Not sure if you know this but your willingness to comment on smut truly is a gift among fandom. Lots of times the comments drop off sharply for smut chapters. It's understandable people are a little embarrassed sometimes but it just means every little comment they do leave means even more.
Smut is an art form!!!
Smut is SO hard to write!!!
Smut deserves the reviews!!!
I love smut. I always have. I'm a slut for smut.
I can totally understand why people may not be comfortable reviewing it - it's a bit self-revealing isn't it? (though I find it much worse when I try to write smut, I feel utterly naked to everyone hahaha like here, have all these specifics scenarios and words that I clearly personally like and find arousing, xoxo) I have a lot of respect for the people who write it, there's something so honest and human in it.
'Here, I really wanted to bang this character so I put them on their knees for my own pleasure. Have it as well.'
'I feel strongly that these two characters need to hate-fuck so hard one will cry in pleasure at the end because they need it so bad.'
'I need these three characters to have a 9 chapter long fuck week where they will rediscover their love for one another and heal their trauma wounds in a healthy way.'
Smut is amazing. Smut is therapy. Smut is self-indulgence. Smut is exploration. Smut is happiness.
All hail the smut.
Comment on the smut. ❤️🔥 The authors deserve it. They're putting themselves out here, they're sharing the urge. They put the sexy words together. They're so nice.
All hail smut authors.
We need you.
And I love you.
But to answer your ask more directly, thank you for telling me this. It's very rewarding and I actually wasn't really aware of the difference in reviews in smut work/chapters because to me, this is always the part I'm excited for, so I may project my own enthusiasm on other people.
First, much love to those that comment on smutty fics! You are so appreciated, and you @fafodill.
I do want to expand on the “self-revealing” part though because I think it’s a good discussion and a lot of times I think smut isn’t self-revealing in the way people think it is.
A lot of the reason I enjoy writing smut has nothing to do with the specific acts I’m portraying. To me, smut is a great way to explore humanity, society, and relationships in a deeply intimate way. Sex is a ripe ground to dig into things like power dynamics, shame, views on sex, relationships, and individual psychology. Even when I am writing straight-up porn, I never focus just on the sexual acts. The interesting parts are the characters, their feelings, their desires, their fears and kinks and boundaries, their reasons for having sex with the other character in the first place.
I’ve used smut as a vehicle to explore awful things like misogyny, victimization, rape-culture, and grooming, and sometimes I am deeply uncomfortable while I write it. Sometimes I want to explore the line of where does it go from arousing and consensual to wrong and not, what structures influence how we make those decisions and why people make bad choices or go along with things they don’t like. The fact that I’m doing it with hot kinky sex with my OTP doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about those things or that there isn’t a deeper meaning behind them.
I also think there’s danger in believing smut authors are automatically turned on by the specific acts they depict (which inevitably leads to believing they would do so in real life if they could). Is it sometimes for the purposes of arousal? Yes. Do I think people could figure out some of my kinks from my fics? Yes. But it might not be the ones they assume, for the reasons they assume. I definitely like reading/writing things I’d never do in real life to see how they’d work, or because thematically there’s similarities to other things that are the real thing I want to explore or use as catharsis, or just because I’ve never written a certain sex act before and think it would be fun to do. But it gets problematic too quickly assuming all authors are wanking themselves behind their words, and leans into puritan culture and misogyny, so think it would be better if people didn’t go there.
(Maybe that’s why I sometimes play with the fact readers expect smutty stories to be for the purpose of eroticism and arousal, and use it as a sort of distraction to hide bigger, deeper things until I want to reveal them. I love the idea of subverting readers’ expectations that way and giving readers surprise feelings.)
(I am also bringing all this up as discussion, not insinuating anyone in particular believes things one way or another)
Reblogging again with @dirty-dirty-muggle's addition because yes! Exactly this! For example, neither of us are into Izzy's forced autocanibalism thing, but we wrote him as into it because it fit the character.
