Pelling expects the percentages to begin to even out. Changes in employment legislation and access in terms of gender may account for some of it. In a specifically feminist context, women's ability to position themselves as subjects of desire, while not new, is again news. Gender aside, John Sutherland, a professor of modern English literature at University College, London, doubts that the written word can still turn anyone on very much. In Pelling's view, though, women are more accustomed to bringing imagination and tenderness into play and consequently write erotic tales in sensual, situational detail, but with economy.
Erotica is about suspense, detail and build-up.
There's a pleasant feeling of being cheated, of being kept on the burn for a while. Pornography doesn't provide that. Pornography is kinetic. And it doesn't have much charm. The thick, glossly quarterly with a circulation of 15,000 emerged last June.