England Goes Boom! -- Honey Trap #2 Now on Smashwords and Amazon

  Here's story number 2 in the Honey Trapp Snappy Stories  series, "England Goes Boom!" This time she's spying on English oil oligarchs who are definitely up to No Good, being oil oligarchs. As one of them says, "It’s the money that counts you know, and by that measure my true allegiance is to Panama, not England."

I'm taking a pulp aesthetic into my Honey Trapp stories, and having fun with it. "Pulp" and "erotica" used to exist quite comfortably together, only it was called "porn" in those days and it was marketed primarily toward men. It would be really interesting to study whether or not the primary readership of those old porn novels was male or female. I strongly suspect there were a LOT more female readers than male readers. 

Now, I could definitely be wrong here. Back in the 50s and 60s, censorship was an overwhelming fact of life in America -- there just wasn't a lot of sexy stuff around for average folks to consume if they wanted to, and to judge from the demand for porn novels, they definitely wanted to.  So guys could have gone for written porn just because there was no visual porn for them to buy. I mean, this was a time when weak-ass European art porn like "I am Curious Yellow" was a success in America.

Unfortunately, a quick dig on Google turned up nothing useful in the way of data on sixties porn-buying demographics.  The hits included lots and lots of modern stuff, lots and lots of old-timey anti-porn censorship stuff and very little else. The best I could do is this excellent description of what it was like to be a porn writer in those days by Robert Silverberg, who wrote 150 of those old porn novels. Unfortunately, it contains little or nothing in the way of useful information about the market for porn novels in those days, other than that there was a strong demand for them.

The reason I think it COULD be that the 60s market wisdom was wrong about who was buying/reading the porn novels is the Gor novels. The publishers of the Gor novels related at one point that they were amazed to discover that the bulk of the readers of the Gor novels were primarily women. (The first Gor novel was published in 1964, so it's more or less a contemporary, though the Gor novels extended right into the present.)

The Gor novels were a brilliant concept (softcore bondage porn involving slavegirls could seamlessly mix with interplanetary sword and sandal adventures if you make the slavegirls major characters and focus on their relationship with the protagonist along with the sword and sandal adventures) that was badly executed (way too much to go into here) but not badly executed enough to keep Norman's work from being more popular than all the other DAW fantasy novelists combined.  

If you're familiar with what was going on in romance writing of the time, you know EXACTLY why Norman's Gor novels were popular. The modern prohibitions about storylines involving rape did not exist back in the 60s and 70s. The rapes were never graphic, because trad romance publishers of the time didn't allow graphic sex scenes, period, or in some cases, no sex scenes at all, just implied sex scenes. And since there was virtually no self-publishing and not much indie publishing, the gatekeepers had full control. But there were PLENTY of storylines in romances in which the heroines are captured and raped by the Usual Suspects (pirates, Arab slavers, pirates, robbers, pirates, wealthy lords and of course pirates). In fact they were a genre, called "bodice rippers." A very popular genre.

Meanwhile, the Gor novels were being sold as science fiction and fantasy. They featured what would be mild sex scenes by modern standards, but they were very clear on what went on in the sex scenes. For example, in "Dancer of Gor" the titular dancer's virginity is auctioned off by the tavern she is dancing in, and sold to 17 lucky winners. And all 17 have sex with her in succession over one long night where she's chained in a tavern alcove and hooded as well (so she won't fall for her virginity-taker(s).) They don't give any detailed descriptions of throbbing swords of lusting thrusting into honeyed chambers of love, though I do believe that it the position Our Heroine was initially chained up in and the fact that others chained her up in different ways was mentioned, and that she was exhausted by the end of the night, and also very relaxed.

That sort of thing is pure-D high-grade fantasy fuel for anybody who likes bodice-rippers, much more powerful than anything that was allowed in bodice-rippers of the time. Of COURSE bodice-ripper romance readers flocked to the Gor novels, so of COURSE Norman was DAW's top-selling fantasy author by far. He was getting fantasy readers who liked his kinky storylines AND romance readers who liked them.

