: Another thing you say often is “What stays with you?” You know so even if it’s just the vibe of the story, if it’s one particular element of the story, it helps people figure out what they’ve got going on to build on if that’s what they’re choosing to use their time at the Erotic Reading Circle for. I think that there are different reasons that people walk in the door. People come in to use this as a writing workshop-like space. I think there’s no question that people are using it for that purpose, but that’s not the only reason at all. Some people are doing it because they’re scared, some people are doing it because they’re really proud of their piece of writing and they’re being kind of exhibitionistic about it—“I’ve just gotta share it!”—and every once in a while somebody will come in with something that’s just brand new and they’re all “Woohoo!”—they’re all excited about having just finished it and that’s kind of sweet. And I think some people come to the Erotic Reading Circle just to be in a sexually diverse space.
JC: To be in community.
CQ: That there is a real powerful thing: that it’s personal but can be kind of anonymous, that it’s a special zone. It’s not exactly like any other zone of sex positivity or sexual diversity or whatever. It’s not exactly like anything else, it’s unique.
Making space for erotic art
CQ: As Dorian [Katz], our gallerist, keeps pointing out about the art show that we have here, you think that these amazing artists would just put the stuff in any gallery show with the other art that they make. But other galleries don’t always accept it. You’d think there’d be many, many more places for this kind of art—you know, everybody’s at least a little interested in sex, aren’t they? A lot of creative people have some sort of sexually related work that they’ve done. Whether they’re established and known creatives or whether they’re Henry Darger in Chicago in his room who didn’t get a museum until after he was dead. I mean, there’s a lot of juice in the sexual for a creative person and the idea that many people can’t ever find a place to take that creativity, that just makes me really sad. It’s one of the things about being free enough in San Francisco to have created more than one cultural space for sex-related art making. That’s one of the things that helps make San Francisco San Francisco. It’s because we have so many voices that we feel like it’s safe to come out and add our own, I think. And the Circle makes that happen in miniature.
AB: Yeah, for sure. And it, you know, you use the metaphor of an art space and there is this beautiful [art show] up right now that unfortunately the reader can’t see but I think if you took any one of those pieces and put it in a show with all the “normal” pieces then it’s going to get held out as, “Oh, that’s the sex piece,” and so it doesn’t get looked at as a piece of art work in the same way. And so when you come to the Erotic Reading Circle and everybody’s reading erotic stuff, it’s not just like “Oh, my god, you wrote an erotic piece.” Instead, [the response is,] “Oh, huh, let’s look at your erotic piece in context of these other erotic pieces,” and now that’s a whole different conversation. It’s a level of witnessing that can’t happen elsewhere.
JC: Right, folks will describe being at other, more traditional workshop settings, where other writers are so pulled out by the content—“Oh, my god, this is a piece of writing about sex!” or, more supportively, “It was really brave that you wrote that piece about sex!” That can be really powerful and generous feedback, yes, but sometimes we would like more than that. Like, what was it about the piece that was working? What did you think about these characters? Sometimes folks in a more traditional workshop setting can’t drop down beyond “These people are having sex!” In this space—I really like how you articulate that, Amy—in this space, ok, there’s lots of sex happening in all these pieces and so how are we engaging with them as legitimate works of art? How are we talking about this? How can we help this person with their craft? Being able to get a different quality of response feels really important.