Gaffer’s Thoughts and Commentary
The Naughty Gaffer is brndtag at mcn.net. If you send e-mail, and I hope you will, please use “Story comments” in the subject line so you can get through spam filters.
Sex, morality and fantasy
Sex is a powerful human drive that runs smack into trouble. Our earliest ancestors could have sex “all willy-nilly” (to quote Scott Adams) and it worked for them. They lived communally, had no clear idea of fatherhood probably, and accepted that 60-80% of kids would die by age 5. Lots of sex meant lots of kids, so some would survive. They also lived in what we would consider squalor and poverty. 
Modern sexual mores range greatly. Some of them seem more like trying to keep goodies away from others than they seem to be about protecting anyone. Others, I think, remain as valid as ever. I think promiscuity is generally an empty way of pretending to have love and affection. I think that adultery represents a betrayal of someone you’ve promised to care for. I think adultery also represents a relationship problem for all the participants and probably selfishness. I think that adults who coerce young partners into sexual activity are cruel or selfish predators. For that matter, I think any level of sexual coercion is cruel and/or selfish.
As for young teens experimenting or having sex – they are likely to make immature choices about their own emotional well-being or their partners’ well-being and pregnancy in teen years is obviously a burden. Some of these very young relationships may well be healthy, though, and I would leave any judgments to the youngsters and their parents. I was a sexual late-bloomer on several levels but I know what I would have liked to do at fourteen or sixteen. I admit that I’d be worried if my own son or daughter modeled their lives after my stories.
Fantasy of course may go anywhere the dreamer wishes. In fantasy, I can be fourteen or sixteen again. In fantasy, I can have a young girl as my partner and all are happy. In fantasy, my fourteen-year-old protagonists can romp with each other freely – their fertility will wait for years, both are clean of STDs, their parents are pleased or at least tolerant, they are faithful and supportive to each other.
A few of our writers mention their religious beliefs, specifically Christian beliefs. I’m more like a Theist: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and I believe in His divine love for us. Past that, I have very little dogma. I live my own life primarily by Christian moral principles. How do I square that with my sex fantasies, my reading, and my fondness for naughty pictures of young girls? Badly, I’m afraid. At least the girls in the pictures are out of my reach; my fantasies remain only fantasies. If sharing them brings you some pleasure, I think God will view that tolerantly at least. I hope it pleases Him but I acknowledge my doubts.
Smut, erotica, porn
I read an article in which the writer distinguished “erotica” and “pornography” this way: erotica is sexually interesting and porn made you want to masturbate or have sex. I thought that was a distinction without a difference. I call my work (which is really play) “porn” or “smut” because I hope it will be on your mind when you play with yourself and when you and your sweetheart have cheerful, hearty sex. Many moons ago, I listened to a speech on censorship. The speaker asked, “What’s wrong with a prurient interest?” I say a prurient interest is healthy, so I write to please that interest.
What do I like to read and to write about?
Although I write from both male and female points of view, usually in first-person, I am a middle-aged straight man with a long marriage. The word “gaffer” is an old British term for an older fellow, sometimes a recognized expert in a craft. It comes from “grandfather” and/or “godfather”. The female version is “gammer”.
I like to read and write about the things I wish I could do now or wish I had done as a teen or young man. As a result, most of my writing involves teen girls and boys with each other, or my forbidden fantasy of a teen girl for myself. My girls generally are small and have small breasts because that’s how my own tastes run. I also write a lot about spanking because I have a strong interest in the female bottom. That interest extends to panties as well. Our friend Frenulum has a “dialog” about the word “panties” and I heartily recommend it. Like him, I get excited by the very words “panties” and “spank”.
Perhaps because I was a late starter or just because we associate “virgin” and “beautiful” and “young”, I like to write virginity stories.
Most of our stories on our site are about “unauthorized ass” – in my case, sex between people who aren’t married to anyone. I have some stories about married couples having cheerful sex.
I am not likely to write male homosexual material because I can’t feature myself in the situation. I am happy for any relationship of people who love and care for each other – I just haven’t got that set of fantasies. So how do I manage to write female homosexuality? For some reason, I can fantasize as a female. I’ve also learned by reading the works of Lezlita stories and others. Since I enjoy imagining that I am touching a woman or girl, I can make a sincere effort to write that point of view. I’d be interested to hear from women, of whatever sexual joy, whether I do well at that. My sweetheart says I do, but then she’s my only fan greater than myself.
It would be silly for any writer on this site to claim moral superiority over other writers or their subjects. We’re all in the porn hobby together. But because I am frightened or appalled by some topics, I stay out of them. I will not write about severe spankings or beatings, rape, snuff, bestiality. At this point, I have not let a brother and sister go as far as sex nor had parent and child engage in any activity beyond a spanking that might turn the child or parent on. 
I pride myself on a smooth writing style that I call “experiential”. The stories I like best are the ones where I feel like I’m the protagonist and I try to make you feel the same way. I try to use good grammar. I also have a special writing style – almost a trick – and if you figure it out, I hope you’ll e-mail me and tell me what you think it is.
Some of your stories are kind of similar.
Yes, a lot of my stories are similar to each other and to the work of our other writer friends. The primary actions – spanking, fondling, oral play and sex – are going to wind up much the same in any story. The variety comes in how we put our playful characters into their fun situations. Besides, I’m sure you have favorite sex fantasies that you replay often. My stories are just sex fantasies (rarely actual experiences) that got as far as the keyboard. So they naturally tend to be similar. Hey, Gene Rodenberry once said that Star Trek had only seven basic plots.
Some suggestions for handling downloaded files
Text files are easy to post and available to just about everyone. I am normally going to use Rich Text Format files, which are also easy to download and nearly everyone has a word-processor that will handle them. WordPad is the RTF file reader in Windows. My cursory web research indicates that Mac users should be able to use RTF files too.
Many of our writer friends use TXT files. That’s great for making the files available but it can make them hard to use. Text readers are hard on the eyes (Notepad, for example). The text files also usually have a paragraph mark at the end of each line, which makes them hard to read in other programs like Word or WordPad. The paragraph marks may cause lines to break in awkward places.
Here’s what I’ve been doing to make it easier. I’m using the instructions for Word and WordPad but every word-processor and even Notepad will have something similar.
1.	Save the TXT file in your word-processor as its own file type (.doc, .docx) or as RTF.
2.	Get into Find and Replace mode (in Word, Ctrl-h is the shortcut)
3.	In the “Find” box, type the special character for Paragraph Mark and a lowercase letter, might as well be “a”: ^pa (this will vary according to your program)
4.	In the “Replace box, type a space and the lowercase letter: “ a”. The space will replace the paragraph mark and the lowercase letter will make the sentence work.  If you just replace the paragraph marks with spaces, you’ll foul up the story. Yes, that’s how I found out.
5.	In the “More” or “Options” section, select “match case”. In the original document, a paragraph mark at the end of a real paragraph will be followed by a capital letter. The ones you’re trying to change are followed by lowercase letters.
6.	Now use the “Replace All” option. There may be no replacements or dozens. If the story is long, maybe hundreds. Trying to clear them one at a time is very difficult.
7.	Repeat this right through the alphabet. It’s a little tedious but it beats the heck out of trying to edit every line in the story, which I’ve also done. Sometimes I’m a slow learner.
After you’ve run this process, you’ll find that most documents can still use a little cleaning up of paragraph marks and line breaks but it will be much easier.
In your own work or when you tidy up a story from someone else, be sure to follow the Gaffer’s Commandments of Files:
I: Save Early
II: Save Often
III: Save Every Time You Sweat