I don't necessarily disagree with all of your points, but I find some of them misaimed and a bit judgmental.

Some authors (and readers) prefer little physical descriptions of the characters. That's fine and dandy, but there are other's who don't. Personally, I like reading a sensuous description of the human body, and I tend to favor stories that do this. I don't think this means that I'm too stupid to infer the bigger picture based on more minimal text, and I certainly don't think that about my readers when I physically describe the characters in my own stories.

There's often a problem with the handling of ethnic characters in fiction (erotic fiction in particular), but there isn't *always* a problem. Most of my characters are white and English speaking because I'm white and English speaking and those take the least effort for me to envision, sure. But I've had Africans, Asians and Indians as main characters too. Sometimes their ethnic identity is a plot point, sometimes its not. I describe them no more or less fetishistically than I do my white characters (my current serial is from the perspective of a Jamaican man with a Singaporese love interest, and the dangerously sexy and exotic villain is a white American woman. None of their ethnicities are vital to their roles in the story). There are several other authors on this site who are very similar in these regards.

If the readers have a problem with my characters not looking like themselves, they can read something else. I'm not going to avoid describing my voluptuous polyethnic women and svelt polyethnic men the way I want to just in case someone in the peanut gallery can't stand to read about people who are different.

I think of of the core the issues comes down to the ingredients that an authors feels is necessary to make the story work for the targeted reader.

Storytelling is like market messaging; the more targeted one is, the more successful you will be. The most effective segment is the segment of one - writing a message to appeal to a particular person - eg a love letter.

So what ingredients we mix into our story depends so much on what we feel our audience will respond to; or what I as an author respond to in my own pysche. Some may like less graphic descriptions of the subjects, some of the actual spanking scene (I tend to be strong on the emotions surrounding the spanking and go light on the mechanics). I write F/F, not because I want to be pro-gay; but because I like doing it that way and it pushes my own buttons. So while gender may be a hot thing for me, ethnicity is irrelevant in my stories.

I liked your article, Anastasia - it really serves to highlight that we each have our own approaches and that we are not writing for a homogenous readership, even in a narrowly defined segment like spanking.

I think it is very important that the readers are allowed to imagine the characters that suit them. It is a great way of appealing to people of all types and allowing them in incorporate their own imagination to build on their enjoyment of the story. A very interesting article thank you

One of the remarkable things about something as "transgressive" as BDSM fiction is how incredibly devoted to "canonical" hierarchies and "dead white males" most stories are.

Thinking of the role of the "Story of O" and its ersatz feudalism, and then down to pretty much every spanking story, they nearly all tend to be set in very conventional -- reactionary even -- settings.

So its not even a "diversity" thing, its that when we get to sexuality, our mindset becomes far more orthodox. We may enjoy Japanese food and chat in Spanish with our co workers . . . but when it comes to sexual fantasies, they are a lot about who we grew up with and were first aroused by.

The only fanfiction that I've seen that consistently has "diverse" settings is among gay men -- there's a big genre of stuff about native americans (sweat lodges and so on). But most folks don't do that; not out of racism or hostility, but because when you write erotica (or when I do, anyway), you [I] write what you know, the kinds of people you grew up with, got hot for, slept with, and spanked . . . in my case these folks are mostly demographically quite similar to me.

I think the most important part of any story, spanking one or not, is that the reader has to be able to get the scene in their minds and imagine what is happening. I have not ever considered that some may think of a black person as the main character or a white or any colour of person, it is not an essential part of the story, at least to me it is not.

I agree with the writer here, leaving as much as possible up to the reader's imagination is the best way to go. In my experience of reading the stories on this site, I find the ones I do not like very much are the ones that fail to inspire my imagination, and happily I have found very few stories that do not.

I do not write about cultures I have no understanding of mostly because I have no idea of how or what those characters would do in a real life situation. How can I put them in a fantasy story and expect ones to think it could possibly happen in real life? I do not write about so called 'non-straight' people for the same reason. I have too much respect for them to write a story about something I know nothing about, and perhaps cause hurt and pain because of my lack of understanding.

Good article Anastasia, thanks for the hard work in putting it together for us.

I like to give a description of the spanker when it's a female. Her hair color, her size, her eyes, and the way she's dressed. I don't go overboard with descriptive data, but I have a little name for that which is "A Mind's Eye View." I want my reader to not only read, but to see as if watching a movie in their mind.

I've written stories with main characters who are non-white.

I guess that’s why they call it the blues
A spanking in the judges chambers
Judge Wendy Halester and the boys
Strip search and seizure

These all were F/m orientated and black female Tops.

Your article does ring a bell though. I've never really thought about this while I was writing a story. However, I don't think it has to do with 'white supremacy' in the spanking fiction world. (not that your article implies this in full, but sort of hints on it).

You might say the same thing about M/F and F/M spanking scenarios. What's wrong with a female top giving a good spanking to a male bottom? (pun intended) Yet, there are those who don't care for it for one reason or another. I do!

