Queer Smut Reviews - Nasty: Fetish Fights Back, eds. Anna Yeatts & Chris Phillips

Welcome to the second installment of Queer Smut Reviews. So make sure you’re wearing your protective poncho and buckle in, because it’s a rather wild ride. I’m looking at a collection of short stories today, Nasty: Fetish Fights Back, edited by Anna Yeatts and Chris Phillips of Flash Fiction Online. It’s smut for a good cause, too, as a portion of proceeds go to Planned Parenthood (which is even more important now, given all the health things going down right now). There are 27 stories in all, which...wow. And full disclosure, I wrote one of them. So really I’ll only be mentioning 26 stories in this review.

Now, I tried to look more closely at the stories that were specifically SFF. That doesn’t mean I just skipped the rest, but you’ll probably notice that my reviews are more robust for the SFF stories. This is both because smutty SFF is exactly what I want to be looking at and because if I wrote long thoughts on them all my hands would fall off. It’s a rather great collection, though, and I definitely recommend that people pay attention all of the stories. Part of the reason I want to look at smutty SFF with a critical lens is much the same reason that this collection exists—to try and bring people together to resist the idea that sexuality and bodies are topics that don’t belong in polite conversation. Where the stories shine the most, I feel, is where they look at consent and transparency, people talking to people and negotiating to make sure everyone is safe and getting what they want. Where I think the stories falter a bit is when they neglect that.

But enough stalling—let’s get to the reviews!

Queer Smut Reviews - Show Yourself To Me by Xan West

Welcome to the first ever Queer Smut Reviews! Way back in April of 2016 I sort of joked about moving the site to cover solely queer smut. I say sort of joked because this isn't something where I'm like "Queer smut, isn't that ridiculous, haha!" I write queer smut. I read queer smut. I think that it is both important and artful, no less so than the stories that we would call "just" SFF. Which is another reason that I've wanted to look at it, because I do believe that the divide we put up between SFF smut and SFF is largely artificial and harmful.

I'm not going to stand here, though, and defend queer smut's many problems, or be an asshole to ace/aro people for whom the emphasis on relationships and sex is not at all what they want to read. I will say simply that SFF smut has no more or less issues than the rest of SFF but receives a disproportionate amount of derision from all quarters. These complaints are not all without merit, as queer smut is dominated not by concerns about presenting queer relationships accurately or to be affirming for queer readers but rather to cater to the tastes of the readership, which is largely (but certainly not exclusively) white straight ciswomen. Still, there are stories that are being told in SFF smut that are being told no where else, and for people looking for representation not just of sexualities but of sex, smut is one of the very few places to find that.

For me, writing and reading about queer sex has helped me come to terms and make sense of my own identity. First through fanfiction, but more and more through published original works. Again, this is not to knock fanfiction, as it provides a largely anonymous place for people to write all kinds of stories, but I do think that writers should be paid for their work, and I think that part of that means telling and paying for original stories, and seeking out where these stories are being told and sold. Which, in turn, has pushed me to want to start this project, where I will be looking at published SFF romance and erotic romance and erotica short fiction.

My first entry into this feature is looking at three stories from the (oh glod incredibly hot) short fiction collection Show Yourself To Me by Xan West. (and I must say that Corey Alexander aka Xan West, who is a tremendous resource and advocate for writers and queer people in general, is currently in danger of becoming homeless and I hope you will consider helping out here and/or going out and buying this collection). I actually came across the collection from a recommendation from Bogi Takács (and/or R.B. Lemberg) and thought it looked interesting. And, of course, I started reading it in an airport. Now, I'm pretty used to reading sexy-times so doing so in public isn't usually an issue, but wow, let me just say that this collection is steamy! I mean, very much so, and yet the stories also show an awareness and emphasis on consent and care. Let us just say that I had to take numerous breaks to cool down because I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE STEAM!