'Brave Nude World' is now available

My second novel, Brave Nude World, is now available to buy as an e-book from Amazon (for Kindle).

Brave Nude World tells the story of an alternate near-future United States in which public nudity has become legalised, and protected as a right by law.  In the years following this legalisation, the practise of going nude in public rather than wearing clothes starts to become more commonplace, and a new nudist movement begins to grow and become more visible, especially in urban areas.  However, society is still catching up with legislation, and people are still adjusting to the idea of naked people in their midst, with old taboos only gradually being eroded.

The novel is told from the point of view of Rachel, a 24-year-old designer living in a big (unnamed) US city.  Rachel has never felt inclined towards being a nudist before, but in the world of the novel, where she sees naked people on the subway, in the park, on the street and in the workplace, she becomes more fascinated by and drawn toward going nude in public and, in experimenting with this, finds herself exploring new sides to herself, including a hitherto undiscovered exhibitionist streak.

My attempt in writing this story is to bridge a gap between my interest in writing about nudism/naturism, and my interest in writing erotic fiction in which exhibitionism and public nakedness figures prominently.  The world of the novel is a "realistic" nudist utopia - there are no barriers preventing people from going about their lives naked save some remaining social taboos (which are explored in the text).  However the main narrative is as much about Rachel's self-discovery and evolving sexuality as it is about her finding a place in this new and more permissive society.

I've read many stories of alternate worlds to our own in which going nude in public is permitted (and in some cases even enforced) but none which consider the gradual social changes that would need to accompany any legal changes before nudists could freely walk the streets unclad without a care.  Brave Nude World is my attempt to show a society in stages of transition, as it approaches the clothing-optional utopia imagined by some naturists, without being quite there just yet.

I hope the novel will be appreciated by naturist readers who will enjoy the premise and aren't uncomfortable with sex and sexuality (and who can understand and appreciate the discussions the central characters have about sexuality in a clothing-optional society) as well as my core audience who just like reading about girls going about in public with no clothes on.

You can get Brave Nude World here:
Amazon

Forced Nudity in The "Volunteer" and the Tami Smither series

It's probably become apparent now, but a central theme of my writing is scenarios in which a person (usually a young woman) is without clothing in a place where their nudity is the exception, rather than the norm.  Whether it's Becky in Best Friends With a Naked Girl streaking around the library at Lisa's university, or Rachel in my forthcoming novel Brave Nude World riding the subway naked, I seem to have a real weakness for putting naked people up against clothed people, often in public places.

In the majority of my stories, the people are naked because they want to be, because it's fun and enjoyable for them.  But imagine you weren't naked in public through your own choice but because you were somehow required to be - and for a very long time!  In other words, forced public nudity.

The concept of forcing a character to go naked in public concept relates broadly to the BDSM side of  the public nudity theme in erotic fiction.  To make a character be naked in front of other people is often to make them vulnerable, embarrassed, humiliated.  It's therefore the perfect action for a dominant character to do to a submissive one.  Much of this type of fiction is written in that mould.  A character does something they shouldn't, and is forced therefore to submit to the whim of an authority figure who, out of their own sadism, decides that the character should be forced to be naked in public.  It might be a mean boss making a secretary strip while at work to keep her job after a bad mistake, or a pervy college professor forcing a co-ed to attend class naked after they are caught cheating on a test. But the point is the humiliation and degradation of the naked submissive, who is robbed of free will and subjected to embarrassing exposure to teach them a lesson.

I was thinking about this concept in relation to what is one of my favourite public-nudity themed stories; The "Volunteer" by D H Jonathan.

On the surface, The "Volunteer" seems to be in keeping with that dom/sub, forced-public-nudity-as-humiliation power dynamic.  Pretty college student Dani screws up and cheats to get ahead, and is caught out by an influential sociology professor, Dr Slater.  Dr Slater uses the information about Dani's transgression to essentially blackmail her into taking part in a unique sociological experiment - she will test her fellow students attitude to nudity by attending class, social events and anything else on campus completely naked for the remainder of the semester - and pretend it is all her own idea.  The effect of her behaviour on others will be observed via a microphone and earpiece.  At the end of it, she'll not only have avoided academic punishment for her crime, she'll also be rewarded, enabling her to graduate debt-free and with the highest faculty recommendations to carry her to her future career.

It would seem, then, that we're about to have a classic dom/sub relationship between the professor and the student.  Dr Slater will force Dani to be naked, Dani will hate it, and the Doc will get off on the subsequent humiliation and degradation of the pretty girl while all the while sternly forcing her to do her bidding.

