Yarglenurp
Not bothered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2024
- Posts
- 1,156
Over the last few months, I've grown bored of my own fetishes and acquired a taste for interracial stories. I find that they're one of the most "honest" of the stories because I think they reveal what the author is thinking about others. By necessity, the author is really only able to speak from one perspective.
First, I actually appreciate interracial erotica authors' honesty in showing how their subconscious sees men or women of that other race. For those that are putting in the work to research and learn, I admire the boldness of writing about a race or culture other than their own.
To be honest, however, I think that the genre is really not being "used" the way it could be. There does not seem to be much growth in the genre. Compare the stuff written today in 2024 to the stuff written 10 or even 20 years ago. Change a few mentions of cell phones to smart phones, and you've got essentially the same story in the majority of cases. What is even funnier is that you can just swap out races sometimes and the "story" still works. At that point... what is even the point.
And I think there are two simple reasons for this. The first is the very basic "I don't want to offend anyone" fear. To that, all i can say is... don't be afraid. By existing, I'm sure you've offended someone. The fact that you care about others' perceptions already puts you above the portion of people that take a perverse pride in being assholes, so you being silent is just giving them control.
But, deeper than that, the majority of interracial stories don't show any actual aspect of racial background or character growth. They often reduce the "other" ethnicity to a 1-D stereotype, and the MC (usually white, though not always) makes no effort to actually learn about their partners as their own humans or see them as something other than a pleasure/humiliation/orgasm dispenser.
So, here some would say, "OK. But there's a primary running theme of race... so that's limiting." No, I disagree. The running theme of interracial doesn't have to be that white/black/asian/hispanic dudes have a smaller/bigger cock or more aggressive sexual appetite. The running theme is "differences." And between every two people, there are an infinite number of differences. And when those two people of different appearances and backgrounds come together and actually try to understand each other, you'd have conflict, misunderstandings, integration, compromise. These offer rich veins of both erotic and non-erotic material for writers to explore. To sum it up, you can have interracial erotica with a racial differences as a focus without making it reductive to the races of their characters.
There are definitely exceptions to this observation, and I really enjoy them. But I'm just talking about my observations of the macro-trends, not the exceptions.
First, I actually appreciate interracial erotica authors' honesty in showing how their subconscious sees men or women of that other race. For those that are putting in the work to research and learn, I admire the boldness of writing about a race or culture other than their own.
To be honest, however, I think that the genre is really not being "used" the way it could be. There does not seem to be much growth in the genre. Compare the stuff written today in 2024 to the stuff written 10 or even 20 years ago. Change a few mentions of cell phones to smart phones, and you've got essentially the same story in the majority of cases. What is even funnier is that you can just swap out races sometimes and the "story" still works. At that point... what is even the point.
And I think there are two simple reasons for this. The first is the very basic "I don't want to offend anyone" fear. To that, all i can say is... don't be afraid. By existing, I'm sure you've offended someone. The fact that you care about others' perceptions already puts you above the portion of people that take a perverse pride in being assholes, so you being silent is just giving them control.
But, deeper than that, the majority of interracial stories don't show any actual aspect of racial background or character growth. They often reduce the "other" ethnicity to a 1-D stereotype, and the MC (usually white, though not always) makes no effort to actually learn about their partners as their own humans or see them as something other than a pleasure/humiliation/orgasm dispenser.
So, here some would say, "OK. But there's a primary running theme of race... so that's limiting." No, I disagree. The running theme of interracial doesn't have to be that white/black/asian/hispanic dudes have a smaller/bigger cock or more aggressive sexual appetite. The running theme is "differences." And between every two people, there are an infinite number of differences. And when those two people of different appearances and backgrounds come together and actually try to understand each other, you'd have conflict, misunderstandings, integration, compromise. These offer rich veins of both erotic and non-erotic material for writers to explore. To sum it up, you can have interracial erotica with a racial differences as a focus without making it reductive to the races of their characters.
There are definitely exceptions to this observation, and I really enjoy them. But I'm just talking about my observations of the macro-trends, not the exceptions.
