Emily Tilton, whose books have hit number one on Amazon in six different erotica categories, wishes she could live out her fantasies of submission the way her characters do. Emily's erotica is a narrative version of her nearly lifelong quest to reconcile her submissive erotic orientation with her ethics. She writes erotic romance, but her books are always frankly and unashamedly about sex, because writing about sex helps her understand that fundamental part of her life better. She hopes maybe it does the same for her readers. Over the many years since Emily became aware of her sometimes unbearable craving for spanking, ravishment, and all the shameful things that go with it, she has tried to come to terms with that craving in more ways than she can count. The first of the ways was by reading, voraciously, every piece of BDSM erotica she could find. Eventually, she read "Story of O." As is reflected throughout her work, it changed her life, though the change has been gradual, and continues to this day. The idea that other women might share the lusts she has by turns been ashamed of and defiantly proud of, that a woman like the real Pauline Réage might write so beautifully of those lusts, and work them out so thoroughly and even pitilessly on a character, put Réage's famous pencil in her right hand. Or, to put it in the terms of EXPLORATIONS, which she considers her magnum opus, it put her left hand on the keyboard of her laptop and her right hand in her lap, if you know what she means. Emily started to write spanking stories.