Except that isn't the book at all.  In fact, rather than desiring Dani's humiliation, the sociologists genuinely believe in their research (for some very personal reasons for Dr Slater, we later learn) and don't view what Dani is doing as any sort of punishment at all.

The only reason they blackmail Dani into "volunteering" is because they have been unable to find a genuine volunteer to take part and carry the study to a viable conclusion.  Desperation (remember, the Doc has some particularly personal reasons for wanting her research to succeed) pushes them down this dubious path, not a desire to assert authority or sadistically punish pretty girls.  True, they behave unscrupulously at times, and are ultimately no heroes.  But their motives remain somewhat higher than simply desiring Dani's sexual humiliation.

In the key scenes where Dani is persuaded to take part, or continue her participation, she always has a choice - she isn't going to be stripped against her will.  She can accept the consequences of her actions in cheating, and take the academic punishment that might well mess up her future dreams.  Or, she can undertake participation in an experiment where she will be naked in public for two months, in front of all her friends, peers and teachers, without even being able to offer the excuse that she's taking part in an experiment - but which will be over after that and, coming out of the other side of it, she will have financial security and a strong chance of getting the future she has always wanted.

Dani agonises over this choice - after all, wouldn't you? - but in the end she agrees to volunteer.  It might not have been a great choice, but she starts the experiment with the view that going around campus naked is the lesser of two evils compared to owning up to her misconduct.

Of course that lasts about two minutes before she realises what she's let herself in for - but rather than assert their authority and force her to stay naked against her will, the sociologists are supportive and even kind, constantly monitoring her safety as well as gathering their data.  Their role in the narrative, like many of the supporting characters, is to enable Dani's nakedness to continue even at points where she finds it unbearable - so, for example, a lecherous teacher who tries to assault her is quickly found out and dismissed - and they do so by making it more possible for Dani to cope, rather than by simply asserting their authority and threatening her with expulsion.

I'm inclined to compare The "Volunteer" to an earlier "naked in college" story - the Tami Smithers series, which begins with The Unintentional Nudist.  In this series, a college freshman panics when she is caught streaking on campus - an activity for which she fears she will be expelled - and explains her nakedness by stating that she has taken a religious vow to never wear clothing again.

Of course, Tami is then forced to make good on this hasty declaration and begin attending classes and everything else in the nude, not because she wants to, but because if she doesn't, the administration will know she lied (and is using the religious aspect of her story to claim protection from punishment on the grounds that it would be discrimination).

Where Tami's story and The "Volunteer" differ (aside from the fact that D H Jonathan has obviously put a lot more thought into shoring up his premise than the author of The Reluctant Nudist did: both require suspension of disbelief but Tami's story demands several crane-loads of suspension) is that Tami is from the start at odds with the authority figures in her college.  They seem to know - or outright know - that her story is a pack of lies - but as long as she walks the walk, they can't question her talking the talk.  As long as she continues to go everywhere naked, they can't prove she has lied - after all, who would ever pretend to be a person whose religion obligated permanent nudity if they didn't have to?  As her nudism is some sort of protected religious activity, to avoid a potentially costly discrimination suit, they have to force a confession from Tami that she made up her "religious nudist" status to cover up campus misbehaviour.

So they endeavour to either catch her out, or make her experience of being nude on campus so horrible and sexually humiliating that she gives up and confesses her lie.  They take sadistic delight in placing this naked girl in scenarios deliberately intended to maximise her exposure and embarrassment (for example, forcing her to do work placements in customarily male-only environments, or act as a life model in a series of ever-more-explicit poses) while constantly monitoring her behaviour for any sign of inconsistency in her religious nudism.  Even when, in later stories she leaves campus to visit home or travel, Tami finds the fear that the administration are still monitoring her means that she has no choice but to continue to be naked everywhere she goes, on the off-chance that some spy for the college might see her if she put her clothes on.  And of course, the more she does it, the worse consequences she will face if she ever cracks and confesses - her crime escalating from 'streaking on campus one time' to 'spending four years walking around in public completely naked' - so the more incentive she has to keep going.

The contrasts and commonalities between the two stories show two approaches to writing a "forced nudity" narrative.  Both are stories of young female college students pretending to be some sort of devoted nudist by going everywhere in public.  Tami has to pretend to be undertaking a religious vow, and Dani has to pretend she's a body freedom activist so that the integrity of the social experiment remains uncorrupted.  Both stories have to construct their narrative in ways that mean the protagonists continue to be naked in public long past the point where a real life woman would have said "screw it, I'll take the punishment for my original crime" and put her clothes back on.  And both use a young college student's natural obedience to authority figures to make that happen.

