Liberation in a pair of padded handcuffs

Ever since the success of EL James's books exposed how much women enjoy erotic novels, the genre has come out of its closet in a big way.

It used to be that only guys were allowed to openly enjoy sexual publications, but James's Fifty Shades of Grey series has proved that women are just as keen to get turned on. At least 90million of them, according to the sales figures.

Now three Cape Town women have tackled the genre, with a few twists thrown into the mix. A Girl Walks into a Bar (Delta Books) is by Helena S Paige - the combined pen name of award-winning copywriter and Sunday Times columnist Paige Nick, poet, activist and academic Helen Moffett and screenwriter and novelist Sara Lotz.

They have come up with a clever variation on the erotic theme: the reader gets to decide whom she is attracted to, whom she wants to have fun with and when she wants to go home. So if she finds the cute bartender with the washboard stomach a catch, she can end up in a clinch with him. But if the George Clooney lookalike turns her on, she may prefer a sophisticated fling.

You choose - and the sections of the book fall into place accordingly.

What made you all decide on a three-way erotic novel?

Helena S Paige: The three of us went for lunch in November 2012 and got chatting about how great it would be to collaborate on something fun. The choose-your-own-adventure erotic novel seed came from Sarah, and we all fell in love with the idea.

And how did it work practically - how did you divide the workload?

We wrote each of the three books in a completely different way, so there wasn't one set process we stuck to. But once they're written, the process becomes very collaborative, as we overwrite and edit and comment on each other's bits and have intense debates about vitally important topics such as the etiquette of wearing c** k rings.

Was there an über-boss among you or was it a democratic experience?

It's handy when there are three of you - early on, we made a rule that when it comes to decisions, majority rules.

Why allow the reader to choose her own experience?

The trouble with the Fifty Shades phenomenon was that it re created the hoary old narratives in which women had very passive or juvenile roles in terms of sex - a rich, older, more experienced guy showing the wide-eyed ingénue the ropes. We decided we wanted the woman to be in control for a change. And the choose-your-own-destiny structure seemed like the perfect tool (Ha, ha! Sorry, we can't get away from dreadful entendres in this business) for putting all the decisions in the woman/reader's hands.

Since Fifty Shades of Grey it's obvious there is a huge market for women's erotic fiction. Is this a genre you had previously enjoyed anyway?

It was the possibility of twisting the genre - the choose-your-own-adventure technique - that really excited us. Because there are three of us, we have different and very wide reading histories to draw on - some of us like to go to bed with Mr Darcy, others with Philip K Dick, and a certain author is deeply monogamous where Jim Crace is concerned.

What is the difference between erotic fiction and Mills & Boon novels?

Mills & Boon novels have started to resemble erotica, but historically erotica was a discreet or even shameful reading pleasure, sold in brown paper covers and mostly geared towards men; whereas it's always been respectable, if a bit low-brow, for women to read M&B novels on the train.

M&B books are explicitly written for women (erotica is a much broader church), and they stick to a code of locating sex within the ambit of Romance with a capital R - even now, when the sex scenes are hugely spiced up, the heroine is still expected to fall in love with the bloke she's bonking and ride off into the sunset with him.

You must have had fun writing the juicy bits - did you bounce ideas off partners/friends/spouses for authenticity?

We have vivid imaginations. That's our story and we're sticking to it. But we have been known to ask our significant others questions like, "Darling, is it possible to have sex in a helicopter?"

Did you do much research?

In terms of actually getting out of our jammies and abandoning our computers, we've done a little bit of location research, but the fun kind - hunting down wedding venues in the Cotswolds, perfect nooks for nookie in Venice ...

There are now three books in the series. Tell us more?

The second in the series, A Girl Walks into a Wedding , has just launched as an e-book in the UK and will follow in paperback soon . We've just sent the third book in the series, A Girl Walks into a Blind Date , to the publishers, and that will launch in the middle of this year .

Would you call your books feminist, in that they allow women to take control of their own fantasies?

Our books are openly commercial and fun, and it's unlikely that they're going to lead to the storming of the barricades, but all the authors are feminists who are pro-sex (and pro-safer sex), pro-pleasure and pro-empowerment. One of us wears a scholarly feminist hat, and she points out that the underlying principle is that women get to choose what and whom they want sexually, and how they want to experience pleasure.

But for women to be able to make choices like that, they first need information and then the capacity (legally, socially, economically) to act. So, in two short steps, we've gone from frothy erotic fun to the coalface of feminism: the education and empowerment of women. Underneath the lacy underwear and George Clooney lookalikes, there's definitely a strata of feminism.