The Cutprice Guignol

Please note that this article will contain discussions of child sexual abuse, child sexual abuse material, and sexual assault.

What started with social media criticism has ended up with the arrest of an Australian erotica author for the creation of child sex abuse material – but what exactly does the arrest of Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa mean for the world of erotica writing and fiction at large? Let’s talk about the controversy, what should and shouldn’t be allowed in the world of erotica writing, and how genre and context informs acceptability in writing.

Daddy’s Little Girl is a recent release from the author Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa, under the pen name Tori Woods, which came out just a few weeks ago on 16th March. Tesolin-Mastrosa had begun publishing under the Woods pen name late last year, with two books released in October 2024 and January 2025; the books revolved around popular taboo and forbidden romance tropes (ex’s father, daughter’s colleague, mistress), and readers commented on the high-steam smut as much as they did the grammar and spelling mistakes. in Wood’s work. As she prepared for the release of her third book, she began to do the usual social media rounds to promote her upcoming novel – with a particular focus on tapping into the BookTok community (a community of book readers and reviewers on the social media platform TikTok).

While this new book very much fell under the taboo romance trope, it also differed from her other novels quite significantly, in that it depicted a relationship between a man in his fifties and an eighteen-year-old girl. A bit questionable, at first glance, but not entirely out of the ordinary for the taboo romance genre – until you factor in the rest of the story, wherein the male main character, Arthur, documents his attraction to the female protagonist Lucy. The books follows the story of a relationship between Lucy, who is eighteen, and her father’s friend, Arthur who is nearly thirty years older than her – the dynamic between the two falls under the DD/LG banner (Daddy Dom/Little Girl – here’s a good primer, if you’re not acquainted with it), and, while both the father’s best friend trope and the DD/LG kink are not new to the erotica genre, the narration of the book appears to depict the father’s best friend thinking in inappropriate ways about the girl as a child. In promo material for the book, Arthur details his desire for her: “my juicy Lucy – she’s finally eighteen. I’ve wanted her longer than I can ever legally admit…my perfect little toy. My precious little unicorn.” While this might read, at first glance, like the set-up for a horrifying psychological thriller about a girl targeted and groomed by an adult man since her infanthood, the back cover blurb promised a “happily ever after guaranteed”.

It didn’t take long for the book to gain traction on BookTok, though little of it was positive. Videos Tesolin-Mastrosa created to promote the book received hundreds of thousands of views, and soon, users were creating their own videos on the topic; some argued that the book should be pulled from publication, while others expressed concerned for Tesolin-Mastrosa’s two young children, suggesting that her role as a mother made the book even more egregious. As users began to dig in to the book in more detail, even the cover artist came under fire, for the front cover that depicted the title spelled out in children’s building blocks.

Tesolin-Mastrosa took to Instagram shortly after the book’s release in an attempt to defend herself and other people involved with the production of the novel from the social media firestorm that had sprung up around them. In a statement, she stated that the book was “DEFININETLY NOT promoting or inciting anything EVER to do with CSA or pedophilia” and that, while she could see why certain aspects of the book was “frowned upon”, “no 1nt3rc0urs3” (her spelling, presumably to dodge social media censorship) had happened until the main female character was of age. With that said, she admitted she had removed the book from Amazon, and it soon vanished from other online retailers as the backlash continued.

But those who took issue with the content of the book and the author’s handling of the topic were ready to move things up a notch – and, on 25th March, stories reached mainstream news outlets about an arrest that had been made in relation to the book. A number of reports had been made to the New South Wales police, according to a statement released by the organisation, and Temolin-Mastrosa was charged with possessing, disseminating, and producing child sex abuse material as several hard copies of the novel were confiscated from her home.

So, I’m an erotica author by trade – whether it’s writing commissions for other people or through my own books, that’s how I would primarily describe my job (at least, when I’m talking to someone who isn’t too easily shocked). Which meant that, when I heard about the arrest of Lauren Tesolin-Mastrosa last week, it caught my attention – not just because it’s rare to see the world of erotica writing break through to the mainstream, but that an actual arrest associated with the publication of a certain book seemed to raise a lot of red flags.

I have to admit, when I first saw the headlines breaking about this story, my hackles were up a bit. Because I’ve been doing this for the better part of the last ten years, and, during that time, there has always been a contingent of people hand-wringing over the content of the erotica genre. And I call it hand-wringing because, while there are important and relevant criticisms to be made about what the genre romanticizes and fetishizes, what I’m referring to here is the barely-concealed disgust at a genre that primarily caters towards women and primarily publishes books by women delving into sex, sexual desire, and sexuality as a whole. It serves as an extension as the policing of women’s sexualities that exists in so many corners of society, and, quite frankly, there is no kind of sex you can write that will not be offensive or scandalous or disgusting to a certain group of people. And it was

But, the more I looked into the actual content of the book (or, at least, what parts of it are still available online, after it was pulled from most retailers), the problem began to make itself…a little more clear to me, let’s say.

