Otherwise it becomes just any other fiction award and loses its uniqueness.

For example, “Greenies” certainly falls into the category of Sci-Fi.

The lines between Romance and Erotic literature have been blurred, but Erotica is still, I think, generally regarded as sitting somewhere between Romance (thick plot, no sex) and Pornography (thin plot, much sex). I personally refer to Erotica as good stories with the sex left in. So where we pinpoint the minimum level of arousing content, between the Romance and Pornographic novel models, should probably be decided by the awards committee, after a vote by the readership, and then perhaps a change to the definiton of the no sex story code would be needed, and/or a new one perhaps named Ärousing” be added.

Personally, I think the minimum should be something along the lines of heavy petting; anything less should fall within the Romance genre. For example, a description of the slope of a woman’s breast can be arousing, but even if that level of content is in abundance and is the focus of the story, is that Erotica or Romance? Personally, I think it’s Romance.

For right now, I think that stories with no arousing content are clearly outside the Erotic Literature genre and should not be considered for a Cliterides Award; stories such as those clearly belong to some other genre, and I can’t think of any genre that doesn’t have a long standing award or three.

Further, I think that stories that are labeled erotic, but are far outside most people’s understanding or belief of what constitutes Erotic literature, weakens the standing and impact of the Cliterides Awards for both readers and authors alike.

I think the spirit of the original question-at-hand is this: there are stories being nominated that are completely, totally, utterly devoid of any sexual content whatsoever. Not “off screen” sex nor the prelude to nor aftermath of sex… rather, what I’m understanding from Lazeez’s post is that there are stories without even the faintest hint of sex in them. They are, in other words, non-erotic.

It’s interesting that the original post by Lazeez – then Lazeez’s later comment (#4), which was an attempt to clarify – got largely ignored by many people posting their ideas about it. Here’s the problem that’s been posed: The Clitorides is a contest for erotic stories, but people are nominating stories which cannot reasonably be classified as erotic, so what’s up with that? I get the sense that Lazeez was trying to politely get the notion re-established in the erotica writing community that the Clitorides is for erotica. Not non-erotica.

And I’m sorry, but “the politics of exclusion” doesn’t fly in this case. This isn’t politics. It’s arbitration. If Lazeez is the arbiter of what does and doesn’t qualify as an erotic story, then so be it. To turn the Clitorides into a polemical flashpoint over freedom of expression is just silly. If non-erotic stories are included for consideration in the voting for erotic stories, then that’s like nominating a duck for chicken of the year. It makes no sense.

So either eliminate the “exclusivity” of the Clitorides as an erotica-only award (and thereby change its purpose)… or else let’s have some common sense and understand that you can’t make apple juice with oranges.

In other words, please restrict your nominations for the Clitorides to only stories that are erotic in some fashion or another.

And here the majority rules..

But romance can be sexy too. Sometimes the anticipation is what you will remember best

But i think most of the authors want to be read firstly awarded secondly so i guess it’s a mote point anyway.

But in our imperfect world, who decides what makes a sex story? If I write an 80,000 word story with a single sex scene is that a sex story? Or do I need a scene in every chapter? Does the sex need to be on-screen? I coded my flash story “Photographic Evidence” as no-sex because it was about a picture of sex, not an actual sex act. Should it be eligible?

And just what is sex? President Clinton says oral sex doesn’t count, so should we eliminate all stories that have only oral sex. I’m enough of a prude to think water sports isn’t sex, let’s eliminate any stories with that too.

After all, I don’t see them giving the porn star awards, whatever they are called, to mainstream TV. Let’s honor the folks that it was intended to honor.

Wine