And that is why I think there might have been a lot more female readership for pulp porn/erotica stories than we know of. But ... I could be wrong.

And it's worth noting that things have gone full circle over the last few years. Recently I discovered this fascinating discussion thread on Goodreads attempting to list bodice-ripper authors who have and have not neutered their rape scenes when publishing them as ebooks on Amazon. Because some bodice-ripper authors from the 1960s and 70s and god-knows-when are doing just that -- editing out the rapes that were part of the story, for fear that Amazon or maybe feminists or whomever will get on their case. Let that sink in -- written erotica from the 1960s is TOO RAUNCHY for Amazon nowadays, in a time when porn videos are FULL of rape scenarios.

Never fear, Honey Trapp #2 contains no rape, noncon or dubcon, just enthusiastic happy sexual bondage fucking. If it did contain rape, I'd just publish on Smashwords alone, as I have with many other stories. Although THAT may be ending soon as well, which I'll save for another post.

And speaking of censorship, I've had to create two separate covers for this book. Amazon has ridiculous censorship standards, Smashwords is much more generous. I'll post the two covers here. See if you can guess what Amazon rules make the Amazon version acceptable, and the Smashwords version acceptable.

Amazon cover:

Smashwords cover:

Ok, here are the Amazon rules that are violated by the Smashwords cover:

1) There shall be no visible butt crack!

2) There shall be no bondage, even crappy totally mild bondage!

Finally, here's the blurb for the story:

After the successful conclusion of her assignment in Las Miserabils (see: “The Naked Jungle”) Honey turns down an assignment with the Saudis (even the Bascom Agency won’t send her there). Honey winds up on another Bascom job in England. The oily English oligarchs are up to their usual no good and it’s up to Honey to eavesdrop the hell out of them for the Initiative, the secret organization trying to save Earth from climate change. She’ll eavesdrop on them no matter what she’s suspended from or tied to, and no matter how tied up she is and no matter what kind of kinky sexual position she’s in. She’s just that kind of spy.

And the results for the oligarchs just might be explosive!

This novelette is over 10,000 words long and is number 2 in the Honey Trapp Adventures series.

Here's the Amazon link for the novelette.

Here's the Smashwords link for the novelette.

 Now what are you waiting for? Get buying and get reading! You know you want to.

Mall of Shame: It’s Sexual Bondage Porn! No, It’s Socialist Propaganda! Stop Arguing You Two – It’s BOTH!

 In my previous post I told you that Mall of Shame is almost entirely sexual bondage porn – and I was right, it is! That’s what makes it such GOOD socialist propaganda. Good propaganda isn’t noticeable, it hovers in the background, unnoticed while it weaves its magic.

For example, I was five or six books into E.M. Foner’s Union Station series before I realized I was reading pure-dee libertarian propaganda disguised as humorous light space opera. I only figured it out when I was brought up short one day by realizing what an utterly miserable life one of the minor characters must be leading, a life of unceasing toil at a dull job he had little interest in, with almost no reward for his toil other than the very barest necessities of life. It wasn’t slavery, but it was close enough for all practical purposes. And it was presented as just a normal thing. This wasn’t SUPPOSED to be a horrible fate, it was this guy’s big opportunity. Of course, things go very well for the guy later in the story but with a very subtle change his story could have been a living hell.

So I did Foner a favor and satirized “Date Night on Union Station” with a story that pointed out the hellishness of a libertarian system in Late Nights On Onion Station which, frankly, is a very ham-handed story that clubs you over the head REALLY HARD with how rotten things are on Union/Onion Station. But hey, that’s parody for ya. It’s not intended to be propaganda.

SPOILERS BE HERE! YAR!!!!

