Why I enjoy writing erotica more so than reading it.
CW: discussion of erotica, deviant proclivities, opinions etc etc… All further puns are definitely intended.
If we sift through the sands of time of my blogging escapades, the eroded fingertips of an ancient, hubristic colossus emerge seemingly curled into a wanking motion. Before this writhing monstrosity of a word dump existed, there stood my semi-erected attempt at a sex blog…
This will hardly surprise anyone who has known me longer than ten minutes because I enjoy talking about sex. A lot. I do so due to how I cope with my pure-O OCD queueing it constantly as the background tick of my thoughts, whether I wish it or not. My mind will reset to the nearest sex topic it can reach for in sticky situations, regardless of the origin of stickiness.
When I realised my OCD centred on shame, I decided to immerse myself in educational parts of sex and it became one of my special interests. I try to reign it in most of the time, because I know one day I will be forty and mentioning off-handedly how much I admire the engineering behind Fun Factory’s deep rumbling motors in their newest line will no longer be a quirky aside. In fact, it is hard to play it off as such now…
I do find sex fascinating outside of my obsessive thoughts, however. One of my dashed dreams was of becoming a sex education teacher. But I somewhat fear children and hate teaching, so this never came to fruition. Instead, I ran a blog about sex and disability. A blog I accidentally deleted two years ago and thereby lies in the dust, waiting to be aroused from its dormant state.
Sex is still one of my great loves. It’s a great icebreaker in the right circumstance and endlessly interesting. It’s a difficult subject for my body to broach these days, however, as anxiety and joint pain don’t make it easy, but sex is a practice, not an art. There’s no way to go wrong in consensual legal sex. Well, I mean, there are plenty of ways to disappoint Jesus and the kink community at large, but as long as no one is getting hurt unintentionally and people keep an open mind to the wider consequences of their attitudes, it’s no more filthy than the other abhorrent things humans engage in.
And so is erotica. The genre is one of those crafts I love to participate in more than enjoy firsthand. Because erotica is something I use to take a break from sexuality, I use it therapeutically to distance myself from my intrusive thoughts on sex. The video below explains sexual intrusive thoughts well. Thankfully, my pure-O OCD never went against the grain of my morals but it is exhausting constantly questioning myself about desires and feelings.
Writing porn, however, gives me something very rare when I engage in any aspect of sex: a degree of separation. I often freak out when confronted with my own desires, be it in real life or media. With writing, I don’t have to. I am creating the situation and thereby in complete control. I can take my own time with my writing, I can pause, stop or remove myself completely.
I find sex to often be nerve-wracking in any sphere due to the fact it demands your attention and continual enjoyment. In fact, it is dependant on it by its very nature, it will cease if you stop enjoying yourself. Which is somewhat scary. In erotica, I don’t have to enjoy myself. Which sounds paradoxical, why would I do something I wouldn’t enjoy one hundred percent of the time? But if you have ever written fiction you’ll understand that writing isn’t a constant thrill-ride of whimsy; it takes patience, you will spend time chewing pens and staring at a screen. Ironing out plots and mapping out a scene isn’t exciting. It is boring, it makes sex boring. Which, for me, is a breakthrough.
I can also write about murkier aspects of sex, experiences I haven’t enjoyed in the past, regrets I have and complicated feelings. Of course, I don’t just write one-to-one accounts of my life, but I do explore details of my past. Believe it or not, erotica doesn’t always have to be titillating, there are parts of sex which can be complex and difficult to sort out in terms of emotion, through writing I can work through these ideas on my own terms. As with all writing we take parts of our life and process them, erotica is just another genre in this sense.
There’s also the fact that in writing we are safe physically. Having been hurt in the immediate sense, both physically and mentally, by my myriad experiences in sex, kink, relationships and otherwise, it’s freeing to be provided with a playground in which I can express myself. Sex is not often a place to express ourselves in the culture we have created around it, and even if I have kind, understanding partners, I still feel at odds with the point of the activity if I don’t commit 100% to what they desire.
I believe to create an atmosphere where sex is joyful, creative, expressive and care-free, we have to start in our cultural headspaces around sex itself. And porn dominates and translates that mindset. I don’t think you have to have OCD and anxiety to experience what I have in the past, I think we could all benefit from stepping back and viewing porn, not as something not as a something to use on incognito mode and squirrel under our beds, but to engage with and shape as we choose. As both consumers and creators, the conversations we hold over porn are vital if we want a healthier societal mindset, and that starts by admitting we like porn.
I hear all the time in media that porn is damaging, it destroys our expectations and injects anxieties about ourselves into our sex lives. And it can and does have an effect on us. Politicians propose censorship, mothers decry the effect on our teens and children, the public mumbles about moral degeneracy. But no one wants to deal with porn because no one wants to admit to being part of the problem.
If we want porn to be anything other than the ugly, mouldy downstairs bathroom of our society, then we better do some fucking re-decorating. If we don’t want harmful, misogynistic, heteronormative, cisnormative, white-as-fuck, male-focused, fat-shaming, PIV-only, fifty-shades-of-grey style fantasies in our porn, then we need to encourage brighter, more positive and inclusive porn. And we can only do that by getting hands-on.
So, to anyone and everyone, I would recommend writing some porn. It is a truly magical act which can heal, express, elaborate and embellish our desires, emotions and fantasies, as well as being a bold act of change and courage if you choose to publish. I recommend thoroughly in every way, shape and form, regardless of who you are. