Natasha Moreland: Hello and welcome to The Present Pursuit, Mary Elizabeth! I’m excited to talk with you about your Substack publication, The Literary Prostitute, as well as all things reading and writing and whatever else you’re willing to share. But first, I want to thank you for being the first person willing to try out this oddball interview format with me. So, thank you!
Mary Elizabeth: HI! Thank YOU so much for asking me to do this. My substack is still a baby so it’s exciting to talk about it with a wider audience.
Natasha Moreland: Honestly, same. Real life is busy and putting yourself out there is scary, so sometimes these things take a little longer to launch than we first imagine they will. But I’m in love with what you’ve published so far, and I’m looking forward to what you have in store for the future.
For our readers here, would you like to sum up what Literary Prostitute is about?
Mary Elizabeth: Absolutely! I feel like the name is a bit inflammatory because “prostitute” is considered a derogatory term for sex work, so I’m always eager to explain it.
I got the title from an Anais Nin quote. She’s a really incredible erotica writer, who took up the genre as basically a side hustle to her “real” literary writing career. So while she was writing smut, she referred to it as “literary prostitution” in some of her journals. Which she obviously meant in a negative way, but I am just really captivated by that phrase. I absolutely love writing and reading smut, and I am also really passionate about sex positivity, sex work, and social justice. I feel like framing myself as basically a literary sex worker helps me keep in mind that what I’m writing is part of a larger social conversation about sex and freedom of speech, and also that I’m on the more privileged end of a much larger industry of “selling sex”, and I should always try to use that privilege to help other kinds of sex workers that are more marginalized and targeted for discrimination and abuse.
So, basically, I started this substack to be a place where I can share my little meandering thoughts on things like that. I have some projects in the works I haven’t published yet that are more about smut, which I love writing and thinking about. But so far all that’s on there are some little “instagram essays” that I’ve written for my friends in the past. Which I’ll also continue doing just because they’re really fun to make haha.
Natasha Moreland: There are so many great jumping off points in your response that I hardly know where to start lol BUT let’s start with writing smut as sex work. This is a really interesting, thoughtful perspective that I haven’t seen other romance/erotica writers talk about before. Was the Nin quote what first prompted you to think of writing smut that way, or were there other experiences/observations that led you to that perspective?
Mary Elizabeth: The Nin quote was what kind of made it all come home for me, but I am working on a larger project–a book one day, I hope–about writing ethical erotica. I think the conversations happening in the romance book world about having (or not having) content warnings at the beginning of their books is really fascinating.
Content/trigger warning stuff is a really complicated subject, and I see a lot of romance readers point out that you don’t get content warnings at the beginning of other genres, so why are we bothering here? So, I’m working on a larger project in defense of that, because I think that you need transparency about sexual content meant to arouse people the same way you need transparency about the sex acts you’re willing to engage in IRL. Because smut (and sex) is meant to be fun! And how are you supposed to have fun if you’re bracing for that one thing that upsets you to maybe pop up in this smoking hot sex scene??
That is why, for example, fanfic sites like AO3 have such comprehensive tagging systems, so that people can avoid things they know they don’t like. And IMO a lot of other places (like goodreads) should start using the same tagging systems. Katee Roberts has started putting AO3-style tags in their content warnings, which I think was sort of meant to be funny but I think everyone should be doing lol.
And not to mire this conversation in politics, but an extension of this content warning conversation is prohibitive legislation around some of these topics. Amazon is one of the largest publishers in the world, especially for smut writers, who can self-publish on Kindle Unlimited, and it is insanely easy to get your book pulled, and content warnings are one of the reasons books get unpublished.
Amazon is subject to global legislation around internet safety (i.e., preventing exploitative content from being widely spread), and especially in the U.S., that legislation meant to “protect children” is really just anti-sex work propaganda. So when writers use clear, specific language about the content of their books in order to help readers decide if they want to engage in that content, the sensors looking for specific “exploitative language” will just pull the book to be safe, because Amazon doesn’t want to get fined.
And I know there’s a bill coming up called the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that is threatening AO3’s ability to even exist for similar reasons. And none of this is new to sex workers like porn performers, exotic dancers, and traditional sex workers trying to use sites like Backpage (RIP). This is just what happens when we let more marginalized groups be targeted because it “doesn’t affect us”. Eventually it does affect us, and by then it’s so much harder to fight. So I really think collectively, writers–especially smut ones–need to start thinking of ourselves as part of this larger group and using our much more “palatable” voices to fight back. /end rant lol
Natasha Moreland: Wow, you’ve painted a really big picture that encompasses so many of the different ways our society really struggles to think about sex. In general, it’s a thing that so many people, and especially people in legislature, still just think of all sex as taboo and really don’t seem to be capable of having just a rational, healthy conversation about sex in general. Which of course leads to a lot of punitive laws, both intentional and unintentional.
The content warning conversation is a fascinating one. In general, I do understand the argument that real life doesn’t come with content warnings, and to some extent we’re responsible for building our own resilience and handling personal triggers in a responsible way. But also, I do agree that for smut it just makes sense. I’m reminded of the way porn sites have categories. They’re there so you can find that specific thing you think is hot, but they also serve as content warnings as a side effect. You know not to click on the category that you dislike, or that personally bothers you for whatever reason, right?
Mary Elizabeth: There’s also the difference between ethical porn sites and aggregate sites that will just take anything. When you’re watching the categories you like from a site that you know pays their workers a good wage and doesn’t feature people that may actually be exploited, you don’t have that thought going in the back of your head like “are they actually enjoying that? Do they want to be there? Is this a future episode of Law & Order: SVU?” I think we need to have a similar convo about what it means to be an ethical source of erotica too. Which as a side note is not just a conversation for smut and romance writers specifically. Sex scenes show up in a lot of places, and if I never have to read a scene like the orgy in Stephen King’s It again, I will die happy.
Natasha Moreland: Ugh. I thankfully heard about the scene in It, so I knew not to pick up the book.
Mary Elizabeth: It’s actually the only part of the book I’ve read because I’m a big scaredy cat lol. Also fuck clowns.
Natasha Moreland: Lol this is the second mention of clowns in 24 hours for me, which is 200% more than usual. Clowns occupy a strange place in the collective psyche.
But yeah, I definitely see how you landed at “writing smut should be considered sex work”. And I see why there would be some resistance to it from some authors, both from a respectability politics pov and also from a “trying to make a living in late stage capitalism fucking sucks and I’m just trying to keep my books on the virtual shelves, please stop making it potentially harder” pov.
I’m struggling to come up with an eloquent way to say this, but basically, I wish we as a society would just stop being so weird about sex lol I hope we can learn that sex is a fun, natural part of the human experience and there’s room for everyone to engage with it (or not) in a way that is fun and healthy. And if we come at it with that perspective at the root of it, it’s so much easier to communicate about and for everyone to find or avoid whatever they want.
Do you have any suggestions for how people can be thoughtfully engaged with this issue before we move away from the topic?
Mary Elizabeth: I think the root of this anti-sex work mindset is like you were saying, a lot of weird feelings about sex. I can recommend (and I will in a second) some resources to educate yourself on sex work stuff specifically, but I honestly think a lot of the work people need to do before they can even engage with the politics is about engaging with their own weird feelings. A couple ways I have done that are:
Tell Me What You Want by Justin Lehmiller
Sacred Sex by Gabriela Herstik and also her patreon is great
Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski
Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel
If you’re into witchy stuff, there’s some really fun sexy spells in Sex Witch by Sophie Saint Thomas and Light Magic for Dark Times by Lisa Marie Basile
But to quote Bo Burnham’s sock puppet, you shouldn’t “insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization.” The fun ways to engage thoughtfully with this are to fucking pay sex workers. Get that porn subscription, follow your favorite performers on social media, go to a strip club! Highly recommend the podcast Girls on Porn for some fun and funny convos about great ethical porn of different varieties. If you read a smutty Kindle Unlimited book you really liked, actually buy it because the writers don’t get paid anymore if you go back and, ahem, reread the fun bits. You can also donate to organizations like The Free Speech Coalition.
Natasha Moreland: Thank you for all the stellar recommendations!
I wanted to circle back around to the Instagram essays you mentioned earlier, because I love them. In particular, I’ve shared “Therapy-Speak Friendships” with several personal friends at this point. I love that these essays feel so…digestible, due to their succinctness, but still so incredibly moving, thoughtful, and relatable. The way you curate the visuals for them is also really compelling. What is that process like? Like, at what point does a random thought about X begin morphing into an entire visual essay?
Mary Elizabeth: To explain how they work, basically for a couple of years now, I’ve been posting these long story threads on my personal instagram, where I take these pictures (usually off of Pinterest, but sometimes they’re from my own collection) and add text over them to tell a story. I didn’t originally think of them as “essays” because I was just sorta ranting about whatever was on my mind.
It’s sort of a chicken and egg question about how they become an essay. I spend like 30% of my work days in zoom meetings where I’m not needed (kill meeee) and I can’t work while that’s going on because I won’t be able to actually digest what’s being said, so I spend a ton of time on Pinterest. So, sometimes I’ll just be seeing these beautiful images and it’ll spark an idea for an essay on something. That’s how my “That Girl” essays happened.1 And sometimes, like the Therapy-Speak Friendships one, I have something I’ve been trying to articulate even just to myself and writing is always how I figure out my own head.
When that happens, I usually find images related in some way to the topic, so I’ll search for things like “friendship aesthetic” or for one that I wrote about the concept of Happily Ever After, I literally searched “happily ever after aesthetic”. At this point basically you can put “aesthetic” after any series of words and someone has a bunch of pictures about it on Pinterest lol. Sometimes posting these can be risky, and I’ve definitely pissed off people with what I’ve said, but idk I guess that’s what being a writer is sometimes.
Natasha Moreland: That’s something I always want to ask authors who write at least semi-autobiographically - How do you decide what details to include or leave out when there are other IRL people who are an important part of the story you’re trying to tell? Do you have a specific set of considerations or questions you ask yourself before you make a decision, or is it more of a gut feeling process?
Mary Elizabeth: Y’know, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask because I have no clue what I’m doing lol. I took one (1) creative non-fiction class in graduate school and completely bombed it. I never imagined myself writing more autobiographical stuff like this. But quarantine works in mysterious ways, I guess.
I am in the middle of reading a book called The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes, where he talks about how to navigate exposing yourself in your writing and the fear that brings up. Because it’s a kind of double-exposure actually, because you’re not able to hide from yourself or from the reader. Which honestly feels really good for me. I have been really isolated the last few years, and so these instagram stories have been one of the few ways I feel like I really connect to people. So this was sort of borne out of a desperate need to feel seen and heard when I was rarely being literally physically seen or heard in real life because of quarantine.
Really, I guess I am just going with a gut feeling process, and trying to take myself seriously as A Writer when I get pushback for what I write. I’m much more interested in myself and in culture than I am in like detailing the high crimes and misdemeanors of others, so mostly when people feel called out it’s because what I said felt a little too close to home, not because I like specifically used their names or wrote a screed against them. And that’s sort of the whole point of writing, right? To hit people a little too close to home. So mostly I just try to think about how to write about the capital-t Truth of whatever I’m thinking about rather than just about that one time this one person did this thing to me.
Also I have my mom blocked from seeing my IG stories lmao
Natasha Moreland: “So mostly I just try to think about how to write about the capital-t Truth of whatever I’m thinking about rather than just about that one time this one person did this thing to me.”
This is an aspect of your writing, and a lot of the semi-autobiographical type writing, that I find myself really drawn to. Your ability to use a very personal experience, to get to a Truth about a collective experience. To take a very personal micro-experience and make it relatable or recognizable on a much larger scale. And I feel like it’s always really obvious when someone is doing this type of writing, this type of storytelling, vs just ranting about having been wronged in some way or just generally tearing someone else down.
It can be a hard thing to articulate sometimes - why I like this piece of writing but not that piece - when they may be talking about very similar experiences, but I guess it comes down to a subconscious suspicion about the motivations of the author sometimes. In very sophisticated terms - it doesn’t pass the vibe check lol I think most readers can tell the difference between mining personal experience for collective truth vs airing personal grievances for pity or attention.
And congrats on setting a boundary lol it can be hard to limit access to ourselves and our creative work in the case of close family members, who can easily be our most ardent supporters or most vocal critics. How do you handle questions about your writing from friends and relatives when you aren’t sure how they’ll react?
Mary Elizabeth: May I always pass the vibe check lol. I honestly still haven’t figured out how to handle those questions. My dad actually gave me the best guidance on this, which would be surprising to anyone who knows him. I have an MA in Creative Writing, and my thesis was a creative piece. A novel, basically. And when I was preparing for my thesis defense, I happened to be temporarily living with my parents because of an injury, so I couldn’t hide that my defense was going to be happening. My mom was incensed that I didn’t want her to watch my defense, and it led to this huge argument between us.
I didn’t want her there because I was concerned some of the questions would be personal, because my thesis was very personal and would not make me or especially my mental health at that time look good, but that was just not acceptable to her. It felt like a rejection of her, when really it was about protecting myself from rejection/criticism/concern. And my dad came home in the middle of us screaming at each other about it, and looked completely flabbergasted that my mom would want to read my thesis lol.
He basically told me he would never read anything I wrote unless I really wanted him to, because it’s too personal. He said something along the lines of “I don’t think I need to know you that deeply”. Which maybe sounds like a weird rejection, but what he meant was that he knew how personal and revealing writing can be, and it’s maybe the sort of thing that people who actually know you in real life don’t need to know. And that’s sort of the boundary I’ve kept in my own head since about who and how I choose to share things: “do they need to know me that deeply?”
I am actually way more uncomfortable with people reading my fiction than these essays, because I may not be afraid to air my personal experiences in these instagram essays, but I air my like entire internal world through the characters I write. Not like every character “is me”, but that their sensory experiences, their internal narratives, their emotions… all of that comes from me, and that’s really intimate.
I listened to an interview with Kat Dennings about Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist about how uncomfortable the sort-of sex scene in that movie was for her. You can’t actually see her, it’s like a fade to black thing, but you can hear her moaning. And she said it was the hardest acting thing she’s ever done, because you can act a lot of things but when you’re trying to create something sexy, you have to actually do things that you find sexy. So basically even her “fake” moans were what she considers to be sexy sounds, and that was really hard for her to reveal.
I don’t write JUST sex lol but that’s kind of the same principle for all of my fiction writing. I can make up fantastical worlds or do a lot of research to write about a medical examiner, but I can’t make up a character having a panic attack without referencing how panic attacks feel to me. So I ask myself the Dad question way more often about who I get to beta read my fiction than I do these instagram essays.
Natasha Moreland: That’s so interesting, and I feel like you’ve once again explained something I’ve definitely felt before but didn’t know how to express.
When you tell a story about something that has happened to you in real life, there is always some… deflection? available to you. Even if you are very deliberate about taking up as much agency in your life as possible, there are always some degree of things that just happen TO you, AROUND you, AT you. As humans we are always interacting with and affecting one another. So there’s always some degree of, “this happened but it’s not 100% my doing or choice”.
But when we make art, whether that’s writing fiction or music or painting or whatever, that IS us. That is 100% our choice, every choice involved in the making of the art comes from us in some way. It gets back to what you were saying about the double-exposure of writing when you mentioned Ralph Keyes. Responsibility sounds a bit heavy for what I’m getting at, but basically we are 100% responsible for the art we make. And that’s an incredibly vulnerable feeling.
