This past week, a section of the romance writing and erotica community was angered and disturbed by a blog post from the author who used the pen-name Sorcha Rowan to write F/F (lesbian) romance and erotica. In the blog post, ungraciously titled ‘Coming Out’, Sorcha Rowan revealed that although they had written and marketed their books with the author identity of a lesbian woman, they were in fact a bisexual cisgender man, married with three children.
(I’ve later seen it alleged that in fact ‘Sorcha’ was not a bi man but a heterosexual cisgender man, although I am not certain where the truth of this lies).
‘Sorcha’ had specifically pitched marketing his books into spaces dedicated to promoting LGBT women writing F/F romance (such spaces are necessary to avoid encountering the fetishisation of F/F relationships that often arises when men write them. I say this in full acknowledgement of the fact my own work can often be given that verdict).
Not only had ‘Sorcha’ used the persona of a lesbian woman to write and market his books, he had also adopted this persona on social media, and in his interaction with other people, including, he implied, lesbian women. This seemed to have potentially included sexual conversations in which ‘Sorcha’ kept up the pretence of being a lesbian woman, or conversations in which he would admit to using a fake identity but continue to push for sexual chat.
Unsurprisingly, this missive caused a fair amount of distress, especially among LGBT women in writing communities, many of whom had either interacted with or otherwise supported 'Sorcha Rowan' as one of their own and who felt betrayed, used and actually preyed upon now they had learned 'Sorcha' was actually a cisgender male.
Although some individuals in bad faith attempted to voice support for 'Sorcha’s' ‘coming out’ as a brave admission, while others focussed simply on the fact that Rowan was admitting to harmlessly using a pen-name (‘Sorcha’ himself suggested his main motivation was sales) and ignoring the wider implications, the vast majority of people in the erotica and romance writing sphere were rightly appalled by ‘Sorcha’s’ admission and non-apology.
Calls went out to stop promotion of books by Sorcha Rowan and to raise awareness that they were, in fact, a potential predator. As a result, Rowan finally deleted the Sorcha Rowan Twitter and appeared to have withdrawn from social media and the erotica/romance world.
However, it was subsequently alleged on Twitter that 'Sorcha Rowan’s' true identity was as Young Adult author Scott Roche. Roche was still active on social media as himself, gave no acknowledgement to the allegations, and continued to promote and market books written under the Scott Roche name. At time of writing, Scott Roche has now also left Twitter. It now seems to be widely acknowledged that Scott Roche and 'Sorcha Rowan' were the same person although I personally cannot confirm this myself.
All of that is pretty fucked-up, right?
I think a lot has already been said by others who can turn a phrase much better than I can, but it bears repeating: ‘Sorcha Rowan’ didn’t just admit to using a female pen-name in order to sell lesbian erotica (although the start of his confession suggested this was why he had chosen to do so initially). He didn’t just admit to creating the ‘Sorcha Rowan’ persona on Twitter. He also admitted (albeit vaguely) to engaging in sexy chat with women as ‘Sorcha’ and also alluded to exchanging nudes.
Following his blog post, a number of women came forward to describe their own interactions with ‘Sorcha’ and a better pattern began to emerge of his predatory behaviour. It was confirmed by those who had interacted with him that he did indeed use the ‘Sorcha’ persona to flirt with lesbian women who would not have had such interactions with a man, and that he had indeed sent nude photos, (presumably of a third party who likely would not have known their photos were being used in this way), and that prior to the blog post most had been unaware that ‘Sorcha’ was actually male. There were also others who came forward to say ‘Sorcha’ had admitted the truth to them, but that they had been unaware he had been using the ‘Sorcha’ identity to flirt and sexually chat with lesbian women, so had assumed it was a harmless case of a male writer adopting a female pseudonym for marketing reasons.
(My own interaction with ‘Sorcha’ is limited to having been followed by him on Twitter. Although I mutually follow back most authors who follow me, I did not follow him back. While I wish I could gift myself prescience and say this was because something seemed off about ‘her’, I don’t recall anything and I think the fact I didn’t follow back was probably just an oversight that, in hindsight, turned out to have been fortunate).
All this is now common knowledge, and yet there are probably still people out there who don’t see harm in what ‘Sorcha’ did, and who probably think this is another example of Twitter ‘cancel culture’ blowing things out of all proportion. After all, why shouldn’t a man write lesbian erotica?
Fact is, there isn’t anything wrong with men writing erotica about F/F sex and relationships. If I thought there was, I would have to burn 90% of my own manuscripts. There is no harm in women writing gay male relationships and sex, either – many do.
But there needs to be an understanding that to write outside of one’s gender and sexuality is not the same as writing from one’s own understanding or experience, and therefore comes with a different set of perspectives and assumptions, which may not always be accurate. A good writer can comfortably put themselves in the head, and shoes, of any character, but they can never truly know what it is like to be that person, or someone like them. They will make mistakes, will say things that don’t ring true, and may never notice them until someone who has lived that experience points them out.
In the case of erotica, writing outside your gender and sexuality also comes with the extra baggage that the author may well be doing so because it more easily enables the depiction of subject matter that is exciting or arousing to them. I’d include myself in that. While I have always said that the preponderance of female characters in my work, and the lesbian sex scenes, are there because I much prefer writing female characters for a whole host of reasons and, as such, tend to gravitate towards them having relationships and encounters with other women, I’d be lying if I said it isn’t also in there because it’s what I find erotic.
Adopting a persona with a gender or sexuality not your own in order to write erotica about people like that persona is not, in my view, a sign of a strong author. You can’t carry out a pre-emptive defence against the criticism that you don’t write authentic-seeming lesbian women by pretending to be one on Twitter. I know I still have much to learn in my craft, but I can’t help but feel I would learn a lot less if I strove for authenticity by creating a fake persona rather than working on my characters’ voices, and reading and listening to the voices of people like those characters.
