Ink's Erotica versus I tattooed my brain

Prologue
Special treat today. We're letting the Ladies of Thunderdome handle the dirty work this go around. There are two simple reasons for this: Firstly, the mere mention of the word "nipple" sends us Neanderthal men running for the nearest bottle of hand lotion. We can't possibly be objective when it comes to erotica. Secondly (and not unrelated to the first reason), we luvs us a good catfight. Okay then. Claws out...and...begin.

Ink's erotica
LingLing: Why? Why do people who know nothing about sex insist on writing about it? It's like asking why people who can't write insist on writing. I suppose you write for your audience. If the intended audience is a bunch of women who've never been fucked properly, and know nothing about sex, then this is a great blog. Harsh? Yes, I am. I'm sick to death of portrayals of female sexuality that make it all "pretty" and "romantic." With the availability of the anonymous medium of the internet, there's now tons of good stuff out there about women's sexual experience. Seriously, it's another sexual revolution going on. So why must I read this shit?

"Jo has a hidden desire but doesn't think that her husband, Mike knows anything about it. When she comes across her old school uniform, she decides to give her husband the perfect surprise. But will he be willing to play along?" Yes, if anything is uncertain in life, it's whether men like to see women in their old school uniforms. I await the answer breathlessly. Have we slipped into Bizarro World? Because that's the only place where the answer would be "no."

Now, I fully support erotica on the InterWeb. But not bland burb erotica that reads like a harlequin novel sweatpants-wearing Nebraskan housewives buy at Wal-mart--the kind that might as well be called, "The Titled English Guy and the Fat Undersexed Housewife he met in the checkout line at CostCo." What can I say? This is too vanilla.

Write what you know, they say. I offer this: "She simulated sex with the pole that grew up from the centre of the stage, her legs wrapped round it with her pussy rubbing a wet path up its length." This is not written by a person who numbers strippers amongst her acquaintances. Ling does. No one who hasn't spent time in a sex club should try to write about it. Period.

"Her heart beat strong in her chest, pumping the blood round her body in the direction of her sexual organs." Honey, if you can't call it a cunt, you shouldn't have one. Let alone write about it. There is so much that is wrong about that sentence I don't even know where to start. Arrrgh!

"With gentle fingers I ran my fingers over her skin. It was soft and smooth. We explored each other's bodies taking care to exclude nipples, breasts and pussies in our exploration. Eventually Cara propped her head on one hand and closed her eyes. I could see her breathing grow deeper and regular and I thought at one point she had fallen asleep." This bi-girl would have, I promise you that. I seriously doubt that this woman has ever had sex with another woman. Including herself.

How on earth can one write a boring story about a lesbian encounter? That appears to be one of the many tips you'll find here. Instead of reading a story about some hot girlfriend action, what we have here reads more like an account of the famous "lesbian bed-death," the sexual apathy that can set in for a female couple over the long-haul.

On Floodgates: Ok, Having sex with a stranger in the tube during rush hour. Could be hot. I've always thought so. Let's see, shall we?

"He'd attracted her with his rugged looks and strong muscles. His scent and sexuality, dripped off him like water." I suggest he apply less cologne. Plus I, hate, that, unnecessary, comma.

"She felt floodgates open in her groin." Do you mean, "in her sexual organs"? 'Cause that's gotta hurt.

"She moved aside the crotch of her panties and guiding his cock in one hand, Eliza positioned it at the entrance to her eager pussy." Whoa! Where'd Eliza come from? I was just reading about some slapper named Sara! This could get interesting after all! An anonymous threeway on the tube?? Even I hadn't ever imagined or done that! Oh wait, damn. Even the author is so bored she's gotten the wrong name.

"Her heartbeat quickened, this was unbelievable sex. Better than she had imagined." Well, and that's ultimately what's wrong with the whole blog. You're not supposed to have to TELL us something like that. We're supposed to FEEL it, you're supposed to SHOW it, not be reduced to saying it. Its like a character in a novel being described constantly by others as 'witty' who never himself says anything to justify it. Bad, bad, execrable writing.