Tl;dr I feel like I’ve always been creative in various ways and I’ve always been uncomfortable with sharing anything I make and you explained why lol the stuff we make up from our heads is a much truer showing of who we are inside than just listing out things that have happened to or around us.
Mary Elizabeth: Yeah, I feel like some of the most common, very trite advice about writing is to “write what you know” and to “not let the fear stop you from trying”, but those are almost contradictory statements because writing what you know requires taking on a huge burden of fear.
I had a professor ask me when he taught my thesis to his students how I was able to just “put it all out there”, and the answer then was sort of the same as how I’m able to “put it all there” with these essays on my substack–I was profoundly lonely and I needed to feel known and acknowledged more than I needed to protect myself. It was almost like self-defense, writing it down and forcing people to acknowledge it. Now that I am a little more secure in myself and able to validate my own experiences without needing someone else to chime in, it’s actually a lot harder to write. I’m a lot slower and more cautious than I used to be. Trying not to see that as a massive downside of not being crazy anymore lol. If I can even claim I’m not still crazy…
Natasha Moreland: LOL who among us is not crazy these days? You are doing incredible things, crazy or not.
Mary Elizabeth: Thank you <3
Natasha Moreland: Welcome forever lol We’ve covered a lot of ground today and still haven’t even made it to half the things I wanted to ask you about. I hope you’ll join me for a part 2 sometime, because in addition to being a writer, you are also, of course, a voracious reader, and I’d love to have a conversation sometime about all of the reading that has inspired you, as well your relationship to reading in general. But for now, maybe a few fun rapid fire style questions and then wrap it up. How does that sound?
Mary Elizabeth: Sounds great! Sorry I feel like I totally derailed the whole point of this lol
Natasha Moreland: Haha not at all! I know we could talk forever about an infinite number of things, so it’s been a joy having you here and I’m looking forward to doing this again in the future.
I suppose I maybe should have mentioned this up top for transparency or something, but, dear readers, Mary Elizabeth is someone I met on the internet, but have gotten to know IRL, and is someone I feel grateful to call friend. I knew that I love talking with her about so many things, I couldn’t help but think some other folks might find it interesting to “listen in” on our conversation.
Mary Elizabeth: I’m so glad we met! We’re like friends of friends of friends, I believe is the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon there. I am so honored to be a part of this. You know I think everything you’re doing here is wonderful and I’m very excited about the journey you’re going on! You’ve really inspired me to take some leaps into more creative expression myself.
Natasha Moreland: I’m so glad we’re typing this and not recording audio/video lol I’m not ready for the internet to hear me get teary eyed.
Ok, ok. The fun closing questions!
What are you currently reading? (love it or hate it)
Mary Elizabeth: Currently reading: The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism by Octavio Paz and also The Baker’s Guide to Risky Rituals by Kathryn Moon
Natasha Moreland: A podcast you love:
Mary Elizabeth: Materials Girls, formerly known as “Witch Please”. They use scholarly arguments and literary critical lenses to dissect pop culture
Natasha Moreland: Just literally anything that is bringing you joy and you recommend checking out:
Mary Elizabeth: The Shuffles collage app, the Entity Teacup art series Ash Sweet Art (@ashsweetart), and cassette tapes! Especially the Barbie soundtrack one I just got.
Natasha Moreland: And of course, where people can find all of your work.
Mary Elizabeth: You can find me at literarypros.substack.com and on instagram at @literarypros. And pretty soon my podcast with my lovely friend Alex about weird books called Spaghetti Bathtub Bookclub is coming out!
Natasha Moreland: I can’t wait for your podcast to launch! Let me know as soon as it’s live so I can update this link and of course shout the news from the rooftops or something.
Mary Elizabeth: Absolutely! Hopefully I’m not jinxing it by saying it’s dropping soon lol Thank you so much for having me, Natasha!
Natasha Moreland: Thank you so much for joining me! Until next time… I’m realizing remembering I don’t know how to end a written conversation that doesn’t sound weird lol
Thank you and goodbye for now!