So, I’m going to go into detail on how I injected socialist propaganda into “Mall of Shame” with descriptions of specific scenes and so forth. It will give away plot points, but given that the story is hardcore erotica (or “porn” as it’s also called) it might not matter much to you. Your call whether or not you continue. You have been warned!

One of the themes I wanted to work with was the alienation that capitalism imposes on human beings. There’s a scene early on in the story where Karen notices that the shopgirl’s tone with her has become polite but distant, she is no longer friendly. This sends a chill up Karen’s spine: she recognizes that tone, she has used it herself in her works as a human resources manager. It’s the tone you use to calm an employee whom you are going to have to fuck over in some way. When you hear someone using it, you should be very, very alert.

The shopgirl because of her job in her capitalist business, has to alienate herself from Karen, because she’s “making a scene.” Karen needs help at this moment, but she will have none, because she’s in a mall, the very belly of the capitalist beast, and the only thing that matters in a mall is if you have money to buy the goods and services on sale. The natural impulse to help Karen is alienated, replaced by a responsibility to take care of the business imposed by management, which is why the sales clerk summons the mall cops.

I don’t spell any of this out in the story of course. That would be clumsy, club-you-over-the-head propagandizing. Some writers are clumsy and can’t help such writing, more often, they feel that their Message is Too Important to be rendered subtly, so out comes the Reader Club. This is always a bad idea.  People don’t like being clubbed over the head like baby seals, even with ideas!

 In the story we just note the chill Karen feels when she hears the shopgirl’s tone. Karen ignores it, she is too caught up in her reversal of fortune to realize she should back out of the situation quickly and quietly. 

Karen also ignores the feeling however, because for most of her life she has been a member in good standing of the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) which typically includes doctors, lawyers, corporate managers, academics, etc. She’s a Human Resources Manager for a mid-sized corporation, her husband is a tenured professor at a small college. 

And the girl who’s telling her she can’t have the bottle of “Joy of Ecstasy” perfume that she wants is a shopgirl, someone lower than her on the capitalist totem pole: let’s face it, a prole (proleterian). The shopgirl also has brown skin, so there might be some racism in there, too. But Karen would probably ignore a white shopgirl, too. Karen is alienated from the shopgirl and can’t “hear” her because she belongs to a different class than her, so she doesn’t catch the cue that she’s giving Karen that the boom is going to be lowered if she continues to act out.

In any event Karen can’t help acting out, her world is collapsing on her. Specifically, she gets bad news from her husband when her card is declined: he has been laid off -- his tenure turns out to have had limitations (part of the belt-tightening in academia imposed by capitalism). 

Karen herself is currently unemployed but she thought herself secure, that they could easily survive on her husband’s salary indefinitely, and he was tenured! Also, Karen is sure she will be rehired by her old firm soon, they hinted at that when they laid her off. This is just the sort of lie that she as a human resources manager has told employees when they got laid off, but she doesn’t recognize it as a lie when it is told to her.

That’s because she’s a meritocrat, a creature of capitalism’s class structure. She feels that she and her husband have gotten ahead through hard work and skill and that because of that they live by different rules than other, lesser beings (proles).  Meritocrats are deeply alienated not just from the proletariat, but from one another and themselves.

Karen in fact arrives at her situation precisely because of the effects her job has had on her personality. She’s a terror, a ruthless and successful corporate climber. Nobody dares to cross her. She wasn’t laid off because of incompetence, she was just what the top managers wanted in a human resources manager, a ruthless force. Her job was simply automated out of existence, as Artificial Intelligence made further inroads into mid-level management. If they had needed a human mid-level human resources manager at all, they would have kept her.

Like most meritocrats, Karen never believed she could lose her job to automation. She was so wrong.

And the ruthlessness and general “Karen-ness” that made her so successful carried over into her marriage. Her husband had not told her about his job loss because he was terrified to do so. The bad investment that sealed their financial doom was a desperate attempt on his part to restore their fortunes without Karen ever finding out about it. Desperation created by fear.

