Well, I finally finished this.
After a dozen or so rewrites and editings to make it not
read like my sexual autobiography, I've finally done it.
Actually, I just got tired and cobbled something up from
all the other failed rewrites into something halfway coherent. ^_^
But really, I tried my best.
Thanks to all those who wrote in, even though some of
you were really quite unwelcome additions to the mailbox.
It's been a fairly hectic three days for me, since I finally
decided to go out and do something a while ago and had
myself beaten up in an arnis sparring match, finished Time
Crisis while wearing my dress and military boots, finally
got myself a copy of the final volume of RK and the sidestory
(Yahiko does the Kamiya Kasshin Ougi! Cool!) , and finally
sat down and watched Ayashi no Ceres ( Watase-san still
keeps on coming with the themes of betrayal, family massacres
and bishounen boys). So if the essay feels hurried and frantic
at times that's because it is. ^_^
I'm going to sleep after I send this out so please wait for my
response, 'kay?
Disclaimer:
Any disagreements, complaints and offers of marriage (The
answer is NO!) are all gonna come back to me anyway, so
just end them out. And if you flame, be prepared for something
fairly terrible to happen to you in RL. I have friends you know. ^_^
And please note that this is more of a simple overview. The
entire thing would probably be book-length, if I went into an all-out
examination of the genre.
********************************************************************
On Lemons And Lesbians:
Musings on the Lemon Fanfic Genre and Related Areas
OR
How Hiroshi Got Haruka Pregnant ^_^
********************************************************************
�Usako? Did I just hear you say all five of you?�
At his wife�s smiling nod, all Endymion could response
with was with a leering grin at the five women at the bedroom
door.
-a preview from the upcoming lemon fanfic, It�s Good
to be King.
�Umm�Setsuna? Did I just hear you say all nine of you?
You can�t be serious!?�
Endymion saw Setsuna smile enigmatically, with a hungry
light in her eyes as she locked the door.
�And I get to be first, Endy-chan.� Setsuna�s sultry
voice was filled with desire as she rushed up into his arms
and they fell onto the bed.
-a preview from the upcoming lemon fanfic, It�s Good
to be King: Part 2.
"You know, 'Ruka if we keep on being this close to each
other, I won't be able to stop myself from tearing your
clothes off?"
�So? Tear them off, �Roshi-kun.� The playfulness in her
voice was quite evident as she managed to keep her hands
around Hiroshi, continuing in their somewhat intimate embrace
on the bed.
Hiroshi�s eyes widened in surprise as she looked into
Haruka�s drunken eyes, her pink smiling lips, smelling the
whiskey in her breath and feeling the silken softness of her
hair, while her hands started doing things that they wouldn�t
have normally done if she were sober.
Like unbuttoning his shirt.
Like rubbing his back.
Like going down into his�
- from an excised scene of Elsa Bibat�s fanfic �The
Women They Love: Haruka�.
Well, hello there. Now that I�ve managed to get your
attention, I�ll probably be starting now. First for the
record, Hiroshi and Haruka won�t have sex yet. I don�t agree
with sex under the influence of alcohol or other mind-
altering substances. Mostly because it makes you miss out on
some things that could be filed away for future reference and
also because of the fact that you don�t know what you�re
doing, resulting in situations like waking up in a very
compromising position, our bras and panties and various
clothes thrown all over the place, with the substitute
librarian, who really is quite cute, with a really satisfied
grin on her face. But that�s another story.
�Roshi-kun and �Ruka-chan are gonna do it in the
morning when Haruka�s totally clear-headed, cognitive and
willing.
<WHAM>
OOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
Damn it! Who put that Michiru fan over there!?!
Anyway, that scene above wasn�t totally my fault.
It�s�it�s� Doug Helm�s fault! Yeah! That�s right! Along with
a few other people, he made me write the first Haruka
heterosexual lemon! The only reason I�m alive right now is
the fact that I didn�t release it.