The bottom line here is that your article was informative and from the bottom my own heart, a true eye opener. After reading this, I'm certainly glad I did use these main characters. I actually feel better about myself now.

Thank you for that, Anastasia. I'll certainly keep this in mind.

Since we have spankos living in all five continents, and all the many countries of this big wide world, the character's they create if spanking stories are written by them, are similiar to them. This means, be they white, black, or oriental, be they varied ethnically, or religiously, the authors assume their readers understand such diversity.

I understand the basis for these comments, Anastasia, and it's good you've challenged us. But I think you've created a stereotype yourself. For example, it is not always so that the heroine in a spanking story is white. You also seem to be assuming that white authors who introduce characters with other skin colour and cultural background have little understanding of the culture. So does that apply too to a Black guy born in the London suburbs who writes a story with a white main character? And if someone has experience of a culture but is not entirely part of it (like the white person brought up in China) is not their point of view to be taken seriously? Indeed, people who are half in, half out of a culture or identity are often its most percipient observers, for reasons that are not hard to work out.

I quite understand how offensive it is to reduce a human being to a stereotyped characteristic and that this is most often done to minorities of some sort. But being Black in the USA, or Mixed Race (Indian/European) in Australia, or a Maori in England or a white person in West Africa is an important part of the situation a major character is in, so it may well be relevant for an author to mention it.

Thank you SO much for writing this! As an african-american writer who writes multicultural and or LGBT fiction, my experience with the publishing industry has been rather rough. Often I just throw up my hands and write white characters (with the TOKEN black, asian, hispanic whatever) because when I write real stories about people of color they are RARELY accepted. Erotica or not.

Often, white liberal editors and agents preach about wanting "more diversity," but these same people never seem to have many (if any) writers of color in their lists or a significant number of books written from a non-white perspective. Writers of color ARE submitting and we ARE actively trying to break into the market--but we are turned down 9 times out of 10. A Guatemalan writer I know told me once that there are only 5 Latina literary agents in America. 5. Total. I mean...seriously.

White privilege dominates the publishing industry and books are still segregated by ethnicity and race. Walk into a bookstore (or hell an e-bookstore) and see it first hand. There's the "African-American Lit." or (if you're lucky) the "Interracial" section. I've heard many horror stories from writers of color who feel their entire careers are ruined when placed on these shelves. What is "African-American Lit" anyway? I thought books were categorized by genre. And last time I checked "African-American" or "Chicano/Hispanic" are NOT genres. Right? But the way the industry looks at it, white characters are the default and anything other that is extraordinary and must be placed on an entirely different shelf. Who cares if the book is about dragons and vampires. The main character is Asian. Dump that book somewhere in the "ethnic" aisle.

Whitewashed book covers are the norm too, I'm afraid. That is, even if the book has a non-white main character, the cover art will rarely reflect that. It's a mess. But anyway, thank you for writing this post. The book publishing industry still has a long way to go. It'll take writers like us to make these improvements. :)

Cheers!

I can not disagree that in the American culture, at the very least, Race and Ethnicity are the two greatest elements of division in our society. I can respect your experience as an author but fail to see how including a character as a token with an ethnic background will lead to respect for diversity. That character can do little to advance our attitudes unless understanding and tolerance for those who are different is the important theme of the work.

I have spent my career working with diverse groups of children and adults. No one learns to respect the cultural beliefs of another unless s/he is educated. A picture on a cover is not an education.

I agree there must be a starting point and vividly remember the first class that included a handicapped child who previously was taught in a small group with others like himself and had no contact with the regular student population. As you can imagine, children who had never been with a handicapped child had lots of questions. The handicapped child had lots of questions, but armed with the proper understanding and knowledge of that child's disability as well as his abilities built respect and understanding on both sides. Today inclusion is commonplace; no one bats an eye.

On the other hand, it has been 16 years since our State has adopted regulations on multicultural education. We still have a long way to go.


Islandcarol

I've come late to the party, I know, but the article is interesting, and I do have a couple of things to say. For the record, my gender is male, my orientation is straight, my race is white, my heritage is British, my forbears grew up on the Ohio side of the Ohio River across from West Virginia, my age is 67, my height is 5'7" and my weight is 290 lbs.

Now that we've got those particulars out of the way, I'll ask a question: if I were a literary character in your spanking story, which of these would you tell about me first? Or which of these would you not bother to tell about me at all? And what have I left out that is essential for the reader to know? Of these questions, were it my story, the last would interest me most. What I've left out is my diction, dialect, and accent, which is (when I want it to be) Appalachian or is (when I want it to be) Television Newscaster Speech, from the great Midland swath stretching from Buffalo, through Erie, through Cleveland, to Chicago.

So I pronounce the word "insurance" as either INsurance or inSURance depending. I live at the boundary of these two dialects, so, quite literally, if I go to the south end of my town, I and most everybody else will PERnounce words, if I go to the north side of it I proNOUNce them.