Ooo, wait, the money shot:
"As he caught her eye, he winked and mouthed, 'See you at home later.' Sarah nodded in reply and left the station through the ticket barriers." Awwww! It turns out they're not strangers after all! They even live together! Well, that's a relief. All the cud-chewing anorgasmic housewives reading IE can feel comforted, Sara's really a good girl after all. Because no real women would have sex with a stranger, and no woman can enjoy it even in fantasy. Right?

TJ: Here's a blog that should have taken full advantage of the Thunderdome's bribery scheme. A cup of Jamaican Blue would have aroused more of my senses than this blogs flaccid prose or at the very least it would have served to keep me awake through the countless groans, throbs, and thrusts that were anti-climactic at best, wholly unreadable at worst. The most shocking and perverse thing I found here were the use of the words "cock" and "vaginal walls" in the same sentence.

The blogs sidebar notes that what you'll find here are "publication successes and failures," which has a wry stench of admitting the whole thing is nothing but a virtual circular file with promise. A promise which is eventually kept with "Dance of Death." A good story if you're a kinky vampiress with a yen for bloody snatches. I'm going to hold out for the performing arts version of that one.

Evil Minx: Seeing that one of the sites was a professed professional erotica site heightened my sense of excitement. Since I dabble in the writing of erotica not infrequently, it is a subject close to my heart. And other anatomical entities.

I like the look and feel of the blog. Cool, sexy--soft lighting and a picture of a sexy woman. Hey--wait a minute. Erotica is for women and men, and as a women who gets turned on mostly by men, why can't there be a picture of a nice sexy man?

I was very disappointed by the erotica that she writes. It's really not. That erotic, I mean. The imagery is there but it just...misses. The words are there but not quite the calibre I'd expect. The story lines are inventive, but the finished result disappoints.

Example: From "High Priced Callgirl":
"I'm already dressed to kill....My underwear is the skimpiest I can find: black thongs that barely cover my minge..."

MINGE? Hmmm. Now there's a word that conjures up erotic and sexy images. Not. It's that subrtle difference that whips the story immediately out of the realms of erotica to smack dab in the middle of clumsy, not-even-Playboy-worthy, tepid porn. What a disgusting word to use. Feh.

Unnecessary note from Dave: You think that's unsexy? The first time I read "callgirl" I misread "mange" for "minge." "Hey," I thought, "best get some ointment on that pronto."

I double checked "minge" in the OED. Course slang, yes, but I'll give Carrie the benefit of the doubt that this usage was intentional. Okay, sorry, I now return you to your regularly scheduled Minxdom.

Evil Minx: From Bonnie's Date: "I am sorry to say, that the poor sod that did have his birthday, was forgotten about."

A poor sod is a person, WHO would have something, not THAT. Tut tut tut. Actually the whole sentence should have been rewritten.

Good erotica writing should leave the reader feeling horny as hell. Or at the very least, aroused. Try little thing called lust, Doing Things With Skin, Housewyfe With Benefits or Mermaid Girl, if you want decent erotica writing. And these are just four of a whole raft of excellent sites that spring to mind. Not one of whom pompously purport to be professional erotica writers, either. Frankly, if I was to go to bed with this chick, I think I'd actually sleep.

Tattooed Brain
LingLing: "My fucking head. It's killing me. Where am I? I sit up. A wave of nausea rolls over me. My mouth has the feel of steel wool. I drank too much. Again." What's not to like?

The author reveals amongst other things why it's wise not to buy pot from a skinhead. Here's a hint, if said pot is described as 'trippy' it's a good bet its spiked with PCP.

"When you've passed out, you don't wake up. If you consume beer after beer, your bladder will fill. And it will empty. But you don't wake. You urinate where you lay. Like a fucking wino on the street. And this is what I had reduced myself to. I stopped putting sheets on the bed. It was easier to just wipe the piss of the plastic of the mattress."