Okay� so he didn�t exactly force me to do it. But he
did spark it. Yeah, that�s the ticket. If you look at it in
my way, it�s all Doug�s fault that Haruka�s pregnant, not
Hiroshi�s. Though if you look it in another way, �Roshi and
�Ruka really shouldn�t have had half a week of non-stop sex,
with appropriate breaks for various bodily functions. A
rather lengthy explanation on that later.
Anyway, we�re here to discuss the more lurid
underbelly of fanfiction, the lemons. Why they�re called
lemons? Well, if I remember correctly that�s part of the name
of one of the first hentai manga/doujinshi or whatever. Well,
for whatever reason, the name stuck. And we got these babies.
If you really want to trace historical records, things
like this have existed since the olden times. The Greeks had
some pretty erotic plays and quite a few erotic poems.
Pornography, though was much more popular since it was so
much easier to just look at an image than imagine it.
Hmmm� by the way, if you really, really don�t want to
find out about some stuff until you�re older, well, it�s time
to bail out now on this essay. If you really want to press on
or you know everything about this stuff, well read on, as
long as I�m safe from legal prosecution. I�ll try to keep it
tame.
The oldest piece of erotic literature I have in my
little cabinet closet in my library is Giovanni Boccacio�s
Decameron, the Italian prose equivalent of Geoffrey Chaucer�s
Canterbury Tales, has a plethora of erotic stories: seducing
monks, a man who managed to sleep with an entire abbey of
nuns, men sleeping with daughter and mother on the same
night, a bride on her way to her wedding enjoying various
sexual adventures before arriving at her groom�s home and, of
course, the classic story of a hermit putting his �devil�
into a particularly devout young woman�s �hell�. If you don�t
get that one, please get out now, since you�re too young for
such talk.
Next on my list is Marquis de Sade, a personage who
served as my guide to learning the French language, as I
devoted an entire semester of my college years to translating
his Justine. Sad to say, my French is still shitty, but hey,
I have pretty much absorbed some stuff that I use sometimes.
Note the sometimes part, okay. I�m not a total sadist, though
it still does give me a slight thrill at mastering someone.
Leopold von Masoch�s Venus in Furs, the masochist�s
guidebook, was next. And I say it is a must for every writer,
considering the amount of verbal punishment one must take for
writing a work that someone has disagreed with. My Secret
History by Anonymous, a recent acquisition, is quite an
insightful look at the effect of public sexual repression on
the sex lives of the Victorians. Primarily, it just made them
more depraved and more horny in private, giving them a wide
taste, from young boys and girls, to mass orgies and going at
it with the household help and with some of your best
friends. Heh.
And some of the more modern stuff are locked in here,
too, with the videos. I thank whoever the bastard was that
managed to switch his Urotsukidoji tape with SMS movie one
<sarcastic tone>. A total surprise since I sat down to watch
the tape with my younger cousin. That little stunt almost got
me kicked out of my Aunt�s place. And I did watch the damn
thing. Once. For curiosity�s sake and for a little article I
was writing at the time, and as a side note to a research
paper for grad school. Let�s just say I was quite disgusted,
but as they say, one woman�s perversion is another man�s
excitement. Oh thank you very much, Kenneth Scroggins, MIB.
^_^
And, yes, I have other videos along with the
Urotsukidoji tape, which I kept since I damn well paid for a
tape and I think I can still use it for a future article, but
whatever I have in my videography is my business, thank you
very much. Saying that, it�s got pretty much of everything.
^_^ Collecting is a passion of mine, and still the
justification that I�d probably have to use these things for
an article, that would give me money, or the fact that these
are better off in my custody than my cousin�s. You do notice
that I�m reaching for any non-embarrassing reason, right now.
^_^
Anyway, I�m a bit of a connoisseur in this sort of
thing. And I do try to be very tasteful. As tasteful as you
can get in this sort of subject but still my standards are
always high, in my erotic literature or whatever else I have.
It�s the perfectionist in me.