And that’s how Karen found out about her economic woes so suddenly, and so unfortunately, when her credit card is declined.

When the financial rug is pulled out from under Karen, she panics. The shoplifting isn’t a product of necessity or anything like it. She doesn’t need a $600 bottle of perfume in any real sense. But what Karen desperately needs is to be the sort of woman who can afford a $600 bottle of perfume. And what she finds out from her husband is that she is not that. THAT’S why she is so insanely intent on getting that perfume. It represents her still being a PMC member of the bourgeosie. And she is DESPERATE for that.

This being a mall, Karen can get herself out of trouble just by coming up with the money for the perfume. But her husband can’t do that for her, he has emptied all their accounts to maintain his deception and make his very bad investment. The Punishment Pit being so final in nature, the mall cops know she’s dead broke because if she had ANY financial resources, she would have used them.

(Karen is the least likable character I’ve ever created, but she and her husbands are victims of capitalism, too. They’re just utterly incapable of understanding it at present.)

Karen’s poverty is why the mall cops feel safe in manhandling Karen and dragging her off to the Security station to be tried by the mall arbitrator. Which given all the security cams, is a VERY pro forma process, and Karen is found guilty in minutes.

Then she’s processed: stripped, bound, fitted with a shock device and a dildo wand, and set out for public viewing. Now that’s she a poor person, she’s just so much meat for the machine.

Of course all of this social analysis does not show up in the story, it would stop it cold like a pig in a python. It’s the underpinnings to the story, which is pure porn on the surface. Which makes it more effective as propaganda as readers aren’t aware of the hidden structure of capitalist alienation that feeds the story, disguised as an excuse for nonconsensual kinky sex displays in a mall.

And of course when the action of the story really gets going we move way beyond what’s currently acceptable in terms of public nudity and sex, especially in malls. I explain it away as a program needed because actual jails are full of criminals who are killing people and blowing people up for revolutionary reasons. (The proles are getting restless!) But it’s actually because this is hardcore erotica, dammit. Gotta provide those kinky thrills to the readers!

Plus it’s fun to violate the upper middle class norms that govern malls so very, very thoroughly in my story. And it’s important to enjoy one’s work. And it’s important for one’s READERS to enjoy one’s work.

The Jinkie Jenkins Stories Are Selling Like Hotcakes, So Time To Cast The Stories Like They Were A Movie

The Jinkie Jenkins stories I've written, Jinkie Jenkins: Interstellar Sex Reporter and Jinkie Jenkins on Sexquest Station have been selling like hotcakes. I don't know why, but I just had two record-setting days in a row, so this is now officially a trend. I thought I should do something extra to promote them, so I've decided to cast my stories. I've noticed that some readers really enjoy that: pretend that a story or book is a movie and cast actors in the roles they'd play in the book. I try not to do that when I write a story because I think it inhibits my creativity. Sometimes for minor characters I do it, but not deliberately: the casting just occurs as I think about the character.

J. K. Rowlings ... I mean, Simmons!

For example, when I thought about Grabthar Assurilogan, aka Grab Ass, the editor of the Interstellar Inquirer, I immediately thought of J K Simmons playing J. Jonah Jamesson in the Spiderman movies. I wanted someone gonzo, blustery, demanding and slightly ruthless, and Simmons in Spiderman was just the ticket. So Simmons would have the inside track. Later, I thought of an elevator pitch for my story: “His Girl Friday” meets a “50 Shades of Gray” meets “Star Wars.” Which would imply Clark Gable or someone like him (nearest current equivalent: George Clooney) to play Grab Ass. But since Jinkie is a virgin, an existing or former marriage between Jinkie and Grab Ass wouldn't work, so Clooney, although a pretty good option, is not the the leading candidate. But a candidate, for sure.)

Captain Chode of Trippin' the Rift, along with 6 of 9, his sex droid.