Do you have a clear visual image of me in your mind yet? Or not? Could you good guess what other characteristics I might have? Or not? This is the magic of writing fiction, I can't tell the reader everything, but I can create dialog that is consistent with all of the above things, many of which the reader has to fill in. I not only can do it, I have done it for fully four paragraphs about myself the story character.

Now if you were to read my character saying, "Johnny's all right, he's "family", Latisha." or, "Stay strong, man, and don't take anything but "respect"." Would you find this consistent with the four paragraphs above? I wouldn't. Unless. I set the stage with the prior indication that I'm talking TO an African American woman and an African American man who might think that I'm "family", too, someday. Why? Because I use their diction (which I can) if not their dialect and accent, and I'm attentive enough to know some of it and polite enough to use what I know when talking to them.

But I've listened enough to know that I cannot make an African American character speak convincingly for any length of time, particularly if talking to another African American, I'm less able to do so with an Hispanic character, and I'm not able to do so at all with an Asian American character. I haven't been able to acquire enough of their diction to one another.

So I have two not very promising options. I can use a stereotype from other writing, or I can write badly when I make that character start to speak. Of these, I think the first of these is expedient *only* with an incidental character who is not on stage very long. With major characters I must know my limits if I'm going to write well. And if I don't write well, who will want to read it?

Jolly interesting article... thanks! The "Harry Potter" comment is interesting, because it illustrates that race is no longer something with hard boundaries, at least not in the UK (I can't comment on the situation elsewhere). Yes, the world needs genuine diversity in its literature. Yes, the UK is starting to suffer from a culture of chucking a couple of "ethnic" names into any group just so it looks diverse. But I'm not sure the Harry Potter books are quite guilty of this. They are fundamentally boarding-school books, and boarding schools are fundamentally a rather out-of-date upper-middle-class thing. Any British independent school will have, and has had, for decades, a proportion of people who come racially from a non-white background, but who are several generations from their origins outside the UK, and who are effectively white British by culture, brought up on tea and crumpets in the suburbs, by parents who themselves grew up in the UK. They may well be called Cho and look Asian, and they probably know a bit more about the far east than the rest of us, but in writing them as white, it's possible J K Rowling was describing them just as they are, and just as they'd fit into Hogwarts as an independent boarding school. The big issue there, which she does tackle to some extent, is class, not race. Whether a person is acceptable because they come from Us, or whether they're one of Them, which Rowling describes quite well in the whole Muggle versus pure-blood question. If race came into it, maybe there should have been a lot of kids from Philippine families who staff the hospitals, or a load of Polish people (who have a quite distinct culture). I really don't know. In the end, we can only write from our own viewpoint. We can only populate our stories with people we know. It's dangerous, as a writer, to start throwing stereotypical characters into a story to make it look right. I'm now somewhat scared of putting "ethnic" characters in my stories because I can only do so from a white perspective (I can't help that) and I don't want to be accused of appropriation. I can only write what I know and what I see, and mine will always be a white-man's view of the people I know from other cultures. I'm reminded of a Scottish friend I once knew, tragically stuck between two cultures. We saw him as Scottish, while his Scottish family saw him as anglicised. If I based a character on him, and made it a true reflection of his personality, a Scot could accuse me of writing an Englishman with a MacName, and they'd be right, but it'd be him who was the issue, not me! It's a tricky one. Thanks for making me think about it.

I'm never worried about cultural appropriation any more than I'd worry about cooking a curry in my English village. Even a spanking story set in an American school would be a cultural leap, but I've tried it more than once because there is so much material easily on hand as regards US schools. I've just posted a spanking story set in the Middle East featuring a Filipino girl; I know the Middle East reasonably well enough to.set to writing, but had to do some background reading about maid schools in the Philippines! I even set a five-part serial, the longest serial I've ever done, in Barbados, on the back of a couple of holidays there. As long as you're not just using lazy racial tropes I don't see there's an issue, and it allows a great variety in character and setting.

"How often have you read an African-American character in a spanking story who is not a servant, receptionist, household help, subordinate employee, or in some way a bit part to a large cast of characters who are not identified by race? "
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Quite often. There's an entire genre devoted to it. But that gets to the point: spanking fiction is _genre_ fiction. There are some extraordinarily gifted writers who have devoted themselves to it, on occasion, but you're really missing the point of genre fiction if you're hoping for it to somehow expand your social horizons.

I'm sure James Baldwin had his kinks -- and indeed he writes one of the most important gay novels in "Giovanni's Room" -- but I'm not reading him that. And I'm not reading a spanking story for the same reason that I'd read James Baldwin.

Our sexual fantasies -- and our sexual practices-- follow remarkably durable "scripts"; we like what we like and we'll read it over and over again, with small changes, and delight in it in a way that we wouldn't in a similarly repetitive novel

So I'm all good with, say, Richard Manton writing his umpteenth orientalist fantasy. I don't imagine that he's accurately representing late Ottoman North Africa in a realistic way, but I don't care . . . its what's fun for me. It would be more than a little unexpected if he were to bother me with some sociologically accurate inquiry into late colonialism . . .