There are quite a lot of articles on how authors can use editors, and how editors can help authors. They usually examine the proper use of language, the importance of continuity in a story, and some pitfalls that new writers of erotica (or any fiction, for that matter) need to avoid.
I'm lucky in that I've used an editor for years who is not only a personal friend, but a writer of erotica in her own right. (In fact, she's a better writer than I am, even though she needs to be reassured of that from time to time.) Not only does she do the things that an editor is supposed to do, like check my spelling and ask why a character I started out calling Maria is later referred to as Marie, but she adds another dimension to my writing based on her own perspective as a woman. She doesn't do it much, but when she does suggest a re-write, it's almost always because she caught something that I hadn't thought of.
I should point out that the kind of stuff I write isn't the usual porn I grew up with, where all a character had to do was show his ten-inch dick to a girl to entice her to bed and give her a thundering orgasm with a few seconds of his cocksmanship. I wanted to write plausible stories about real people having realistic sex, because that's what turns me on. And that's where Athalia has been a real help.
I don't know how many times she's returned a story with an annotation that a scene just "didn't work" for her. At first, it was usually one of my attempts to describe a female orgasm, or provide a motive for a female character's actions. I had come face to face with the writer's classic dilemma about "writing what you know" versus telling a story from multiple points of view. It's more than just lacking a set of ovaries, as she's pointed out to me. Being raised as a male, with certain expectations drummed into me and certain privileges granted to me, makes it hard to relate to that part of a population that has grown up with vastly different expectations and privileges. For example, it hadn't occured to me that a small-framed woman (as Athalia is) would be far more likely to be physically intimidated by an aggressive stranger than a large-framed woman or just about any normal man. She will not walk into a bar of strangers with the same mind-set I will. And I have given up trying to persuade her to visit a nude beach with me and my wife, since she still equates nakedness with vulnerability and her small size increases that feeling of vulnerability. At best, she will allow herself to be publicly nude only in woman-only situations, and she's uncomfortable even then.
I have to admit at this point that she doesn't write the sort of erotica that most women write. Rather then stick to the formulas of women's romance novels and short stories, she's striving for a more realistic portrayal of modern women in a society that raises its women to be more straightforward about sex and female physiology. (It's that common interest in realistic erotica that drew us together as writer/editor teams.) For one thing, she's mentioned how a woman's chance of getting pregnant directly influences her attitude toward sex. That's not a big factor for us guys, especially when the lust takes charge, but it makes all the difference in the world for many, if not most women. For another thing, she'll take into account whether a woman in her story is menstruating, and how that affects her attitude toward sex. That's a subject you never find in your bodice-rippers, and damned rare in erotica except as a fetish element, but Athalia feels that it's a part of any woman's life that shouldn't be glossed over. Women menstruate, they take it in stride, and they deal with it. It's no big thing.
