Do you like reading smut? Maybe try writing it!
Despite how much society might repress the smutty side of ourselves, it is actually healthy to express it. Sexuality is a part of the human condition, and we can thrive by embracing it. Here are four core reasons why I enjoy writing spicy romances and erotica.
Writing smut helps resolve trauma.
You've probably heard of this before. People write all the time to help themselves heal. I can't explain why exactly, but I think writing smut helps me dissect more and more of the experiences I've gone through sexually. The important thing to remember is that this is all fiction. No matter what kind of dubcon scenario I might design on paper/the screen, the fact of the matter is that it is complete fantasy. I have complete control over what happens to the characters, and that makes it safe for me, even if the characters go through some things that would definitely not be okay in real life.
That is the important boundary to be drawn: as long as we can separate fiction from reality, then writing terrifying, awful situations in fiction can actually help us process our feelings towards certain scenarios.
The truth is, things that turn me on in a fantasy do not appeal to me in real life. For example, I'm sorry, but even though I might write why-choose romances like my upcoming Stella White and the Seven Hockey Players and The Princess in the Tower at the End of the Universe, I don't actually want to be in a polyamorous relationship in real life. In fiction, I can dream up the perfect book boyfriends who take care of the FMC and fight to protect her to the ends of the world. It's freaking romantic.
In real life? Sorry, but I'm exhausted enough as it is just trying to date one dude.
Okay, but those books are consensual spice. What about my darker writings? I also have darker novelettes which deal more with dubcon themes, such as my latest release The Demon in the Library. Still, my stories privilege discussions around female pleasure, which is all too often ignored by male partners. These stories are an escape.
Instead of having to ask for sexual pleasure explicitly, which can be difficult for women who have historically and culturally been shamed and punished for expressing their sexual desires so openly, these FMCs get to experience pleasures that they in fact want without having to ask for it.
The entire reason that works in fiction? It's a controlled, safe environment to explore hidden desires and work out trauma. In fiction, we can see the characters' thought processes. There's a sense of detachment or differentiation from the characters' experiences compared to experiences we go through in reality. Obviously, I'm NOT turned on by rape and noncon in real life. Those rapists are legitimately sick in the head and creepy, not to be glorified in the slightest. For the record, I stay away from explicit noncon where the woman doesn't derive any pleasure from it at all, and there's hardcore pain and harm, etc. That stuff triggers me.
The type of dubcon I write is always where the woman feels pleasure by the end of the exchange, because it frees her submissive side from always having to make decisions. While it may be dubcon on the page, it's in fact secretly consensual because I wrote it as a safe space. Does that make sense?
Aggression in real life is alarming and scary. Aggression in the context of a male character in a story primarily focused on female pleasure? That is there to reinforce the protective hero instinct of the MMC, the side of him that is raging hard, jealous and possessive of his woman because she belongs irrevocably to him. In real life, this would be dangerous. In fiction? It's a man written by a woman, designed to cater to her fantasies of being so desperately wanted, she is the MMC's entire world, the source of light the MMC revolves around.
Essentially, the MMC exists almost like a vehicle for female fantasy, even if, at first glance, the MMC appears to be dominating, objectifying the FMC as a vehicle for his own pleasure.
So, yeah, while it may be a bit confusing and complex, writing smut helps me dissect more of my own repression around sexual desires and my own sexual trauma. My stories give me permission to explore what I truly want, to work out my shame and guilt and humiliation in a safe space without judgment. They allow me to embrace the power of female pleasure, that explodes forth in a way that is celebrated rather than punished.
That is, honestly, a healthier way of coping with trauma. The reality is, I still feel at times like I'm not supposed to like sex too much. I feel like if I say how much I want good sex, some idiots will prance around saying I'm asking for it. That's why I dress my sexual desires up in shadows. That's why my FMCs experience sex in the darkness.
I probably won't ever work through it all in any one story, but through multiple novelettes, it can eventually make a solid difference.
Writing smut encourages creativity and self-expression.
Another reason I enjoy writing smut is that, heck, it's just fun! In spicy romance, smutty scenes are a great way of exploring couple dynamics in the bedroom.
Still, sometimes, you just want to explore your greatest, most wicked fantasies without all the same plot and character development you need in a full-blown romance. There's a great freedom to writing erotica.