In the Tami stories, the authority figures are there simply to make Tami be naked 24/7 - they force her to endure the endless parade of humiliations they dream up in the hope of breaking her spirit.  But in The "Volunteer", the authority characters are, for the most part, on Dani's side. They want her to be able to continue her public nakedness even though they know it is difficult for her, and their primary concern is with keeping her safe.  They may have selfish reasons for doing so - they want their experiment to succeed - but from that selfishness comes a supportive factor that leaves Dani much less alone in her endeavour than Tami is.

It's one of the things that makes The "Volunteer" the better story, in my opinion.  In Tami's tale, humiliation upon humiliation is piled upon her while all the time she longs tearfully to be able to clothe herself and end this trial by endurance; as a reader, we start to become weary of her persistence.  Just take the punishment, you find yourself exclaiming as Tami once again laments her naked life and stares with longing at some clothes in a shop window.  No matter how much her college education means to her, her endless suffering seems somehow a disproportionate endurance.

But The "Volunteer" isn't about Dani enduring suffering.  It does a much more successful job of making her an agent in her own continued nakedness, as she gradually adjusts to each new experience and finds that, actually, this is something she can manage to pull off.  Of course, then events begin to escalate beyond the wildest imaginings of the sociologists - and beyond Dani's control - but by then she is in too deep and, again, manages to not just endure but adjust to and even enjoy her experiences.  The ending (which I will try not to spoil) leaves you in no doubt that Dani's experience of public nakedness has been a defining and ultimately positive one, no matter how difficult it was along the way.

Tami Smithers never gets a definitive conclusion.  Her stories are written by a multitude of individuals whose intent is to give the reader as much time to play in her universe as possible; and here status quo is the enemy, as instead of evolving and growing as a person, Tami starts and ends each new story the same utterly humiliated young woman, ever the victim of determinedly sadistic authority.  The stories about her aren't bad, although the original is kind of flat some of the later ones are written well and enjoyable to read up to a point, but I much prefer The "Volunteer" for Dani's spirit and agency than I do Tami's gritted-teeth endurance of her various authors' whims.

Read for yourself 
The "Volunteer" by D H Jonathan can be bought as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
The Tami Smithers stories have various authors and can be found all over the internet.  The original story, The Unintentional Nudist, can be read here.

Covered Up

Don't judge a book by it's cover, they say.  Unless it's actually a real book and not a metaphorical one, in which case the cover is actually quite important.

My debut novel, Best Friends With a Naked Girl, has a brand new cover, courtesy of a wonderful illustrator (Danielle aka CYNVII) whom I commissioned to draw it.

The process of working with someone else to create a book cover was a new one to me.  My writing has always been a solo venture: from the days when I first joined Literotica, to putting my book up for sale, I never talked about my work with anyone else. 

Funnily enough, as I was contemplating this post, I read about fantasy author Terry Goodkind, his dissatisfaction with the cover of his latest book as arranged by his publisher, and the fallout over his very public and pointed criticism of the cover, which unsurprisingly came across a lot like a mean-spirited attack on the illustrator, who was only following the brief given to them by the publisher.

Luckily, as a self-published author, I never had a publisher; my communication was direct with the illustrator.  They were not someone from the world of erotic fiction and, as far as I know (I've never asked, but one assumes...) had no interest in the specific themes of my writing which are, let's face it, pretty niche even in erotica.  But, they did illustration for money, were fine with doing somewhat NSFW art, and most importantly to me, had a style that I really liked.

That was the reason that, when I published Best Friends... back in January, it had a quite different cover.  I'd always wanted the book to have an illustrated cover. I'm a huge fan of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise comic series, (which definitely inspired me to write stories about women with complicated, non-heteronormative love lives despite being a straight Cis male).  I was in love with Moore's art style and the simple character-showcasing covers of the collected editions I own, and wanted something similar for my own work.

I also wanted something that would mark my book out as something a little different in the world of erotica.  A lot of erotic novels have covers that are quite similar (not quite this bad but definitely following a theme), using photographs of ladies in sexy lingerie or shirtless, handsome hunks, for a generic "this book has sex in it" message.  There's nothing wrong with those sorts of covers, they are kind of a classic, and many self-published authors have only limited options to create their book covers - not everyone wants to pay a graphic designer, after all, especially for a book that might only sell 100-200 copies across its entire lifetime.