A huge part of the reason I enjoy writing smut is because I love writing about boundaries, as a theme: why they exist, how they are negotiated, how things can fall apart - not because of bad actors (necessarily) but because of a breakdown in communication. I write a lot of smut involving aliens, not because I have a kink for aliens, but because it's an easy way to really dig into my favorite topic, and I think that's just - endlessly fascinating. And I know you can write about negotiated boundaries without writing smut - like I've done it framed in a purely medical context before. But I think we can agree that smut is generally more fun.
One of the things I treasure and I want to write even more of is bad sex - please send fic recs where things are awkward, not gelling, one or both people aren't having a good time, there's a misalignment of expectations. I love writing a sex scene that stops halfway through, and the two people have to pause and regroup. It's also really cool to turn off the sexy words and sexy framing to show that something has gone wrong. The only straight-down-the line A/B/O thing we've ever written has a viewpoint character who is ace and kind of sex-repulsed, and I love that story, I think it turned out really well.
So yeah. It's a genre I legitimately find fascinating, and really like writing. I promise you I don't think it's weird when you comment on our smut chapters. <3
@wisteria-lodge This is something I've noticed and really appreciated in your smut I've read so far, which is the realism and the awkwardness. I love it. I think these moments are so so human and they make me melt (or cringe) and we need more of it.
Smut with awkward pauses, hesitations, doubts when one character is stepping out of their comfort zone, a retreat maybe or a full breakdown like 'I can't do this right now'. It's great. It tells stories about consent and boundaries and communication and the characters getting to know each other.
It's cringe and refreshing to see characters struggle and stumble through intimacy, be it because they don't navigate it well, because they're not in sync or just because of bad luck/an external factor disturbing them. Because sex can't be easy and natural all the time (oh no) and there's a million scenarios to explore with this.
One of my favorite set-ups to see in fic - which honestly needs to be more of a thing - is "they need to have sex to power the spell." I like it because it insures the characters have - maybe not the same goal, but compatible goals, and therefore the worldbuilding is important enough to inform the dynamic a little. I like the awkwardness of bridging what is basically a colleague/ally relationship into to a sexual relationship. I like that it's fuck-or-die adjacent, so you can get still wild pairings, but the decision to have sex is less cut-and-dried. That makes negotiations more interesting. Also, there's usually a lead up, like the spell has to be prepped or take place on a specific day or something, so our guys have this chance to brainstorm how to approach a not-ideal situation in a way that's at least better? Then, free reign to have the spell require like a specific type of sex, or in a specific location, involve a specific object I don't know. You can play that for humor, pathos, drama, awkwardness. Fan of it all.
(Sex Pollen is fun, but personally I often think it's too easy when triggers immediately, AND makes both parties super horny. I think it's fun when the POV character *isn't* the one hit by sex pollen, or has taken on the role of sex pollen dungeon monitor, or the sex-pollened person has some condition/job that makes it a much bigger deal... like I call my favorite genre "consent porn," and I think it's clear why.)
Oh I think I've never read power-the-spell-with-sex smut! Sounds really interesting. I'd love to read the conversation the character have to have after finding out they have to do this... which could vary so much depending their relationship? Sounds super funny but also such a great way to discuss boundaries and consent and have one very shy or angry or embarrassed because they absolutely weren't planning of saying all these very private things to the other.
I need to see Sirius and Severus in this situation.
I absolutely adore the sex pollen trope, it's one of my favorite. But I like when it takes its time. I want a slow burn sex pollen. They have to lock themselves in the room, they try to find solutions, they get angry, nervous, they have to talk, one is in denial, one will fight it as much as they can while the other stays pragmatic and try to discuss boundaries before thinking becomes impossible... In any case, anything that will make one (or several) characters loose control is my favourite type of porn. Push those boundaries. But it has to mean something and change them. The forced arousal is an excuse to unlock something inside of one of them at least - something that is not sexual.
I love it when sex pollen forces some kind of unrelated reveal. Like if one of the characters has scars or something that they always keep hidden. That sort of thing. Also yes, slow burn sex pollen is absolutely ideal, the slower the better, and then I get to watch those walls erode bit by bit.
