Sunday, April 25, 2021

Here's what small talk has to do with porn.

Meeting someone for the first time is always a sticky situation, especially if you are encountering a group of people that you've never interacted with before. I read that older humans developed certain rituals, including small talk, that helped establish common ground and good rapport between people who don't know one another. . . And in so doing have damned us all into having to greet everyone we meet with a "Hello, how are you doing?" Thanks, ancestors, for a set of rules that strip an innocent question of all its warming, connecting, vulnerable qualities?

But the question was never about how anyone actually -- about auditing someone's health. Instead, it's goal is to establish a status quo: that you haven't had a break with reality, gone mad, and have meditated my murder since we've been apart. Better articulated, the question might be: "Can I expect the same stuff from you that I expected before?" This is important. People are hardwired to react with positivity when something expected pops up in a chaotic environment. They react less enthusiastically when their status quo isn't established.

So porn. Or, rather, writing porn. A common fear is being too cliche or writing what's already been written. We strive to write something new, groundbreaking, or, at the very least, good -- where "good" means "unlike some of those other stories I've read, harrumph harrumph." But on the journey to uniqueness and full creative expression, we often forget that porn is a chaotic environment with bits of gold scattered in a field full of landmines. Readers don't know what to make of a story when they first see it. The presentation, title, and tags help identify, but the trust isn't yet there; like seeing a warm smile one second before that smile spreads into a drunken, giggling fit. Looked alright. . . until it didn't. Can't trust it.

The need for full creative freedom can't be grander than the need to make an emotional connection with the reader. That connection doesn't happen in chaos, but in meeting the expectations that readers approach each story with. In BE, that looks like a female protagonist with a really good reason to want larger breasts, one who has tried everything and is getting desperate, and one who is sexually unfulfilled. By science or magic, she stumbles into a chance to get what she wants. Cliche? Yes. But now we know what this story is. Now, it doesn't feel like such a risky investment of time. We're not strangers to this world anymore.

A writer can choose to skip these steps, but they do so at a certain peril: being known as the author who doesn't establish the status quo. And is being 'different' as valuable as connecting with your audience? Maybe. Who knows?

All I know is that, when someone asks, "How are you?" an appropriate response is, "flat-chested, horny, and desperate". And perhaps that starts more interesting, more unique conversations.