The erotic glutton

On writing, reading, and thinking about gangbangs

I have a collection of three gangbang stories, The Center of Attention, available today at all of the big eBook retailers. You can also download it as a paid subscriber to the Eroticist’s Notebook, along with all of my published eBooks plus exclusive subscriber stories.

Though technically, only one of the three is really a gangbang, at least according to some definitions. In the first story, “Reposado Gold,” the heroine is taken by three sexy cowboys; in “The Downstairs Neighbors” (sample here), it’s three male strippers; and in “Bench Pressed,” it’s five gym rats. The first two stories are, I suppose, mere foursomes in some peoples’ eyes.

But I contend that it’s not just the numbers that define a gangbang, it’s also the focused attention on one participant — in most erotica and pornography, a woman. A foursome could be a mixed doubles situation, and there’s a fluidity to the engagements — A to B, A to C, C to D, D to A, in a gloriously erotic daisychain. A gangbang, by contrast, is far more focused: the only sustained sexual interactions are between the gangbangers and the gangbangee — the gangbangers never have more than coincidental interaction with each other.

In researching how I’d approach the gangbang genre, I ran across this article by Tina Horn, a companion piece to her two part podcast interview with Madleine Marlow and Will Havoc about their filming of gangbangs. It’s an absolutely fascinating and educational listen, and I highly encourage you to check it out. (Also, check out her two part podcast interview with Stoya about books while you’re down that particular rabbit hole; reading has never been so hot.) The key concepts in the kind of gangbang that Marlow and Havoc were filming, and that I’m trying to write, are consent and empowerment, which seem at cross purposes to the gangbang trope but which make it even more interesting when applied.

The gangbangs I’ve written so far have been about a woman taking charge of a sexual situation and directing the action to a greater or lesser extent. In “Reposado Gold,” the main character is swept up in the events of the moment (dancing with cowboys, a bar fight, and a flight into the night with stolen tequila), but she’s hardly a delicate flower plucked by brutish men. The main character in “The Downstairs Neighbors” is also surprised by events, but quickly asserts control of the situation — it’s clear very early on who’s in charge. And in “Bench Pressed,” it’s pretty clear that the main character is a power bottom running the whole show. There is erotica out there in which the focus of the gangbang is less the subject and more the object, and if that’s your thing, good for you; it’s not what I’m currently writing.

That’s not to say that the characters in my stories, or in the gangbang stories that I’ve been inspired by, aren’t overwhelmed by events. That, I think, is the entire point of the gangbang from the center of attention: to be absolutely overwhelmed by the focused sexual energy of multiple partners, to lose control even if she’s in control, to try direct a furious force of erotic power that is ultimately beyond control. A gangbang has to feel dangerous, even if it’s constrained by clear rules of consent, to really count as a gangbang.

Most of the gangbang stories I’ve read have been from the point of view of the woman, which is perhaps not surprising: in one 2014 study, more than a quarter of women reported fantasizing about being the focus of a gangbang. I can’t speak for all women who get a little tingly at the thought of being serviced by a group, but I think Amanda Kerri puts it best in this Allure article about gangbangs:

Here is a person at the center of the gang bang who is indulging in just wild, crazy abandon of moral taboos, any sort of sexual shame, and is just letting themselves become almost gluttonous with sex. It’s not the people using the woman in the center of a gang bang, but her. It’s her body and sexuality that’s the center of the lust, and she’s in full control of it.

I like gangbang stories that are about gluttony, about wallowing in the attention and sensation. While a heterosexual gangbang can end in an explosion of cum — especially if it’s exploding across the bangee’s body — it should be all about her pleasure in the long middle part. If there’s a sense of competition among the bangers — who can bring her over the edge the fastest or the hardest? — so much the better. We often perform at our best when there’s a little competition.

Competition is very much at the center of one of the stories in The Center of Attention: the three strippers in “The Downstairs Neighbor” are vying for the narrator’s approval first with their dances, then with their fucking. I feel like the cowboys in “Reposado Gold” and the gym rats in “Bench Pressed” approach their roles in their gangbangs more in a spirit of cooperation — and a little teamwork does indeed make the dream work, am I right?

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