Much of what is written of the author's teenage years is absolutely true to the suburban alienated drug culture. Kinda like the anti-mommy blog. Go read it if you wonder what your kids are actually getting up to, or wonder what its like to take drugs and drive to Philly late at night for cheese steaks and want a vicarious thrill. Things get darker though. The author's tales in college show his various dependencies increasing. Many of us have spent a college night calming a drunk friend with a butcher knife. Here you can find out what happened to that guy.

In comparison to IE's take on sex, we find these words of wisdom the author was graced with while working at Caddyshack: (Krista, part 2) "Do you mean to tell me that you are willing to put your cock somewhere that you wouldn't put you tongue. If you are afraid to eat it, you'd better be afraid to fuck it."

And:

"Clothes came off. I made my move. Clumsily putting my mouth between her legs. Before I had a chance to do much she puked all over the place. Too much vodka. Too much waterbed."

This is the first blog I'd had to read that I would actually read, and regularly. The author manages to write accounts about lying in your own piss and puke that you'll actually read, because they're not quite the usual accounts. They're not the hackneyed Oprah stories or the flamboyant "Million Little Pieces" stories. They're desperate.

To close with a sour note, "The beach" series is boring. Cut some of it.

TJ: Before reading this blog I was only blind in one eye. Now I'm pretty certain my other eye is shot to hell and my optician will be prepping me for immediate surgery followed by a lengthy recovery and a permanent ban on all black blogs with screaming yellow fonts and red text. Thanks a lot TB. While you're brain is obviously useless, I fully expect you to compensate me with one of your eyeballs.

TB's posts are filled with short and abrupt sentences strung together like a candy necklace; tasteless and breakable on the first touch. On the other hand candy is candy and TB obviously has good stories to tell. It was a lot to ask to read ones with 8 whole parts but he did suck me in with "Kimmie." My advice for this blogger is simple; pull the bong out of your mouth, ditch the song lyrics and focus on the story.

Evil Minx: "I tattooed my brain" presents itself from the outset as an unofficial writer's blog. As in "I make grammatical errors" (hoo! do you ever, sweetpea), but the content is interesting and based on true events that happened to the writer.

The look and feel is fairly awful. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's the kind of template layout, colouring and godawful font usage that make me want to scratch out my eyeballs and replace them with jawbreakers.

But then I started actually reading some of the stuff. Difficult though it is for me to maintain eye contact with a blog that (ab)uses grammar so blatantly, I found much of the subject matter to be very interesting and quite well written. When I realised that Tattooed Brain was recounting stories of his own life having made significant changes to the way he lived it, and not as "a stoner exalting the stoner lifestyle," I was even more inclined to read on. And I did.

Verdict
The Holy Order of Thunderdome desires it be known that this is the first unanimous decision in its hallowed fighting circle of doom. Read TB if you like life unvarnished, IE if you don't. IE pulls a veil of ignorance over sex, and by extension, experience. TB is the blog of someone desperately trying to pull that veil away. Compare IE's decription of a strip club, to TB's (from Beach, 2):
"The dancers were sadder yet. They smiled when they made eye contact as they picked up a tip. But as they went back to the fireman's pole their faces went blank".
This a blogger who knows his strip clubs. Plus, describing mouth-on-nipple action with the phrase "I suckled like a baby" immediately threw HOT out of the mood. Thus, on this, the 17th day of August in the year 2005, Ink's Erotica is forthwith and immediately banned for a period of two months. During that time, the Ladies of Thunderdome recommend Carrie spend some sweaty nights with a few companions of her choice. Heaving bosoms are optional, but strongly advised. Send us pictures. (Whoops, sorry, that's our male contingent chomping at the bit again. Can't be trusted, that lot.)

Medals of Dubious Honor:
This time, the only medal of dubious honor goes to Dave for getting this up late. Sorry 'bout that. I was called away on a top secret mission of sorts. If you never hear of it in the newspapers, then I've done my job well.

Graphics for the winner and loser.