Another option I thought of was Captain Chode from Tripping the Rift. He'd go great for the science fiction aspect of the story, being a purple three eyed alien and all, and he has a nice sleazeball element to him that would add to the story.  Either or both would work.

Chanandra Bingh

Also Chanandra Bingh, Grab Ass's assistant: anybody who recognizes the name will know that Matthew Perry has the inside track and is in fact the person the character is modeled on, though there are a lot of actors in Hollywood could handle the role just fine.

Burton Gilliam

When I wrote “Pea Eye” (Jinkie's cowboy guide to Durango 3) “was one of those men who looked like he had a second beard already growing beneath his existing beard, even when he was clean-shaven,” Burton Gilliam in “Blazing Saddles” was the person I was thinking of. You'll remember Gilliam's character, he was the chief assistant bad guy who came up to the railroad crew and said, “I don't hear you singin none of those nigger work songs” and wound up leading the other bad guys in singing a rousing chorus of “Camptown Ladies” to show the niggers how it was done. He can do comedy, has the look, so no other candidates in my mind. Burton Gilliam himself couldn't play the role, sadly, he's too old. But I'm sure there are plenty of heavily-bearded actors with a talent for comedy who could handle the role just fine.

When we get to the lead roles, things get tougher. For hotmeat, we need an older, but not terribly older, woman. Jinkie is the fiery young reporter, hotmeat is the worldly-wise sex slave. Clearly, hotmeat is much older than Jinkie, but with advanced medical tech, the years just don't show on her body. There's just a certain knowing something in her eyes, the way she carries herself, that announces her wordly experience. This despite the fact that she sings and dances about when happy and loves having promiscuous sex, which may be a product of her differing view of life, or maybe the treatments that keep her physically young, or maybe that wisdom of hers.

Jaime Pressley

We need someone who can do sexy and funny and wise and do most of it naked, or nearly so, while wearing collar and cuffs and shackles, and that's a tough range to cover. But there are an awful lot of VERY capable actresses who could handle it. For example, Jaime Pressley. She's older, and she's still just plain fucking beautiful, to the point she could play Jinkie and it wouldn't be all that unbelievable. She's also very capable of doing the funny, most of her work is in comedy. She can handle worldly, not sure if she could handle wise, only because I can't think of any roles she's had that calls for it.

Jennifer Anniston

Another good candidate for hotmeat would be Jennifer Anniston, who's older, gorgeous and great with comedy. She could also do wise and knowing. I'm just not at all sure she'd do it naked, or nearly so, much less have sex onscreen.

Iliza Shlesinger

Whitney Cummings

My actual top candidates for the role are two actresses who are also stand-up comediennes, Iliza Shlesinger and Whitney Cummings. Both are gorgeous, both can do funny, both can do wise. I'm not sure about either doing nudity, or near nudity (by near nudity, I mean a skimpy thong and some pasties at most. She's supposed to be a consensual sex slave, dammit!).

Elizabeth Banks

Elizabeth Banks is also a good candidate for hotmeat. She's gorgeous, she does sexy well, she's a great comic actress. But she doesn't do a lot of nudity. Just one sex scene showing her butt in a 2011  movie called "The Details." But hotmeat has to run around practically naked in practically every scene, and do sexual scenes in some of them. So, maybe not Banks.

Ana Faris

There's one other option for hotmeat, and that's Ana Faris. Faris is gorgeous, a topnotch actress, and an excellent comedienne. She can and will do naked, she can do sexy and she can do funny, and do them about as well as anyone has ever done them. That's why I would go with Faris as my lead candidate for the role of hotmeat – there's just no substitute for comedy skills, and Faris has them in spades. I'm sure she'd look good as a redhead, too.