To go on, we�ll be discussing lemons, the best and the
worst aspects of them to be precise and various other issues
that are related to sex, which are mostly desire and love.
Well, to start why do people love to write them.
I�m not exactly known for lemons. Probably because I
don�t post the more erotic pieces I have, since I much prefer
them on the hard drive than out in the net where any
psychologist could examine them. I got introduced to the
�juicy� stuff by the trashy romance novels I read back in
high school, you know the ones with covers graced by scantily
clad men and women in various poses. Personally, I like to
thank whoever wrote those things, since nowadays I write
those trashy romance novels to supplement my income, though
if you manage to read them they read like SIs with me in the
starring role. Under a pseudonym, of course. Can�t have my
serious literary career and my teaching position endangered
by stuff like that.
Anyway, for me writing the occasional piece of erotic
literature is more of a cathartic experience.
You see, I haven�t been getting any for some time now.
Well, the librarian doesn�t count since I don�t remember a
thing. So you can chalk up the Haruka lemon to release of
sexual tension. I really need a couple of days or so of
mindless, passionate, lustful, groaning, sweaty, stress-
relieving, consciousness-blowing, utterly unbridled sex. From
some of the lemons I�ve read, it seems to be the same for
some other writers. Primarily, in all the lemons I�ve read, I
have the vague feeling of wish-fulfillment going on in the
background. Even the most terribly written lemons have the
faint whiff of the wish-fulfillment bouquet.
Also, some lemon scenes are thrown into a story to
spice things up, like in the aforementioned trashy romance
novels, or as a necessity to the story, also just like in the
aforementioned trashy romance novels, or in my case , a
combination of a necessity for the story and writer�s whim.
Time for another digression, it seems.
I�ll talk about the Haruka lemon piece, and explain how
it�s mostly Doug Helm�s fault. ^_^ Anyone who�s been a big a
fan of Doug�s Tales of The Younger Senshi series knows that
in Doug�s Crystal Tokyo, Haruka and Michiru have broken up
and they both have daughters. The first time I noticed this,
I got to thinking what sort of man would Haruka go for. Right
about this time, I was working on TWTL:Beryl and when I
finished that I was looking for a nice topic for the next
story in the cycle. And a bolt from the blue struck. Why not
Haruka?, my evil chainsaw-wielding muse asked me as she oiled
her Little Bess. And that�s how TWTL: Haruka started. And
that was over a year ago. ^_^ I had worked on the Man-that-
Haruka-would-like problem for some time and it seemed to fit.
I was also considering to ask Doug permission to make a story
just like that to fit into ToYS continuity, thinking that
would make his Haruka less of a bitch. Then Doug told me, in
one of our various e-mail conversations that Haruka got
pregnant via artificial insemination. Down the drain went the
idea, before I even asked Doug for story permission. Anyway,
it languished for over a year until my muse went at me with
her chainsaw and I got started on me again and I wrote a big
one. Readers of the story that came out on the FFML know that
it was just a scene where Haruka broke up with my created
character, Hiroshi. What most readers don�t know is that
there were a lot more scenes to it. The original story went
from pre-SM days, the scene I used for the public release, to
just right before SMS to after Stars and right up to Crystal
Tokyo. The final scene was supposed to be with Haruka and her
daughter by Hiroshi, at Hiroshi�s grave, a nice little
bitter-sweet scene. Hey, I have an idea how to stick this
into Doug�s continuity! Doug contact me later, I have a plan!
^_^
Anyway, before I even finished the fic, I started
thinking about the story as a whole and found out that the
first scene was extremely powerful in the emotional
department so I decided to scrap the other parts, which I
quite regretfully did , except for the lemon sequences that
still weren�t finished, and I didn�t like deleting them since
I had this funny tickle in the back of my head. After I
released TWTL: Haruka, I kept on working on the lemon
sequences and after I finished I just hid them away as what I
usually did for scenes too erotic for public consumption. The
lemon sequences weren�t originally supposed to be there. I
decided to be playful a little while I wrote the fic and I
just wrote them. Though I didn�t think it would be that long
or distracting. And, no, I won�t post the lemon. I�m lucky
enough as it is that the Haruka fans haven�t found out about
my other �Haruka� fics. ^_^
Well, there�s one reason for writing lemons. I just
felt like doing it. And besides it�s a lot safer than real
sex, though a thousand times less exciting. Anyway, back to
the discussion.
