Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Out of Print

The new blog-a-zine Out of Print describes itself as follows:

Out of print is a new media celebration of old-fashioned counter culture. It is an interactive blog and forum for anyone who is interested in politics, conflict and contradiction, untold stories, under-represented individuals and groups, challenging culture and critical thinking.

As part of the inaugural issue on the theme of equality, they've reprinted a piece I wrote in 2007 as a guest blogger at the late lamented Lust Bites. In it I articulated my understanding of why, speaking as a male erotica writer, it does not feel unreasonable to me to be excluded from certain "by women only" erotica projects.

Thanks for the reprintin' love, OOP!

4 comments:

Jo said...

I was bemused by that whole issue. Issue of exclusivity I mean.

Surely it's ok for a group of men or women to get together and form a blog to support and publicise their writing?

I would have thought the answer would for the same angry men to go blog actively on their own along the same lines. We're men! We're doing something about it!

I've talked to Danielle about this, and it seems that erotica has become women dominated and does often exclude men - in submission calls for instance. I think that's a shame. And I love the idea of collaborations. But I also see the attraction in a women's collective, or a men's or of all sorts of writers working together.

I hope we see more on this soon, I know Danielle had some thoughts but is busy busy.

Jeremy Edwards said...

Hi, Jo.

It's true that there have been a lot of women-only calls lately (from Cleis, notably). On the other hand, the demise of Black Lace (and the concurrent expansion of Xcite, where no gender restrictions exist) makes me feel that on the whole the balance of "women only" to "anybody" opportunities hasn't increased.

As I said in the comments when this piece originally ran at Lust Bites, my position is not that I'm saying women should set up "women only" projects (why would I tell them what to do?); it's just that if they do set them up, I can understand why and I don't feel oppressed by it.

Thanks for sharing your perspective on this! I hope you'll consider joining the discussion over in the OOP comments, too.

Jo said...

OOPs, I committed a blog faux pas :)

I will do, indeed.

Jeremy Edwards said...

Not a faux pas (though I love the "OOPS"!); I just thought the people reading and commenting over yonder might not want to miss out on what you have to say. : )