A Profile of Jennifer Jane Pope

As erotica and fetish fiction has moved out of the cult and fringe market, Jennifer Jane Pope has rapidly emerged as one of, if not the UK's leading writers within the genre, with fourteen books published in less than three years and many more already commissioned in the new millenium by the leading publishing houses in the country.

Both her books and this website have drawn a rapidly expanding army of loyal fans and each new title is awaited with great eagerness and greeted with excellent reviews, both in magazines and on the Internet.

Now (just) into her fifties, Jenny's wealth of experience, particularly in characterisation, shines from each page she writes. Thoroughly believable characters trade barbed dialogue and although her heroines inevitably suffer, given the nature of the books' themes, they seldom, if ever, are ultimately cowed and have the habit of emerging triumphant and more or less unscathed by the final paragraph.

Unlike many of her contemporaries in the field, Jenny is never afraid to "mix 'n match", as she puts it, combining many different aspects of fetishism within a single book, a refreshing change from books that are either Male Dom or Fem Dom and also, as her regular readers will be aware, persuading editors and publishers that an element of TV/TS should no longer be considered taboo.

As an example, her first main market title Net Asset managed to combine rubber and leather fetishism, male dominance, female dominance, lesbianism, enforced and voluntary femininity, corporal punishment and some of the most imaginitive bondage scenes ever published. And the sequel, when it eventually appeared, moved the entire scenario largely into a virtual reality world, prompting one eminent Internet reviewer to comment that she had written the first genuinely enjoyable sci-fi sex novel he had ever encountered.

All of which tells us little about Jenny herself, but then that's the way she prefers it, saying only that she is married, with two step children, a teenage daughter and a small cluster of step-grandchildren that she loves to bits. Her hobbies, when she has time for them, include drawing and painting, interior and exterior design and watching cricket.

Her main hates are inconsiderate and incompetent drivers, rude people in general, cookery programmes and anyone who takes themselves too seriously. She's also not too taken with people who e-mail her with offers of submitting themselves as her personal slave.

"I'm aware how dependant my career is on my readers, believe me," she told me, "but there are limits and I find it astonishing that some people have such difficulty divorcing fact from fiction. I used to find it hard to believe those stories where television soap actors and acresses found themselves confronted by angry viewers who thought the characters they played were real, but now I know just how they must feel.

"What's even worse are the real odd-balls, fortunately rare, who write such unbelievable filth to me. The saddest thing about them is that they really believe that what they write could possibly turn me on. Mostly I ignore that sort of stuff, but every now and then I just can't resist giving these creeps a real sharp piece of my mind." So, you've all been warned!

"The thing is," Jenny explained to me, "I guess some people might consider it a fine line between so called soft porn erotica and, well, you know. However, the distinctions are pretty clear in my own mind.

"I've long been convinced that people should be free to express their sexuality in any way that does not interfere with the rights and sanity of others, which means they should also be able to read whatever they want, within certain limitations. For a start, as a parent, step parent and grandparent, I just can't tolerate the real perverts who abuse children. I'd happily volunteer to castrate the bastards with a selection of rusty implements and I'm afraid it makes me sick to think there are people out there who would even want to just read about such things.

"And, in real life, bondage should be consensual, enjoyable, not something forced upon one party by another. In stories, of course, it's a different thing and I know a lot of people enjoy the fantasy of enforcement, both from the viewpoint of enforcer and enforcee, but I always like to point out that what I write is only fiction. Fortunately, the vast majority of people do know the difference."

I asked Jenny what made her decide to write erotica in the first place.

"Money, if I'm totally honest," she replied, smiling. "I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that the royalty cheques come in very handy. But," she added, becoming serious again, "there is a bit more to it than that.

"We've had a little family business for many years now, a secondhand bookshop, in one corner of which we have an `adult' section. Over time, that section has been increasingly popular and grown steadily and it's been intriguing to watch how more and more larger publishers have been jumping on the bandwagon with their own imprints.

"However, one aspect of the genre which hasn't changed much has been the quality of the books themselves. The vast majority were - and still are - rubbish. Little, if any plot, cardboard characters and completely unrealistic situations. In short, they've been just a poor excuse to hang a load of titillation on and if the erotica market was ever going to expand, it needed something better than that to give it any credibility.

"There were a few very notable exceptions, of course. The Story of O is just away in a class of its own and Ann Rice (writing as Ann Rampling) set a few new standards with her Exit to Eden and achieved something quite lyrical with her Beauty series.

"So, having trained and worked as a journalist and editor over the years - among a few other things, that is - I reckoned I could do better than most of what was on offer. I hope people think I was right!"

If Jenny's sales are anything to judge by, I don't think she has anything to worry about, but, like the lady herself, I suggest that you are the best judge.

Walter Heggan

July 2000

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