Having read as many lemons as I�ve had, and trust me
kiddies, I�ve read a lot, you get to notice a few patterns
and a few trends. Also you get to see the best and the most
erotic to the worst and most unexciting lemons ever.
Personally, most of the stuff that follows is biased by
opinion, mostly because when it comes to sex, I am both quite
opinionated and playful. One of the things I�ve notice about
lemons is this: male and female pairings are the most
popular, followed closely by lesbian pairings and then by
yaoi. That�s not an exact demographic but that�s the feeling
I get from the stuff I�ve read. It is quite amusing to note
that the best writers of lesbian pairings are usually male
while the best yaoi writers are mostly female. This probably
proves the old saying that man, or woman in this case,
always desires what he/she cannot have. ^_^
Myself, I�m not picky of whatever gender I choose to be
my partner. As long as they pass my criteria. I find a woman
attractive if she has a few masculine traits. And I find
women in men�s clothing extremely sexy. If you want to know
how a woman in a tuxedo can be sexy, watch a presentation by
the Takarazuka Revue Company. They�re a troupe of all-women
actors, and for their male parts they have the otokoyaku,
women who train, if I remember correctly, ten years on how to
dance, sing and act like men. And they�re still sexy. To
quote my male cousin, they�re �hot� in the same way he views
Haruka as �hot�. The otokoyaku have a large female following
and quite a few male fans cheering for them. If you want to
see what Haruka would look like in RL go rent a tape or watch
a performance on cable. They�re really good. BTW, If you
don�t agree with my cousin�s judgement that �Haruka is a
babe�, all you have to do is look at some manga
illustrations. Takeuchi-sama drew Haruka�s feminine side
frequently, and sometimes Haruka is a lot more sexy than
Michiru. Look for the pictures where Haruka�s dressed up in a
seductive little black skirt and white very feminine blouse,
or the blue dress which has the slit at the side coming right
up the top of the dress.
And for my men, I have the distinct taste for the
opposite. I like them with a few feminine traits. You know
kind of like Shinji from NGE. Now if Shinji grew a little
more spine and was �um� say twenty-eight, I�d go for the kid.
And I don�t like guys with big muscles. I prefer a man with a
good lithe body. And I always like smooth skin. I love
stroking smooth skin, which shows itself in some of my erotic
pieces. It is a bad habit of mine to caress or �touch�
someone. I like touching people as a whole. That�s why some
of my coworkers find it uncomfortable when I suddenly start
massaging one of them. The faculty room is a pretty quiet
place and when I have nothing to I just stand up and find a
teacher-friend, male or female, and start giving them a
massage. The men find it quite relaxing, though some of my
female coworkers are quite uncomfortable when I start�well�
going lower. That�s why in my Haruka piece, there is a lot of
caressing, massaging, tickling, touching and foreplay. This
makes me all sound like a �well� nymphomaniac but really I�m
pretty finicky with who I sleep with, except if I�m drunk
which I haven�t been for awhile, thanks to the librarian
incident. And I don�t jump into bed on the first date, which
is probably why I haven�t been getting any, since I never
seem to progress far beyond the first date. It�s not that I�m
unattractive, it�s just I have no time to date. Anyway back
to the essay.