But the sexy lingerie girl didn't, in my head, fit with what I wanted to suggest my book was about.  Sure, there is a buttload of nudity, masturbation, and sex both straight and lesbian.  But it's also supposed to be a cute, funny and ultimately romantic story about two chalk-and-cheese girls who find common ground and, maybe love.  I wanted my characters, having a good time, front and centre and the only way I could imagine achieving that was to draw them.

Only problem was, as an author who had never self-published a book before, I didn't have the first clue about creating a cover.  I tried my hand at doing my own (I'm not a terrible artist, I did a few album covers and t-shirts for bands back in the day) but I didn't have the necessary skill or software.  I tried approaching artists I admired who already drew work with erotic or nudist themes: all of these had their own projects which they were passionately committed to, and did not want to take on commission work.

I was very keen to publish, though, so I ended up knocking up a cover using Amazon's own app that it offers as part of the Kindle Direct Publishing service.  It did the job - fortunately I'd been able to find a photo that conveyed some of the spirit of fun I saw in my work - but it wasn't what I really wanted. 

Plus, it was a little too NSFW for the e-book retailers.  A downside to writing erotica is that if you make everything sound or look too sexy, the people who sell it will get cold feet - but if you make it completely sexless, nobody will take an interest.

Now, admittedly my image choice (a clothed blonde grabbing a naked brunette's breasts from behind) was a little across the line, but I hoped that, because there weren't any visible nipples or genitals, I'd be able to get away with it.

Of course, I didn't.  Smashwords rejected me for premier status (meaning my book would only be sold through their website, it wouldn't be put out to other retailers like Barnes & Noble) and over on Amazon, while you could still buy my book, it wasn't going to turn up in most searches unless the person doing the searching had disabled the site's ever-present adult filter. Some (clumsy) editing later, Smashwords were happy, but I was left wondering why I was insisting on having such a risque cover, when it wasn't even the cover I really wanted in the first place.

So I went back to looking for illustrators, and through the art community DeviantArt I found Danielle.  They had done a commission a couple of years back that was very Strangers in Paradise and their more recent work had a really awesome mix of stylised cartooning and physical realism which I felt was perfect.

Fortunately, unlike Terry Goodkind I was in full control of what was being commissioned, I gave Danielle a very detailed description of what I wanted, including how I had pictured the characters - I even included a photo I had seen that showed the sort of pose I had in mind. Danielle sent me drafts for approval and I made any changes I asked for (which weren't many, mostly it was just Becky's skin tone) and the overall experience was very positive. 

And the result speaks for itself.  I'm really happy with it and while I know it won't be everybody's cup of tea (I'm sure there are some readers who preferred the old cover) it's definitely different to what's on the front of most of the erotic and nudist fiction I see on the book retail sites.

If there's anything I would take away from this process, it's that things run smoothly when you show respect to the artist that you are asking to do the work.  Danielle, contacted by a random chap who wanted them to illustrate a self-published erotic novel, could have told me to get stuffed (or, more likely, just deleted my email) - instead, they were happy to work with me; and I like to think that part of that was because I didn't come across like a terrible pervert in my contact with them (in spite of the fact that I am actually a terrible pervert).

Secondly, show respect but also, pay them.  Unless a person offers to work for free, don't expect them to.  I was clear from the start with my illustrator that I knew I was to be a paying customer, that I was interested in their work but also needed to know the cost of that work and, once it was confirmed this was something that was affordable to me, I was in agreement that I would pay, and pay on their schedule and terms.  If you enter into an agreement that an artist is going to produce work for you for money, give them the money you agreed (unless they don't deliver the work, of course).  There is an element of trust involved, and I'm sure some artists have let clients down, but far more what I hear is artists explaining how they have been told that they should work for free because they can get "experience" and "boost their profile", which should be better than any financial reward.

It's true some artists may choose to work gratis in return for the experience, in order to improve their skills or make a name for themselves with prospective future clients - but that is down to the artist to choose to do that, you can't act as though you have a right, as the person commissioning them, to expect they will give their time and energy for you and expect nothing in return except that some people might see their work and think of hiring them.  Once again, if they don't offer to work for free, don't ask them to.

I'm hoping Danielle will be able to illustrate the cover of future novels I will publish, but if they aren't able to, I will look for another illustrator and whoever I work with, I will remember those two things - treat them with respect, and pay them what you owe.

---
Best Friends With a Naked Girl can be bought as an e-book from Amazon, Smashwords or Barnes & Noble.

'Best Friends with a Naked Girl' is now available

If you've enjoyed my fiction and come to this blog because erotica themed around exhibitionism, public nudity and nudism appeal to you, I have good news - you can now read my very first complete novel, available to buy on Amazon Kindle for the low, low price of $2.98 (about £2.21).

