I knew which topic for July’s Size Riot quarterly size fantasy flash-fiction contest was going to win as soon as I saw the ballot. I didn’t vote for “Smashing Cops,” but I have no problem with it getting the most votes.
I have mixed feelings about current events creeping (or smashing) into porn fantasy (or fantasy porn). My main objection is that it is very hard to do well. Amateur size fantasy is hard enough on its own without introducing one’s political opinions, which are often less coherent or thought-through than one’s sexual perversions. My last foray into politically-charged size fantasy was cathartic for me, but I have no idea how successful it was for others, either as a political statement or as a wank.
On the other hand, passionate writing is some of the best writing, and many people’s passions are roiling these days, so perhaps this is a proper way to speak to the moment. I don’t know how sexy this batch of stories will be, but I remain curious how my fellow size writers will rise to the challenge. Personally, I’m going to have to consider how to avoid repeating my most vicious cop-smashing scene.
ETA: “Smashing Cops” is out. You have 24 hours to vote for one of the four runners-up.
Destroy Police Culture | End Qualified Immunity | Justice In Housing, Education, Employment
El Amante Menguante 
Long time no see!
It’s funny that we’re having similar thoughts these days. I’ve been thinking about the role of politics in smut, and I… just don’t think the two should mix too much. Current events makes for bad fiction no matter what genre you’re into, and it has a way of turning a story into first pulp, and then kitsch as the events in question fade into the history books.
But themes we can do. We don’t need to be told the aggressor in a piece of erotica is a cop in order to get the same feeling from their power tripping antics. Actually, I take that back… lack of specificity lets a theme or a scenario penetrate even deeper than checking off a bulleted list of topically relevant points.
That’s not to say that catharsis has no place, and as we in the smut business know, catharsis is, sometimes, a very delicious everything! But at a certain point, specificity just winds up feeling like I’m eavesdropping in on an author talking to themselves.
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“Eavesdropping in on an author talking to themselves.” Too much social media is actually solipsist media.
Avoiding didacticism should be every artist’s goal, and it wasn’t a difficult decision at all not to name the specific public officials I wanted to see killed by “Columbia”. I wanted to exercise both a contemporary grievance and a multi-generational grievance, as well as illustrate how the former was an echo of the latter. I’m still not sure I pulled it off.
I have higher hopes for my HistoricalJuly20 story. As the saying goes, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
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