It is an interesting observation of mine that the
writers who do not limit themselves to lemons have a strange
effect on their non-lemon characters. Their desires and
sexual tastes show themselves in their writing. Personally,
my favorite character among those I�ve ever created is
Lavender. For those who don�t know about him/her, he/she is
someone who goes around the dimensions in a tuxedo, cape and
a mask. He/she has a tendency to take on the form and gender
that he/she needs to be. Lavender�s gender is quite in
question, the fact that he/she is either male or female
always being wondered on by his cat, Apollo. A good enough
reflection of my personal taste. My personal preferences show
themselves also in Hiroshi, the character I created for TWTL:
Haruka. He�s my idea of the perfect guy: nice and intelligent
and a dash romantic, though I forgot to add a little spine.
^_^ It also shows itself on how I write my Harukas. They�re
more or less like me in a way. It is a minor miracle in
itself that the Haruka cult hasn�t gone down on me for some
of the Harukas I�ve written. My Harukas are also a nice
little reflection of me, since probably Haruka reminds me of
my college days a lot. This is a trend I�ve seen in other
writers who�ve written both lemons and non-lemons,
reflections of what they find desirable in their sexual
partners can be seen in their writings. Time to send some of
this stuff to a psychologist friend of mine. ^_^
BTW, as long as we�re on the observations thing, I�ve
noticed something on Sailormoon lemons, a genre which has,
IMHO, the most lesbian lemons ever. Ami seems to be a big
favorite among the Inner Senshi, followed by Minako and
Usagi, then Makoto and Rei respectively. In the Outer Senshi,
well, there�s a very big scarcity in Outer Senshi lemons.
Heck, I understand with Haruka and Michiru, I�m probably the
only one stupid enough to write a Haruka lemon, but I don�t
understand why there isn�t more lemons with Setsuna. Heck,
Hotaru has more lemons than Setsuna has, though most of them
are disgusting starring child-age Hotaru, a few of them
especially the Anniversary series chapter on Hotaru are quite
nicely done. Hell, Setsuna had three lemons when I last
counted. And Setsuna, according to my cousin, is next to
Haruka on the babe rating. I also confess to not
understanding it. Setsuna�s beautiful and sexy, and I think
she has a pretty nice fan base, I wonder why there aren�t
more lemons about her.
Though I will kick the ass of anyone who dares steal my
Setsuna-chan away from me!! SHE�S MINE!! MINE!!! ALL MINE!!!!
^_^
Anyway, off the digression and back to the stuff we�re
talking about. ^_^;;;;
The lemons I like best take it slow, another personal
preference, not the approach of some writers that is just
wham, bang, it�s finished. You can really notice the
adolescents and the immature types by this type of writing. I
mean, read it for god sakes. The wish-fulfillment reeks right
through. Personally, I think that a good lemon writer is a
very, very good writer. I mean, how can you translate that
wonderful feeling into writing? Transforming that visceral,
pulse-pounding feeling into words is a great feat and it
takes skill to do it. Sad to say most lemon writers are
idiots, which I guess from reading their stuff, haven�t
experienced anything other than their hands and watching
pornos and hentai videos. Fortunately though that isn�t
always the case. Darren Demaine, author of some of the best
lemon writing I�ve ever read, confesses in one of his after
words that he�s broken the rule that �a writer should write
about what he knows�. If you don�t know what you�re writing
about, Darren, you�ll probably make a girl very lucky
someday. ^_^ Anyway, don�t get me wrong, there are a lot of
very fine lemons out there, there�s only a lot more crap than
good stuff. But maybe that�s because I love good writing.
That�s one of my turn-ons. I really get excited when I read
something that�s very well-written: no grammar mistakes, no
typos, perfect dialogue, logical progression and all that.
This may seem pretty high standards for something that people
usually just read to get off, but let me explain.