So my approach has always been to try as much as possible to be honestt about the fact that I am writing as a straight male, and that my presentation of F/F romance and sex in my work is probably going to differ from the experience of actual lesbian/bisexual/queer women.
That’s not to say I don’t try to rise to the challenge of depicting more realistic and well-rounded experiences. The Becky & Lisa books, and Sophie, especially, are intended to be as much about relationships and love as they are about sexy female nudity and girl-on-girl action. I try to do my characters justice, and I’ve been rewarded with great readers who are themselves queer women and who support me and tell me they enjoy my work. But I would never assume that my writing would be the sort of F/F erotica and romance that would appeal to women who are specifically looking for F/F written by lesbian/bisexual/queer women – and I accept that many of these readers would dislike my work for entirely valid reasons.
‘Sorcha Rowan’, though, sought to trick his way into that readership by pretending that the voice in the lesbian romance/erotica he was writing was his own authentic voice, and it appears that he was broadly successful in that regard. I’m not sure exactly what prompted him to turn around and admit the charade (in his blog he suggests he was feeling remorseful that he had let the lie get well beyond a simple pseudonym), but I suppose if nothing else we can be grateful that he admitted the truth now, when he could feasibly have just continued on just as he was, with most people none the wiser.
Pen-names are, of course, common in writing, especially erotica and romance, where authors may well have all manner of perfectly valid reasons for not wanting their real name searchable in company with their published works. I write under a pen-name, as (I am assuming) do many of my acquaintances.
It’s also not completely out-of-bounds for a male author of erotica to attempt to disguise their gender, most notably by using gender-neutral pen-names. I do it, after all – or I would be publishing as (say) Adam Rowen, or Arthur Rowen, or something like that. While in part I have just always liked publishing books under initials (blame growing up with J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis), I would be lying if I said I hadn’t also thought about how to market and sell my books when I chose my pseudonym.
It is a widely-made assumption that erotica performs better, and is received more readily, when it is written by women. As far as I can tell, there is truth in that. After all, the majority of erotic fiction is written by women, and the majority of readers of erotic fiction are women. Women who read erotic fiction may well feel more comfortable with, or appealed to by, books which are written by other women. Meanwhile, the smaller number of male readers of erotica, other than gay males, will probably also feel more comfortable purchasing a book by a woman rather than by a man. If I don’t want readers to dismiss my work out of hand because they can see by glancing at the book cover that I am a man, I have to muddy the waters a little bit by, in my case, using a gender-neutral pen-name.
I draw the line at further deception, though. I use male pronouns in my author biography, I include my gender in the FAQ on my website, and I use a male cartoon avatar on social media. Blogs, forewords, private correspondence… in all these things I write as myself, as a man, and the only artifice is that I use a made-up name.
But I always accepted, even prior to ‘Sorcha Rowan’, that some men might well write erotica under explicitly female pen names, and may even go the whole hog and create social media identities for these authors. I don’t know any in particular, but I’m going to assume it is happening. As I’ve said, it could be as a way to head off any criticism that their work doesn’t feel authentic, or as a marketing tool. While I don’t necessarily agree with this approach, I do understand it comes primarily from an understanding of the way the market works. Publishers may even encourage male authors to do this. It’s not necessarily positive, it reflects a bigger problem with sexism in the marketplace, but it is at least understandable.
But ‘Sorcha Rowan’ didn’t just pretend to be a woman to sell books, or to seem more authentic in his writing. ‘Sorcha’ took it further and used his fake persona to catfish lesbian women.
Catfishing is a term that is popular online. It means that you create a persona as someone other than yourself, but make it seem like a real, genuine person. You then befriend or even romance someone online using that persona. No matter how intimate that relationship becomes, without meeting you face to face they never know who you really are.
Often, people catfish because the people they want to interact with would never do so if they tried to initiate conversation as their real selves. Sometimes it is a sad story – a person who thinks they are unattractive using a model’s photos to make people they talk to online think they look different. Sometimes it is part of them finding their own identity. But in other cases it is primarily about the sexual gratification of the person doing the catfishing.
So it would seem to have been with ‘Sorcha’. He apparently was seeking out lesbian, bisexual and queer women, women whom, he must have understood, would have no wish to interact in a flirty or sexual manner with a man, but who might well respond favourably if the contact was initiated by a lesbian woman. According to the women who have come forward about him, he approached them as ‘Sorcha’ and, if they were willing, engaged in sexy chat which in some cases included the exchange of pictures – pictures which I very much doubt these women would have shared if they had known that behind the keyboard at the other end was not a lesbian woman but a married man in his fifties.
There’s no marketing or authorial justification for that, and no excuse. While role-play is a perfectly legitimate thing to do sexually with others, either in real life or online (I’ve done both), morally it requires every participant to be consenting to the game. ‘Sorcha Rowan’ didn’t care whether the person he was getting sexytime chat with consented to being a vehicle for him to roleplay his fantasies or not – in fact, worse, he almost certainly knew they would not have consented had they known the truth, which was why he kept it from them in the first place.
Having sexual fantasies (about two girls together, or about anything else) is not a bad thing, nor is finding a way to safely and consensually make those fantasies come true for you and whoever else wants to be involved. But it is wrong, and harmful, to force or trick people without their knowledge or their consent into participating in your acting out of those fantasies, to emotionally invest themselves in relationships and experiences which you know are not true but which you let them believe are for real. If that’s what ‘Sorcha Rowan’ was about, the world of erotica is better off without him.