You'll find it on sale here:
'Best Friends with a Naked Girl' by A D Rowen on Amazon Kindle

If you'd told me at the start of 2017 that about 12 months into the future I would have an entire novel written and published (even self-published on Amazon Kindle), I would never have believed you.

I've tried before to write novels.  Non-erotic ones, these, since I was maybe 16 years old.  I've deliberately sat down at my computer, made lists of characters, plotted out what is going to happen, written a few hundred or even a few thousand words... then gotten bored, bored of filling in the necessary plot between the few scenes I had imagined in my head.  My approach to writing long-form fiction was a little like making a film trailer from a film that didn't exist - everything looked very cool but there was nothing of substance behind it.

So how did it come to be easier to write an erotic novel?

Well for a start, my book is hardly an epic.  At about 300 pages, it's the "right" length for a decent read, but it's hardly The Lord of the Rings.  By curtailing my ambitions for something more achievable, I managed to overcome the sense of being daunted by how much there was still to do, which I always found put me right off the experience.

Also, I never deliberately set out to write a novel.

'Best Friends...', as I may have mentioned, began as my first ever sequence of short erotic stories, the 'Lisa & Becky' series.  The idea had come to me to tell the story of an exhibitionist and her friend, who wasn't.  I'd enjoyed stories about exhibitionism, public nudity, and the CFNF (clothed female/nude female) trope, but I wanted to put my own twist on those themes, and focus not on the exhibitionist herself, but tell her adventures through the eyes of a friend whom she had managed to rope into being a bit of an accomplice to her developing kink.

As the idea evolved it became apparent to me that things would be more amusing and fun to read if the two protagonists had some unresolved sexual tension, that was going to be exacerbated by the fact that Becky was always taking her clothes off in places where she shouldn't.  So, in a way, it became both a story about exhibitionism, and also about a young woman developing a very real crush on her best friend, and all the emotional baggage that might entail.

I'd already got too much material for one story - I planned for the two girls to have a series of adventures - but I never envisaged it as a novel.  Instead I was interested in publishing the stories on the website Literotica, and I favoured a model there where the stories can be read as individual ones, but are also part of an overall sequence.

So part one had Becky and Lisa going camping, part two had them doing other stuff (such as Becky stripping off in the cinema) and then I'd planned a part three where the two would meet up at university and more exhibitionist fun would ensue.

That was as far as I got.  My ambition outstripped my ability and I quickly found it hard to feel enthusiasm for the characters, who seemed stuck in a bit of a loop and not a happy one.  Part three never got published, and I'd no idea where they would go in part 4 and how long I wanted to drag this nonsense out for.

Flash forward a year.  I'd written some other stories on Literotica, singular short stories about exhibitionism, public nudity and naughty nudists, which had been well received and which I had enjoyed writing.  I decided to try and come up with a longer story, which as time went on, crossed the finish line first for novella and then full-length novel.

That novel was called... 'Brave Nude World', about a version of our world in which public nudity becomes legally permitted but is not yet fully socially-acceptable, and it will be out later in 2018!

But what of Becky and Lisa.  Well, confidence given a boost by the feedback I'd been getting and by the fact that I'd actually managed to write something long enough to be called a novel, I decided to go back to my earliest work with renewed enthusiasm - and no small amount of changes I wanted to make.

Gone was Lisa's narration which, while fun, forced the action to take place only when she was around and with frequent and repetitive intrusions from her own psyche.  Instead I opted for still telling the story from Lisa's point of view, but in third person, giving me chance to divert away to other things happening (such as the prologue chapter, which tells the story of an encounter with the girls from the point of view of a third party, or very late in the book, which relays an experience of public nakedness from Becky's point of view).

Gone too was the notion that Lisa was constantly embarrassed and/or exasperated with Becky.  While that had been fine as an initial concept, in practice it just led to stories where the two were practically on the verge of falling out - especially because it made it seem as though Becky was always incredibly self-interested and oblivious to her friend's discomfort.

In this new version, Lisa actively encouraged Becky in many ways, only becoming doubtful when she feared their activities might have gone too far (and this was something Becky acknowledged too, making her more aware of how her exhibitionism might affect others).

Those two major changes helped inspire me to write a great deal more of the girls' adventures, now flowing together in a much more natural way and, before I knew it, I had a novel on my hands, and no difficulty taking it towards a natural conclusion.

So it seems that I might not be a great novelist on purpose, but I can accidentally at least come up with something I'm proud to put my (pen) name to and enjoyed creating!