Lacey Noonan Will Put Her Rob Gronkowski Erotica Inside You

The Internet is loud and lonely and mostly wrong and perpetually very upset, and it is terrifyingly vast, to the point where it's larger and stranger and somehow more humid than the actual meat-and-misery world in which we all live. We are all already soaking in it and living on it, and so you know all this. And so you probably know this, too-more than it is anything else, the Internet is horny as shit.

The internet is horny. It is unquenchably, vengefully, painfully and almost poignantly horny. It is tempting, at times, to see the rest of the internet-all the various cacophonous echo chambers and nascent dipshitty explainer sites and artfully niche'd e-commerce sites-as a tasteful robe draped optimistically over the Internet's shameful and insistent perma-boner. It is not necessarily wrong to see it this way. But even this does not fully explain the existence of the erotic novella A Gronking To Remember: Book One In The Rob Gronkowski Erotica Series, which is based around 1) people doing sex and 1a) the genially dim and ambiently horny New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

It's a classic story, really-a woman in a dullish marriage is inspired by the ineffable erotic force of Gronk and his signature touchdown celebration, and conspires both to improve the quality, frequency, and intensity of Gronking in her relationship, which explorations include but are not limited to the participation of Gronkowski himself and the vigorous and non-traditional use of a regulation NFL football. It's the first sports-themed effort by author Lacey Noonan-who is not really named Lacey Noonan, and really is a married web designer living in Connecticut-and almost certainly not the kinkiest.

Noonan's back catalogue covers a great deal of ground, and pretty much humps the shit out of it. There are some comparatively straightforward erotic tales about a landlord, his tenants, and their various sexual entanglements. There is a book in which three familiar figures from TV ads-Wendy, of Wendy's fame; Jan, whom you know best from her enthusiastic Toyotathon advocacy; and Flo, the mascot for Progressive Insurance-pretty much go to town on each other. There is one entitled I Don't Care If My Best Friend's Mom Is A Sasquatch, She's Hot And I'm Taking A Shower With Her, and there's a volume of "Bootivation" in which photos of butts are overlaid with inspirational quotes. Noonan designs her own covers, writes more or less constantly, and has shown an admirable willingness to repeatedly spike her sexual thoughts deep into her readership's psyches.

While A Gronking To Remember appears to be Noonan's breakthrough-in the sense that you can now watch video of Gilbert Gottfried reading it aloud-she's been plowing this particular field for some time. I asked Noonan some questions about football, erotica, and the under-explored overlap between the two, and she answered them.

You've covered a fair amount of ground, kink-wise, in your previous work before arriving at the most forbidden taboo of all -- hulking, good-natured NFL pass-catchers and their (significant) effect on the feminine libido. Where do these books come from, for you, and how did you arrive upon Gronk as inspiration?

It's one of those things where you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. I had such high hopes when I started out writing erotica. I thought, "Fuck yes, a sexy landlord story! People are going to flip for this!" And then it sold eight copies over the span of five months, half of which were my friends. So I began writing for my own pleasure, which meant weirdness. And I get bored pretty quickly. So I jump from topic to topic and style to style, all of which titillated me in their own way of course and spoke to me. That's how I got to Gronk.

I was sitting there zoning out and the idea came to me and I had to ask myself if it was possible. And then I kept asking myself, so it seemed silly not to try. I actually did the cover first before I even wrote a word. I felt the words would come from that, and they did, luckily.

At the heart of this book I think is a real love story, between Dan and Leigh, with the concept of Gronk as sort of this Greek Chorus thing, infusing the prose with his potent musk.

The NFL is so brand-managed and on-message as to appear more or less neutered, with Gronk as a pretty notable exception to that. You use him as a sort of symbol of liberated, passionate life in this, which is kind of the opposite of how the NFL markets its Noble Gladiator Men. Are you worried at all about getting any pushback from the NFL?

I don't know. It's such an obvious parody. There are no ill-intentions on my part, I hope the NFL gets that, if they even care. I'm guessing this is about as low on their radar as it gets-tickling the toes under the desk of the radar operator as it were, as all these actual, real-life calamities are besetting them.

But the NFL's a strange case. You're right to say it's this neutered, manicured thing. Which is powerfully ironic, because it's 22 men smashing into each other's heads for hours on Sunday afternoon. You need the dark and the light, I suppose. And Gronkowski is a beacon of light, rising above that darkness. I actually just picked St. Louis out of a hat in that first scene where Leigh witnesses her first Gronking and has her erotic awakening because it looks like "Seattle." So when Deadspin found that hip-shaking "Gronk spike" in that game against St. Louis I nearly died laughing at it. I was seriously out of breath, nearly peeing my panties it was so amazing. I'd never seen it. Gronk is the gift that keeps on giving.

Have you tried at all to get the book into Gronk's hands? Do you think he'd be into it?

I haven't heard anything about his reaction to it, but I think he's a high-octane, modern guy who gets it. I'm assuming he'd think it's funny. I kind of hope he doesn't actually find out about it until after the season. He needs to keep his head in the game, in the playoffs. Then someone will slip him a copy in the locker room (or da club) afterward and be like, "Oh, by the way…"

- Lana Berry (@Lana)January 4, 2015

You're pretty crazily prolific with your work, especially given that this isn't a full-time thing for you. About how long does it take for you to finish one of your books, and-because people are already asking-how long do you think people will have to wait for Volume 2?

Some books take a week, some take a month. I think it looks prolific because there are all these books, but really it's spread over a year-ish.

To be honest, and this may sound like humblebrag alerting, but I was barely paying attention when I wrote this Gronk story. I wrote in this stream-of-consciousness/denial kind of manner. It took a couple days I think, because I had other stuff to do, but I published it before I even edited it and there were originally around a hundred typos I had to fix and then re-upload, which is a pain in the tush, because each and every ebook vendor is like dealing with an Atari 2600 in their own unique ways.

And I humblebrag that because I spent two months ferociously working like an idiot on this transsexual novel that went nowhere, even going so far as creating my own South Pacific language for the natives to speak. I was ready to give up after that colossal failure, but then this Gronk idea came to me, and here we are.

I actually had no intentions of writing any more Gronk stories. I added the "Volume One…" stuff almost as an afterthought. But I love long-winded titles, so I kept it and it heightened the parody effect, which I suppose is something the American reading public was looking for. The unnatural commingling of two zeitgeists: contemporary erotica and professional sports. But yes. Now I have to write a Volume 2, don't I? Twitter will have my neck if I don't!

What advice would you give to someone setting out to write his or her own volume of NFL-inspired erotica? Beyond, I guess, "please do not write it about Philip Rivers, that would be very upsetting."

Be true to your heart and your vision. Also, it's pretty obvious NFL-inspired erotica is my domain now, so if you want to step in the ring with me, you better come correct.