While I haven’t read the book, as I didn’t become aware of it till after the arrest and the consequent removal, a reader shared a few quotes in a Goodreads review which serve as a good explanation for the backlash that you can see here. Please be aware of the huge, huge trigger warning for sexualisation of children before you click that link. Beyond just the content of the writing, the book seemed to be marketed in a way that deliberately drew attention to the childish nature of this relationship – the cover art saw the title, Daddy’s Little Toy, spelled out in children’s building blocks against a pastel background. I understand why people were upset by it – I know I was. It’s hard not to look at those excerpts and have some kind of visceral reaction to them, especially in the context of this book serving as an erotic romance as opposed to some cautionary tale.

Legally-speaking, and in this specific case, I think it’s fair to say that the book has enough overlap with the material banned by Australian law for depictions of child sex abuse that this scrutiny is understandable. Laws about child sexual abuse material in Australia do not just refer to those that exploit and abuse actual children, but also to drawings, discussions, and other material covering the subject. But I think the arrest of Tesolin-Mastrosa and the reaction to her book as a whole brings up some interesting questions about morality, intent, and erotica at large.

Because the truth is that this is far from the first book to depict a person with a sexual attraction to children. From classics like Nabokov’s Lolita to modern mega-hits like A Little Life, child sexual abuse is not a topic that authors shy away from – nor, I think, is it one they should have to. Stories about abuse, harm, and trauma, provided they’re aimed at an appropriate audience, are not and should not be taboo – hell, my first novel is about sex and love after rape. I truly think that exploring these stories through fiction can be an important and profound way to bring these topics to light and provide space for survivors to navigate their own experiences, and that is not something I would ever want to lose in the world of literature, even if it is often uncomfortable.

But these books – and most that deal with child sex abuse and rape – have not been subject to the same scrutiny as Daddy’s Little Toy, either via social media or the law (though Lolita was briefly banned in Australia, it’s currently available to read legally). The obvious answer here is that Lolita, and most other books on the topic, approach child sex abuse through a rightfully-condemnatory lens; given that DLT features the characters ending up in a relationship and kink dynamic that specifically draws on markers of childhood after the much-older man has viewed her in an inappropriate manner since she was a child, it’s easy to see the argument that it glorifies and even fetishizes this kind of abuse.

But I think the questions that raises about what constitutes actively harmful material (in a moral sense rather than a legal one) leave us in a bit of a grey area. Because if this book had been framed differently, if the front cover had been dark and gloomy and the hashtags used to promote it more in line with horror than romance – would it have received the same backlash? Extreme horror literature has been having a bit of a moment on BookTok over the last few years, and much of that content is deliberately grotesque, sexual, and violent, with child victims often included in the abuse – Tampa by Alissa Nutting is a popular novel in the genre that revolves around the repeated sexual abuse of a child. Now, I’m in no way saying that Nutting deserves the same treatment as Tori Woods (and obviously she would not get it, given that she is not under Australian jurisdiction as far as I am aware), but I think it’s interesting that the genre context makes such a big difference in the moral acceptability of a certain work.

Is the context in which the book is sold to us a relevant part of this discussion? I would say it’s the most relevant part, and that’s something I find really interesting. Because defining genre, intent, context is very difficult, borderline nebulous, and if that’s the deciding factor on what we deem acceptable or unacceptable in literature, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Strip the pastels and romance trappings away from Daddy’s Little Toy, frame it as a psychological exploration of how grooming and abuse can take place, and the backlash would be very different. It’s not simply the content of the book that defines the reaction, but how the author’s perceived intent frames it.

Even when the author tries to make that clear, there’s no guarantee how consumers will react to the content at hand. Take Lolita – though Nabokov himself was vocal about his disgust for the main character and his desire to keep covers for the book neutral and non-sexualized, the term has now become synonymous with a sexually-precocious young girl seeking out the attention of an older man. You can lay out your intentions in the clearest way possible, and there will still be people who approach your work in a way that’s directly contrary to that; writing books that deal with sexual assault in a way that I felt made it obvious how destructive and horrible that act is, I’ve heard from people telling me that they were aroused by the way that I covered it. When you put a piece of work out there, you have to accept that people will misread the context, the intent, and the reasoning behind it, because someone probably will.

While Daddy’s Little Toy, from what I have seen, is a book I find pretty unpleasant and would never seek out myself, the conversation that has sprung up around the controversy and arrest is one that will have a wide impact on the world of erotica and the writing community as a whole. It’s a thorny, difficult issue, and one that I don’t think there are any clear answers about – I will certainly be following the case with interest when and if it goes to trial, to see how the content of the book is framed as part of the case.

In the meantime, I would be fascinated to hear what you think of this case, the backlash around the book in general, and where you stand on the matter of the legal aspect of Daddy’s Little Toy. If you’ve read the book, I would be particularly interested in hearing your take on it.

Check out some of my other writing on sex, true crime, and the internet here:

The Sex Slave, the BDSM Blog, and the Murder: A Deep Dive into the Delia Day Case

Autassasinophilia, Fetish Forums, and the Early Internet: The Murder of Sharon Lopatka

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(header image via KBC Media)