If Elf Sternberg sets the website standard for male erotica authors, in many ways Maryanne Mohanraj sets the standard for female ones. She already has a degree of celebrityhood because of her recently published book "Torn Shapes of Desire" and also because of the hundred-plus stories she's written. She is also very comfortable about channeling a large part of her life to online surfers.
Like Elf's, Maryanne's page is well organized and easy to navigate. The layout of the material is pleasing and there are many links relating to erotica and writing in general, as well as an ongoing on-line diary, poetry, and a welcome listing of alternate sexualities in science fiction and fantasy works. There aren't as many stories as there used to be when I first perused the site last April, but then, she is a published author who is protecting her interests. I was sorry to note the disappearance of the Gor-esque slave n' loincloth BDSM novel, though Maryanne has told me it's currently undergoing a revision to a more mainstream fantasy work. I would liked to have seen more graphics, too, but not everyone's a site designer.
What this page communicates is different than Elf's. Elf is the keeper of some hard-to-find entertainment resources--the erotic hard SF story--and is attempting to share these resources with as many people as possible. Maryanne, meanwhile, is from a different generation, or perhaps a different social strata. She gives us an online diary to read and her personal thoughts on a variety of subjects...the conceit being that who she *is* is as entertaining as her creative output, and to an extent the site also functions as a public relations tool. It's an interesting contrast. I can't help feeling, though, especially in the wake of Princess Diana's death at the hands of the paparazzi, this attitude is a little dangerous. It's easy to stalk someone through the net, especially when they tell us personal information about themselves. This, in combination with the Alexa software I mentioned above, means who you and what you do will be revealed to a lot more people than you'd originally planned on...and some of them may be dangerous. So authors should take care.
But, on to the material here.
I found the links very useful, especially the science fiction and fantasy alternate sexualities list. The Clarion West diary was also fun, offering a glimpse into the cooperative nature of workshop writing. (Clarion West is a workshop held every summer in Seattle for SF and fantasy writers, with many distinguished graduates.) Like myself, the author clearly recognizes the strong links between erotica, porn, and literature of the fantastic. Among the other material, the website lessons give helpful advice to net neophytes, and Maryanne's own thoughts in "My Strange Schizophrenia" and "Why I write Porn" give some insight into her creative life.
I'm pretty useless critting poetry beyond "I liked it" or "It was strange" so I picked out four stories to read, and Maryanne sent me two others which are among her most popular. "The Shiver of Your Mouth" is prose-poem, a lover's paean to waking up with one's love. "Goddess Blessing" concerns Mina, a middle-aged widow in Sri Lanka, and the woman she once loved...and the intervention of the Indian goddess of fortune, Lakshmi. It makes good use of the sounds and textures of Maryanne's homeland. On the other hand "Mistress Molly" was very Diedre-like (with a touch of mind control) as a young woman falls under the influence of another woman who dominates and controls her completely, written in the you'll-never-believe-this style of sleazy supermarket confessional mags. "American Airlines Cockpit," the writer's first story, concerns two young women who amuse themselves (and take a bit of revenge on the male sex) by performing a striptease for the pilot and copilot of their DC-10, and "Jinsong" tells a story of attraction and rejection through alternating email postings. "Chantel" is about a rape, but with a twist you'll never be able to guess.
These stories were not porn. By porn I mean descriptions of specific organs and where they go, accompanied by sights, sounds and odors, often wildly exaggerated. I'd classify them more as literary erotica, and further stamp them as populist literary erotica. All were cogent, lucid, well-written pieces which show the four+ years of creative writing classes and lots of sweat and toil on Maryanne's part; all were as richly polished as the emeralds of her homeland. From what I read Maryanne prefers first person voice, but that voice is broadcast in different ways...from confession to email to poetry. Taken as a whole, they seem to say sensuality and eroticism can be found in the heart of everyday life; it leads us to richness and pleasure rather than shame, guilt, or pain. The craftmanship of the stories further removes them porn, as they also worked well as pieces of writing even if you took out the sex. The classic O. Henry ending to "Chantal" certainly bears me out there, and "Goddess Blessing" reads almost like a translated work by a fine Indian writer.
Though I enjoyed these stories a lot and rate them A+ for the writing, I missed the full-throttle intensity of porn. (Any one of these would be interesting comparison with "Video Knights in Katmandu" which I reviewed earlier this month, though Maryanne's work has more literary merit.) Porn is the loud-mouthed guest at party who dances on the table and does a striptease; erotica is the sophisticate who stands on the sideline and drinks martinis. Both have possibilities, but of different sorts. Another thing I noticed was that though erotic attraction and love are portrayed as being necessary ingredients to a happy relationship, they aren't really delved into. The flat givens about love relationships gave some of the stories--"Jinsong" in particular--a 20something Hollywood feel, like one of those romantic comedies where we're supposed to believe a beautiful woman like Julia Roberts would kill herself on her 28th birthday because she isn't married and popping out the rugrats. But it's a small complaint, really, and probably one more indicative of the author's age, as she is a 20something herself.
Altogether, the stories are interesting, the links are fun, and it's a large site, so there's plenty of territory to explore. I will definitely be going back to Maryanne-land.
Interface: A
Content: A+
Will I visit again: Yes.