Remittance Girl

Remittance Girl is a writer of erotic fiction. NOT ROMANCE OR EROTIC ROMANCE. Most of my work is short stories, but I do write some longer pieces – serials, novellas, etc. I live as an expat in a small Southeast Asian country, where I teach, write and grow orchids. I live with a cat called Seven. Although writing is not my main profession, it is the focus of my life. I hope that shows in the quality of my work.

As a writer, I feel very strongly that the erotica genre has suffered greatly over the years from a lack of quality, good editorship, and a dearth of publishers willing to put new material out there. It seems to have been appropriated by two literary camps: romantic fiction and pornography. These days most erotic fiction is either a romance novel with the spicy bits left in or, on the other side of the spectrum, stroke fiction with the solitary and express purpose of providing guided masturbatory fantasies.

This is sad, because I think erotic fiction, as a genre, should be neither and both those things, but it ought to be more, as well. I have no objection to representations of romantic entanglements in erotica, just as I have no objections to them in a sci-fi novel. Nor do I have any objections to a reader finding that a specific story arouses them to the point of wanting to masturbate. That’s also fine. But there are perfectly good genres where either of those reader desires are fulfilled specifically.

I believe that erotica, as a genre, should deal with the theme of erotic desire and, ideally, how desire informs, changes and manipulates the lives of the characters who are desirous. If erotic fiction can be this, then I think it has the potential to be an important cultural product, and should be proudly included in the literary cannon.

Some of you will have cleverly noticed that Remittance Girl is not the name I was born with. I decided to use a pseudonym because it is in keeping with the tradition of the Victorian pornographers. I could have chosen a name that sounded like a name, but where would be the fun it that. This is my identity for my writing, and for my online persona. I’ve had it for many years now.

The name itself is a reference to a “remittance man”. Wikipedia describes a remittance man thus:

Remittance Man

In the 19th century, the English usage of the word usually referred to money sent from England – the opposite direction to today’s usual usage of the term. A remittance man was an exile living on money sent from home. Within Victorian British culture, this often meant the black sheep of an upper or middle class family who was sent away (from the UK to the Empire), and paid to stay away. These men were generally of dissolute or drunken character, and may have been sent overseas after one or more disgraces at home.

If you wish to contact me, please email me at remittancegirl(at)gmail(dot)com