Really enjoyed this interview with Ben Boswell, an erotic author in the hotwife, naughty wife genre… I hope you do too!
Let’s start with the basics–how did you ever decide to write erotica?
I hate to date myself too much. Not that I am that old, but I grew up on the other side of the digital divide. To make a long story short, my first exposure to erotic was probably Penthouse Letters — you know, “I never thought this would happen to me….” So I sort of grew up enjoying that kind of writing. In the early days of Internet access, I got most of my porn and erotica from Usenet, and I got into reading the stories on alt.sex.stories. I loved stories by “J. Boswell” and my pen name is an homage to him. At some point, I began to write my own pieces, at first mostly riffs on other people’s work. Basically I’d rewrite or extend existing stories. That turned into my own short pieces, and then longer pieces. After a while, I had a several dozen stories of varying lengths, and I began to think I’d like share them, or at least archive them somewhere so that they wouldn’t just disappear if I lost a hard drive or something — this was pre-Cloud. So I began putting them up on Literotica under the name MisterStan — no idea where that came from — and started to get some positive feedback, which encouraged me to write more. Kenny Wright contacted me through Literotica and encouraged me to self-publish on Amazon… and the rest is history. 😉
Do you write in other genres beside erotica under a different name?
Well, sorta…. I write and publish for my job IRL. Very different writing and not at all related to the fiction stuff I do. I’ve dabbled in spy, crime, and science fiction, but haven’t published any of that stuff yet, though I hope to. My erotica captures some elements of that, however. Whatever it Takes and Seven Dates both have some crime caper elements to them. I would very much like to be a mainstream novelist. (Don’t we all?) I guess part of why I write erotica is to continue to get better at writing so that maybe, one day, I can publish an actual novel under my real name.
Many of your erotic titles are in the naughty wife or wife-watching genre, which has seen a lot of growth in the past couple of years. What made you choose this particular genre instead of say BDSM, or Billionaires?
Well, there are three answers to that. The first is that I write what I like to read. This is a hobby for me, so I write to my kinks more than to the market. I’m not particularly interested in billionaires or werewolves. I’m a married man, and the whole naughty wife genre allows me to write on themes familiar in my own life. As they say, write what you know. (Though happily or unhappily as the case may be, the stories are grounded in real life, but the adventures themselves are fantasy.)
Second, my books often do have elements of other genres. For example, several have BDSM in them, but I don’t consider myself primarily a BDSM author because, to be honest, I have trouble taking BDSM seriously. There is an artificiality in the BDSM scene that I find hard to take. All the Master/sub stuff. The toys, the outfits… seems like a lot of work. But more generally, I do include material that comes from other sub-genres, but I am rarely committed enough to them to fulfill all the expectations of readers in those sub-genres. I do sometimes write about rich, powerful men, but I am not willing to commit to wallowing in the fact that they are billionaires in the way that readers in those genres really want to hear about the material possessions.
Third, there are a lot of things I’d like to write about that will get you banned if you try to publish them on Amazon, and I am leery of getting too close to some of those red lines. Basically anything that has a non-consensual flavor is suspect as is anything with younger women. So I’d probably write a blackmailed cheerleader story if I could, but I don’t want to get banned if I inadvertently cross one of the not-very-clear lines.
In your new book, The Crush, you write from the perspective of three different individuals. Did you find that a challenge, and did you write all the parts at the same time?