An example. I love the following lemons: Three Sister�s
Tails, Aikan Muyo,(though AM is more romance than lemon, damn
it, Happosai live up to your namesake ^_^), Careless Destiny,
The Anniversary series, the Ranma .5 series, Bubblegum Pink,
Complete Control series, and quite a few others, but these
are the stuff I like at the top of my head. The lemons I
don�t like are a legion so I won�t name names and embarrass
anyone, �kay? All of the lemons I like are professional, in
writing and style. Good prose, good descriptions, a necessary
in lemon writing since you have to have pretty good
descriptions, and suitably �dirty� and fun at times. And when
I read them my hands leave the keyboard. A lot. Personally, I
love the Bubblegum Pink mass orgy sequence a lot. Though
duplicating it in real life is pretty hard. ^_^ This is the
sort of stuff that deserves to be posted and shared. Though
some of them are rather extreme, I don�t care. The prose and
writing is good, and I�ve always preferred a lemon with plot.
Some may argue against that, but still as long as their are
good descriptions and good grammar, I know it�s a good lemon.
Most of the terrible lemons I�ve read have sparse
descriptions, stupid dialogue and a lot of stupid situations.
And totally unexciting, unarousing for me. It may work for
brainless hicks who just want to get themselves off, but not
for me. Now this is the stuff that shouldn�t be posted.
Which brings up another question: why post these
things? Me, I don�t complain, as long as your lemon is pretty
good. If your lemon is no good, well, if I don�t have
anything good to say about anything, I have a tendency to
shut up about it. But still, that doesn�t answer the question
that I�ve brought up. Why post them? I don�t post my works,
mostly because they were written for my personal enjoyment.
And also mostly because most of the erotic pieces I write are
non-anime and usually end up as the �juicier� parts of the
romance novels I write for supplemental income. So I decided
to ask a few people to help me out on this. Though I received
replies from some people who wrote lemons which I totally
despise and would really want to get a chance to drag them
into the streets and do a summary execution, they did give me
an insightful look into why people post lemons.
And as an answer to some questions that surfaced along
the way, I am not Canadian, damn it! If I were Canadian, I
would be over at Doug Helm�s place hammering out the details
of the fic I�m planning out! Or even an Italian priest! Or
even some of the more ludicrous ones, a sexually repressed
American housewife in Kansas or an English schoolmarm in some
London prep school!
Now that�s done with, well, predominant answer is the
fact that the people who post lemons post them since they�d
rather see them posted than languishing away in a hard drive.
Though that has sometimes resulted in crimes against decency
and humanity,(thank you very much, O----) this has given us
quite a few fine lemons, like T.H. Tiger�s Shikima Interface,
Oneshot Wong�s, though still somewhat flawed
lesbian/masturbatory masterpiece, Usagi�s Usual Morning and
countless others. This reason also grows into another reason
for posting. Most people post lemons, lemons which are quite
well done and very well made, as a response to all the stupid
lemons that get posted. These people honestly want better
erotic fiction than what�s on the �net, and I admire these
people and their works.
But, I�m still not posting my Haruka lemon. ^_^ Well,
unless I get it totally cleaned up into something halfway
decent and not look like the sexually repressed fantasies of
a twenty-something school teacher, at least decent enough by
my standards. ^_^
Anyway, the moral of the story is� don�t get drunk.
That way you don�t have to avoid the librarian very often.
Which can be quite a pain if you have to do some research for
a lesson. ^_^
Well, really in conclusion, write lemons, they�re very
therapeutic and can relieve a lot of tension. But please,
please, try to consider what you�re gonna be posting. At
least make it readable, a failing that most of the worse
lemon writers have. And sex is good. Though try to avoid
getting hurt. Except, of course, if you�re into that sort of
thing. ^_^
*******************************************************************
Hiroshi eye's noticeably widened. "WHAT!?"
"I'm pregnant, 'Roshi." Haruka was fidgeting the lapels
of her sportscoat a little as they sat at the restaurant table.
"Uh...how..."
"We had sex for four days straight, baka. What did you
expect would happen?!" Haruka whispered fiercely, giving her
lover a bap on the head.
- from an excised scene of Elsa Bibat's fanfic "The Women
They Love: Haruka"
Now _that_ is gonna make the Haruka fans kill me ^_^
- Elsa Bibat