I realize I’m coming in several days late, but I’ve gotten several email messages asking me to comment on this thread since a few of the posts point to one of my tales. Got about thirty email messages blasting me for “racism” over that one “you’re a horny buck” line late in the story too. I must agree with Kylechu20’s comment that “Comments like the above is what discourages me to write sometimes, it just makes me feel like I’m walking on eggshells.”
So, a couple of points. One, real-world me is mixed race (50% brown), so the debate isn’t foreign to me. I get a number of emails telling me I should write more stories starring people of color so that they’re more visible in MC-themed erotica. Most of the time, I never specify characters’ race, one way or another, but every now and then I do write stories with settings or characters that reflect the world in which I live. But specifying a character’s race often gets me blasted by people who have to go 'splaining to me how offended they are that a top or a bottom is a specific race. “Blah-blah-blah, onjectified black bodies. Yadda-yadda, stereotyping oversexed Latinos.” So sometimes I wonder why I bother.
Two, I think people who have focused solely on the “horny buck” line late in that particular story have engaged in a highly selective reading, like those people who sit around on Twitter or other platforms just waiting to be offended. They’ve ignored the character arc, where the black character in the first part of the story makes a number of comments about the white character that could be considered racist, considering him an asshole, “low-class,” and “shit-kicker” mostly because he drawls and comes across as a bossy alpha-type. But hey, maybe whites can’t be the target of racism, right? And maybe twisting one innocent comment toward the end makes the whole story about the black character’s racial oppression rather than his socio-erotic awakening and potential movement away from his own racism. And either way, that’s probably an over-thought approach to a twelve-page short story that’s otherwise intended simply as fuel for readers’ desire-engines.
And for those who have sought to PC-'splain to me why “buck” is always a racist term, check the edits I made to that story almost immediately. I revised the “you’re a horny buck” line to disarm readers who want to go on the “so offended” attack; and to those who have blasted me in email that “buck” is always a derogatory term, well, guess what the white character’s name has become.