No, I wrote the three parts pretty well scattered in time. So that helped a little in the sense that I didn’t have to get out of the head of one character and then into the head of another immediately. I didn’t find it that hard to write the different perspectives — though I’ll leave it to readers to judge whether I was successful in doing so. Basically I wrote Dave’s perspective first. At the end of it, it occurred to me that I didn’t really understand what made Annie tick. I’d written that first part a fairly long time ago, and to be honest my “craft” (God, that sounds pretentious) wasn’t well honed. When I first wrote the story, Annie acts the way she does because she needs to act that way for the story, and that was always a source of dissatisfaction to me. So, I wanted to go back and see if I could turn her into a plausible character by explaining her motivations in a way that felt “real” (or at least real enough for erotic fiction). That was a challenge because I was, essentially, creating a rationalization, but I think it worked. Greg was fun to write. Cads always are. Although Seven Dates got the weakest response of any of my longer works, writing from Kellen’s perspective was great fun, and I think he’s one of my best male characters. Anyway, the challenge with Greg’s perspective was to find a way to tell his side of the story without repeating too many details. Again, I’ll leave it to readers to judge if it worked out.
Without giving the plot away in The Crush, we learn early on that Dave’s wife is eager to indulge in an extramarital affair, and in the foreword you warn readers not to expect any sort of punishment or retribution. You write,”Karma is not instantaneous, and not certain in any case.” Do you feel that readers tend to expect a sort of karmic reaction for cheating in a relationship, even in a fantasy story?
Yes. There is a strong contingent of “burn the bitch” readers out there. I get the psychology of it. There are men (and it is only men who react this way) who are turned on by cheating themes, but are embarrassed by their kink because they think it makes them weak, and by punishing the woman, they feel they can have their cake and eat it too. They get to identify with the POV of the husband, but avoid feeling emasculated because in the end she “gets what she deserves.” I find that an ugly sentiment at some level. It feels the same to me as a writing a gay seduction story, but then ending it with the man beating up the other man who seduced him. “Yeah, I sucked his cock, but I’m not gay because I beat the crap out of him later.” Feels the same as “Yeah, it turns me on to read about a cheating wife, but I’m not a cuckold because the in the end she got punished.” And it is actual punishment people want. I deliberately wrote the ending to the Terri Trilogy to explore this point. I won’t give away much, but if a reader has not read those yet, he can skip to the next question to avoid a partial spoiler: In the end, Bill is not weak. He’s in control and shows it, but because Terri doesn’t particularly suffer, I still had people write nasty reviews about my “weak husbands.” Same also with Honeymoon Hazards.
Along those same lines, many of your books have been deemed a bit controversial with readers due to elements of blatant cheating. Do you personally feel there is a big difference between cheating wives, and books that follow more closely to the idea of hotwives where the couple is both in on it, or is it all the same?
So, I want some sort of tension in the mix. Otherwise, it is just “slot A into tab B.” I’m a little like Jack Horner in Boogie Nights — I want to write books that are “true and right and dramatic,” where readers won’t just “skip to the good parts.” The problem with a lot of the “hotwife” stuff is… well… sort of boring. He wants her to fuck guys. She wants to fuck guys. Yay. Everyone is happy. Yawn. This is the point I was getting to with BDSM. What makes BDSM to me is the danger, the loss of control. If all of it has been pre-negotiated and is subject to strict rules of engagement, then there is no risk. It is playacting. I don’t personally find that interesting.
Anyway, there has to be some narrative tension to keep the book interesting. In the hotwife lane, he has to be at least unsure about it. Or she does. Or he has to worry about losing her. Or she has to worry about losing control. The closest I’ve come to a straight hotwife book is Dark Tide, which I’ll discuss in a bit, but even there I had a little bite in it at the end. Honeymoon Hazards was supposed to be just a light hotwife romp — and I think it is — but a lot of readers missed the “magical realism” element of it and so misunderstood what Claire was up to. But the short version is that, of course, there is a difference between a cheating and a hotwife story, and that difference is about the level of narrative tension. I’ll also note… there are a lot more cheating wives out there than than there are hotwives/swingers, so lodging these stories in perfectly, mutually consensual decisions leaves a lot of interesting stories on the table.
Speaking of Dark Tide, you’ve written several interracial stories, including that one and Annual Leave. Do you find there is a difference writing interracial scenes verses non-interracial scenes? Do you prefer one over the other?
