The dictionary makes no distinction between pornography and erotica, and that’s too bad, because we really need to distinguish between ways of writing about sex. Pornography in my view should be reserved for writing whose sole intent and purpose is to sexually excite the reader. Erotica, on the other hand, should be used to describe literature that explores the meaning of human sexuality. They’re not the same at all. Pornography titillates, erotica explicates.

The best literature tries to explain and describe our lives and experiences and so deepen our understanding and appreciation of them, and the same should be true of erotica. Good erotica should give us some understanding and appreciation of our sexual desires and urges and how they affect the rest of our lives. It should provide us with the language to describe our experiences and fantasies so we can think about them and communicate and even share them. In this, most erotica has fallen pretty short of the mark. There really isn’t much of a literature of sexuality. There’s sexual literature, but it’s not the same thing.

Writers have tried, but it wasn’t until the explosion of the internet that we’ve been able to communicate with one another free of the intervention of censers and editors and say whatever we want, and so now is the time, if ever there was one, for sex t come out of the closet not just for the sake of titillation, but for the purpose on enlightenment too. The creation of great sexual literature is happening now.

I’m not presumptuous enough to think that I’m anywhere near achieving this, but I’m one of those people who’s trying. I have nothing against pornography and sexual arousal in my work—I mean, if you read a thriller you expect to be thrilled, and if you read a horror book you expect to be scared. If you read a sex story, then, you should expect that it will get you aroused—but I also hope to accomplish more than that. I’m trying to understand sex as more than just a genital sensation.

So that’s my credo. I hope these stories turn you on. I hope they excite you and make you climb the walls. But I also hope they make you think a little and understand the huge role that sexuality plays in our lives and in our relationships to one another and to the world at large.

Call me a dreamer. A dreamer with a hard-on, but a dreamer nonetheless.