I received an e-mail recently inquiring about a story I wrote back in the early 1980s. It may have been one of the first examples of "Furry Porn" (or pron, if you're an elitist), as it involved several Re-com (genetically created animal/human) females who worked in an exotic brothel. After the initial "joke" publication of the story in the APA "Scrapa", an amateur writers' forum zine, I would give copies out to people at Furry parties, and had a few "readings" just for the fun of it. (in the style of "The Eye of Argon", where people would take turns reading until they were so embarrassed by the terrible scenes and puns that they had to hand it to someone else to continue)
I have never posted any of my writing on FA (though I intend to). Maybe I should post the original "Turn the Man On"... After all, it is a piece of Furry history. Sorta.

> I probably contacted you about this YEARS ago, but I always loved
> the story "Turn the Man On." I do remember asking if there was ever
> a chance of you re-putting the story out, only with the off-camera
> naughty moments between the lead guy and the various staff of the
> hotel that the story cut away from right before they had some fun.
> Just wondering if that might ever happen?

Wow.
This is a blast from the past, to be sure!
The story was quite popular with some people. I remember that my boss
at the old Subaru Tech Center kept a copy by the bed in he and his
wife's bedroom...
A few other people have told me much the same thing. I believe that
the "cutaway" scenes might have inspired them to "fill in" those
parts...
The story was originally a joke, part of a set of stories in different
styles that were written by various writers for an APA (a
do-it-yourself fan magazine). The stories were all of the "dime
novel/pulp" style, with an assassin named Tyler as the main character.
The stories happened all over time and space, and many were parodies
of types of "bad" writing. The first one, by Jeff Swycaffer, was "Gun
the Man Down". After that, all other contributions were titled in the
"_____ the Man ______" format; thus "Turn the Man On"
The story didn't go over well in the original APA issue. People
objected to the sexual content, and the fact that all the "girls" were
animals. Ken Sample did a beautiful "cast picture" for the story, and
I created a fake "hotel bill" as an extra inclusion. I also did a
"plain brown wrapper" cover for that issue of the APA. Though some
members of the club acted prudish (I expect to seem more "cool"), Jeff
and Rodney liked it. :)

As to a more complete version of the story...
In the late 1980's, I started a novelette version of the story, which
included the actual sex scenes. I also changed the cast slightly,
based on comments and requests of fans of the story, including Ken
Sample. I believe I still have the draft somewhere. I did loose some
of my writing due to format changes and lost or damaged floppy discs,
and I only got a little way into then re-write before getting busy
with other things (like ConFurence). Of course, a complete version of
the story, with all the sex instead of the blackouts, will ruin the
original intent of the silly thing. I am also not sure that I'm that
good at writing actual sex scenes...

The story was posted on a Furry writer's archive once, and got
terrible reviews/recommendations by the site editors. From reading
their comments, it was clear that they didn't "get" the joke at all.
Oh well... I'm certainly no Terry Prachett.

Who knows? If I get enough interest from "fans", I might attempt to
finish the "fully extended (and throbbing)" version...
Or, I could do the World some good and let the thing slip silently
into the obscurity it disserves. :)

Sy