I find interracial stories hot. There is still that old taboo — particularly in the United States, I think — about it that just gives it an extra jolt. That said, that jolt is inexorably linked to racist attitudes — big, black bucks coming to steal white women — and so part of what I was trying to do with both those book was write an interracial story that took advantage of that sub rosa racism while writing a non-racist book. I don’t want to come off as a social justice warrior — I’m not sure as an erotica author I ever could really be one anyway. But I do find the misogyny and racism common in the genre is off-putting. Am I trying to have it both ways? Yup. So that is both the opportunity and the challenge. I don’t particularly prefer one over the other, but writing interracial scene is more fraught, so perhaps harder. In most cases, I am more interested in the husband/wife dynamic than anything else, so the interracial issue is secondary I guess. That said, I’ll note that readers really liked both those books.
Of all the books you’ve written so far, which is your favorite?
That’s hard to say. I think Annual Leave is my best book. There’s no sex for nearly the first 15,000 words, and no one complained about it! Best set up of any of my books, but I feel like I rushed the ending a bit. Whatever it Takes is the closest thing to a “real” book I’ve written. I think I could cut out the explicit scenes and it would still be quite readable. I really like Surrogate Master, the closest to a BDSM book I’ve written, thought it got a mixed response. It is funny in places and feels real to me. And I really like how the Terri Trilogy turned out, though I get why some people might see those as too introspective. One reviewer said it made him feel like he was sitting through a psychology class. That made me laugh, but I had to admit there was a grain of truth there. But, anyway, my favorite is probably Whatever it Takes, though I think the one that is the most fun, straight erotica is Dark Tide.
Who are some of your favorite authors right now? (Erotica, or otherwise.)
I hate to answer this question because the truth is, I don’t read that much erotica anymore — I mostly engage with it in writing. I collaborate with Kenny Wright, Max Sebastian, Arnica Butler, and Kirsten McCurran on things, so obviously I think they are wonderful. I enjoyed your book, The Anklet. I only read that recently and am looking forward to reading more of your books. I wish I could sell as many copies of books as Alexa Riley, who actually writes quite well. C.K. Ralston has some neat books. Beyond that I hesitate to name names, not because I don’t have a list of people, but rather because I don’t want to leave people out. I already feel I need to apologize to all sorts of people, but I’ve opened up the can of worms enough. I pretty regularly retweet books that I’ve either enjoyed or that catch my eye for some reason.
What would you like to see more of in self-published erotica?
Ha! In terms of market share, I’d like to see less of it. Okay, just kidding… sorta. So, two structural things and then a substantive one:
First, we are very, very reliant on Amazon, which has been a wonderful opportunity and forum for many of us, but is also a risk. I wish there were a simpler process to diversify distribution channels. I just think that would create a healthier market space.
Second, it is hard for new authors to break through. And because we don’t have any mechanism to highlight quality, anonymous reviewers have too much ability to screw with authors. Trolls have caused tremendous damage to platforms like Literotica. I know a lot of people who won’t publish there anymore simply because of abusive trolls.
In terms of substance, I’d like to see more blending of genres. Sex is universal, and erotica could be grounded in any number of genres. There is clear a lot of that out there — particularly in the historical and horror genres. But I’d like to see more crime fiction/erotica crossovers. More sci fi/erotica books. And maybe those exist in greater numbers than I realize.
Any tips for writers who may be just starting out?
Oh, it is the same tip any and every writer gives. Write and then write more. Have other people read your stuff and get feedback. Develop a thick skin (I’m still working on that). Make sure you have another set of eye (or two or three) to help copyedit. In terms of erotica itself, the characters and setup are ultimately more interesting than the sex. I know people will dispute that, but the truth is, sex scenes are better with more interesting characters.
Find Ben Boswell’s new book The Crush: An Affair in Three Parts on Amazon now.
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Excellent interview, thank you. I love Ben’s writing, which I think I first saw on https://noveltrove.com . Good luck Ben, I hope you will one day sell as much as Alexa does 😉