Chris (Helmsworth)

Chris (Pine)

and Chris (Pratt)

The male lead, John Quill: I was thinking of someone looking like Kevin Sorbo when I wrote the character, hunky and broad faced. But Sorbo isn't really great with comedy, he's genial but not sharp, and also a little old for the role. Fortunately we have Chris, Chris and Chris. We got Chris Helmsworth, who did great comedic acting in “Thor: Ragnorok,” we got Chris Pine who has done some nice if mild comedy in his role as Young Captain Kirk in the Star Trek movies, and we got Chris Pratt, who was great in Parks and Recreation and has done funny stuff in most of his movies, specifically Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Any of the Chrises could handle the John Quill role just fine. It's not that easy a role: Quill is simultaneously strong and commanding and easygoing. The actor who had those qualities in spades would be James Garner. I think Helmsworth is the best of the three Chrises in this respect, so I guess he gets the role, though I think Pratt might edge Helmsworth out in his ability to work the comedy.

 Finally, there's Jinkie Jenkins herself. I think shes' a much less demanding role than hotmeat, because she's more a product of traditional humor: she's simultaneously enthralled and repulsed by sex, a fairly common trope for young female leads, and she's also got great ambition and dedication to her craft (“I'm a reporter, dammit!”) Rosalind Russell from “His Girl Friday” is about perfect for the role, except for being dead, which I'll grant you is problematical. But we have some topnotch actresses quite capable of following in Russell's footsteps.

Scarjo 

and Amy A.

My first thoughts about Jinkie were Scarlet Johansen and Amy Adams, since they are both strikingly beautiful redheads. (I'm not sure what their real hair colors are, but they've both looked wonderful playing redheads, and that's what counts.) But I don't think I have ever seen either of them do a really good job of doing "funny." Johansen played a funny role in "The Spirit" but she wasn't funny in it. Not that I blame her -- nobody was funny in that role, and that included Samuel L. Jackson, and he can do funny whenever he wants to. So I just don't know about Scarjo.      Same with Amy Adams. I've never seen her do comedy. She does beautiful and lovable very well, but then, so do a lot of actresses. As John Gielgud said on his deathbed, "Dying is easy, comedy is hard."

Emma Stone

Emma Stone has played a redhead in comedy well, in "The Easy A." But she's not what I'd call "strikingly beautiful." In fact, "Easy A" was about a virginal beauty who is dealing with sexuality, so Emma has trod territory very close to Jinkie Jenkins. Stone did a nude sex scene in "Easy A" which was deleted, so she'd do nudity and sex, but other than that, there are no nude scenes by her. But she's a much better prospect than Johansen or Adams. I don't consider her as strikingly beautiful as Johansen or Adams, but that's a matter of taste.

Aubrey Plaza

Which brings us to another young actress, Aubrey Plaza.  She starred in a film called "The To-Do List" about a scholarly high school grad who decides she needs to learn about sex over the summer before going on to college. So she goes about it in a scholarly way, making a list of sex things she should experience, with losing her virginity at the top of the list, and going down her to-do list methodically, with hilarious results. There were also nude sex scenes in The To-Do LIst, so Aubrey's got that covered. So, Aubrey Plaza has been in the same turf as Emma Stone, and she's done very well, for my money. She's not as strikingly beautiful as Johansen or Adams or Stone, but she does comedy better than any of them, and her role in The To Do List shows that she could play Jinkie beautifully. Since comedy skill and willingness to do sexy are paramount, that puts Plaza at the head of the list to play Jinkie.

So, for my dream cast, I have

Jinkie Jenkins -- Aubrey Plaza
hotmeat -- Ana Faris
 John Quill - Chris Helmsworth
 Grab Ass -- J K Simmons
 Chanandra Bingh -- Matthew Perry
 And Marty Stu as himself

Of course, this presupposes that whatever script is developed from the stories is a sharp realization of their comic possibilities that fully embraces the sexiness inherent in them, which will make all these actors very eager to land the lead roles. I leave it to the informed reader to guess how likely this is.

In any event, being picked up for a movie is a slim chance at best. But the stories are selling, and if enough sell, Hollywood will get interested. See: 50 Shades of Gray. And my stories are SO much more fun than 50 Shades of Gray.