Michael T. Ford writes children's fiction. He moonlights writing lesbian erotica.

Self-proclaimed "smut writers" Ford and Cecelia Tan read graphic excerpts from their gay erotic works to a crowd of three dozen undergraduates at Harvard Hall last night. The reading and subsequent discussion was part of Queer Month at Harvard, funded by Open-Gate, an alumni organ that actively subsidizes campus events for gay students.

Both Tan and Ford read two short stories apiece, one intended for gay men, the other for lesbians.

"As writer, you can pretend you are any gender, any sexuality", Tan said.

Nicole L. DeBlois '99, co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and supporters' Alliance, organized the readings, saying she hoped that the stereotype of "lesbians being sexy to straight people but gay men only being sexy to gay men might be refuted".

Tan began writing erotica as a teen under the guise of "celebrity fan fiction".

Tan proudly introduced herself as the "only person who has ever published smut in both Penthouse and Ms. Magazine".

While most of Tan's current stories-published by her personal company Circlit-are in the erotic/science fiction genre (hers feature "phallic plant people") last night’s excerpts came from her earlier period.

Her first story, "Daydreaming", mirrored her own coming out experience at Brown University through the eyes of a male college first-year student.

"Penetration", her second story, focused on a S&M lesbian sexual encounter.

Ford, primarily a writer of children's books, began writing lesbian erotica under the pseudonym of Lillian August because, he said, the gay community did not originally accept male writers in that field.

His first story, "Live Through This", detailed the sexual encounter of Courtney Love with a 15-year-old punk-rock groupie just beginning to explore her own sexuality.

Refuting the idea of the male inability to write effective lesbian erotica, Ford commented that arousing women is simple in that there are only a "limited number of sexual things you can do to make a woman feel good".

His second story, "November 22", part of an anthology, centers around a sleazy gay encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald immediately after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy'40.

Ford said his readers have been extremely disenchanted with "November 22" and the notion of exploiting the death of a beloved president.

However, Ford countered that "violence itself is very sexual", and the act of conquest is part of the erotica experience.

Despite his fascination for erotica violence, Ford said he most enjoys discovering "what gets other people off, because in America, people shy away from admitting it".

He also said "lesbian and gay erotica is always much hotter than heterosexual erotica because Heterosexual men do not know good sex".

After the completion of her reading, Tan was quick to emphasize that writing smut does not necessarily take a toll on one's personal life. Rather, some smut writers are just "recluses with huge imaginations".

Revealing that "there is a lot of sex I haven't had yet so I don't feel like I'm in a rut", Tan jokingly expressed her desire to start a club for people in the porn industry who don't have time for sex in their personal lives.

Ford concluded his remarks by noting that if he wrote "bad sex, it's really my fault".

"It's the old Baptist guilt thing in a new form", he said.