I've noticed that erotica tends to get a lot of leeway in the crazy kinds of shenanigans characters get up to. There are still boundaries in place with romance. But, with erotica, you can spill over into the obscenely sexual and overtly slutty, and readers will suspend their disbelief accordingly for this genre.
As a result, you really get to experiment. Whatever kind of crazy, whacky scenario you can think of, you can explore. I've written erotica set in the zombie apocalypse, like My Soldier in the Zombie Apocalypse and Female Orgasms in the Zombie Apocalypse. Honestly, one of my favourite settings! You get to think about how sex might become scarce in a dying world, and how that could potentially shift the dynamics between genders. It's a bleak world, where sexual desires become more heightened and desperate.
I've also written sci-fi erotica like The Breast Milk Factory in the Sky. It was just really interesting to think about aliens finding human breast milk a delicacy and setting up a breast milk station in outer space specifically to mine new mothers for that resource. Honestly, I want to write more sci-fi alien erotica, and I've even got a couple of ideas for longer romantic works on that theme, so maybe I'll make November into a sci-fi month.
I've played around with time/space travel, like in Cinderella, in a Pirates' World. A girl from the heart of Manhattan tumbles into a pirate ship in some medieval, otherworldly time and has sex with a tentacled sea monster and the pirate captain. Fun. I also wrote Mental Asylum Orgasms under Penrose Evergreen which involves time travel to the medieval torture chambers of Victorian-era mental asylums, my imagination inspired by research I'd done into the condition of 'hysteria' that women were diagnosed with by early doctors (really, just problematic pseudoscience, but it used to be the cutting edge of scientific discovery in its time...).
So, you can see from the range of stories I've written how much my creativity and self-expression get to play. :)
Writing smut improves my relationship with myself.
The truth is, I love being single. I get so much more time to myself. I'm kind of addicted to working on my stories right now, spending countless hours each day writing and building my business.
Writing smut allows me to love myself. It's built-in intimate time with myself. It's a relationship I'm building with my own brain, getting to learn more about myself and explore my deepest, darkest fantasies. While I don't have a partner to be intimate with, my smutty stories turn me on even better than a partner and more than satisfy me, especially because every facet of my fiction is within my control.
Great for a control freak like me! ;)
Tying back to what I wrote earlier about how writing smut is therapeutic for working through my own trauma, it strengthens my relationship with myself by allowing me to see myself more clearly, to examine myself through many a creative lens. By writing even the most repressed, secretive parts of me, I get to know those parts of me better, and give them space to roam freely like the monsters in my dreams.
Writing smut works for my particular writing brain.
On a business/professional level, writing smutty stories is great for my productivity. I covered in my blog post Self-Publish Novelettes Instead of Novels how difficult it is for me to write longer works. I do believe I can write prolifically. In September, I wrote 10 new novelettes, representing about 70, 000+ words. In total, I wrote 90, 000 words, with 20, 000+ words spread between peripheral business activities like information on my website, outlines and blog posts.
Just this last week, I penned over 30, 000 words, about 25, 000+ of which were for the four new novelettes I released and three half-finished drafts for novelettes I plan to release this month.
For an example of what a typical week of prolific writing looks for me, check out my blog post here.
It's all great output, but I'm only able to write this much because of the format of the erotica genre, which lends itself to shorter works. I enjoy writing just 3-4k words, sometimes up to 7k or 10k words, and being able to publish it on the same day. It's like candy for my brain, feeling a finalized sense of accomplishment. I think the reason I have a difficult time with novels is the fact that it feels like you're working on it forever.
Until I toughen up my writing muscle for novels, I'm going to keep flexing my muscle for writing novelettes. I'd rather be productive and writing short smutty stories that excite me and help bring in some positive cash flow than fight myself trying to put out full-length novels every month. Some people still consider 50-60k a novella, and that gives me a heart attack.
Final Thoughts
All in all, writing smut is a great way to process trauma and indeed the world. It's a great way to be creative and hone your writing chops and nerve, especially if you're trying to sell shorter works. I think it's a great way to get to know yourself better too.
Do you write erotica? Do you have other reasons you enjoy it that weren't listed here? Drop a comment in the discussion below!
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