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I went to eroticacoverwatch and was dumbfounded.

I’ve run across these “women’s erotica” books before. Mainly by seeing the covers. Hmm, I’d think. It says “women’s erotica” and it has a nekkid woman on the cover.

Conclusion? It’s erotica about women, for guys. And I always passed them up, because as a hetero woman, I obviously wasn’t the target demographic.

And come to find out…those books, with sexualized images of women on the cover, are full of stories for…women?

Knock me over with a feather.

[Yup. Ms. Naughty’s post really gets into that little marketeer-driven quirk. What’s especially funny, in retrospect, is that one of the objections seems to be that straight men would be put off by men on the covers of books of erotica intended for women. And the problem with that would be…? Rachel Kramer Bussel’s had problems with that too. Turns out, though, that throughout the major publishers rarely give their authors any say at all about cover design. It’s a near-universal complaint but particularly ironic in this case. Thanks, Lynn. —fl]

In gay porn men are at least presented as erotic in their own right but even then the representations were (obviously) still coming from a male perspective.

Can you or one of your readers explain to me what this means? I know gay porn is mostly intended for a male audience and uses male performers (I actually know very little about the producers and crew). But how would it look different if it were coming from a female perspective? Would there just be more women in the pictures? More variety? More marketing towards women?

I’ve heard other people say that because gay porn caters to a male perspective, it isn’t really filling the niche that women need. But it’s pretty much what I’m interested in seeing, and it just happens to have a blue label instead of a pink label. I could be atypical.

I still post photos now although to be honest I feel like I’m losing my touch. I’m also getting pretty restless about my anonymity. And so except for Thursday photos I think I’m slowly winding down.

I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. I came for the hot photos and stories, but I’m happy to stick around for the intelligent conversation.

[One big thing for me is the intentionality expressed, both by models who present themselves differently for other gay men than straight men would for women, and by the producers who I think choose to emphasize different elements, parts, scenarios, and poses for gay consumers. But also there’s just the difference in identification: it’s harder for me to think of where I’d fit into a photo of a person who really preferred not to be sexual with my gender. Hope that helps. Thanks, P. —fl]

As a woman, I have trained myself not to see things that do not turn me on. Make sense?

I often do not view pron because the men leave something to be desired visually. Makes sense, as it was a vehicle crated for men.

Then I saw gay men porn. I was was like wow! Look at that! They are soooo sexy! They look so hot! Why do hetero dudes not look like that???

It is that men are making what looks good to them, yet again. A gay man wants to see a hot male, even if he is slim, buff, hairy, what have you.

I have seen a few instances of bi porn, and the men still are superb. The woman is kinda an afterthought.

Even the latest genre, ‘straight men tasting their first cock” and so on, still features good looking guys. Such eye candy.

I thunk they only way to change it is for the industry to change. If the studios felt marketing to women was going to really get the $$$ rolling in, they might do it. As it stands, we have niches that do focus on women, not sure if their are enough women willing to pay for the pleasure of it.

[Speaking of which, there’s a post up on Erotica Cover Watch yesterday just blasting the publishing industry for associating “women who like to look at men = trashy women = only trashy-looking men when they do bother using them on covers.” Pretty cool post. Thanks, SB. —fl]

Ooh, I just realized that there was a really mean way to read my last comment. Your recent sexy content isn’t lame or anything; I’d just noticed the shift in emphasis.

[Yup. I had a bit of a motivational slump over the summer that involved lots of rivers-of-text length posts and a general crabby attitude. I resolved this in part by trying to lighten up a bit, a process that’s working but also that’s taking a while to, um, implement. Oh, that and I recently discovered that several relatives are reading my blog which has taken a bit of adjusting to! Glad you’re still enjoying what I’m doing, P. I really appreciate your thoughtful comments over the last year or so. —fl]

Thanks for the link to Cover Watch!

Your site and photos are wonderful. I love what you’re doing with HNT. We had a plan on ECW to invite readers to send in sexy pics of their guys or for guys to send in hot pics of themselves. I was going to kick off with photos of my man but then I got all shy. You’ve inspired me to consider it again, so thank you. Until then, we’re regularly eroticising guys with our Man Candy Mondays.

And yup, authors and editors rarely get any say in cover design. And as erotica writers, the only time we get a man on the cover is when a publisher wants to market us as erotic romance. But just to clarify, not all the books we’re talking about on ECW are aimed at women although a fair few are. We’re talking about general het erotica as well (though, of course, there’s no real difference in cover design; they both exclude women as viewers). What’s particularly galling is that Cleis Press – the biggest indie queer publishing house in the US, supposedly progressive and radical – is responsible for very many of these sexist covers. A few years ago they published a book by two female authors who were specifically writing het erotica from a female POV, rightly feeling that their sexuality was under represented, and even that had a naked babe on the cover along with a comparison to lesbian erotica in the blurb.

Keep up the good work! I’m sorry you’re winding down HNT but we’ll do our best to keep up the heat (political and sexual) on ECW.

(Oh, and because I’d hate for anyone to feel misrepresented in this debate, can I add that Rachel Kramer Bussel doesn’t, as far as I know, have problems with her covers (at least not the kind of problems we have we them). She might not actually choose them but she’s fine with them and isn’t a supporter of our campaign. Quite the contrary, in fact.)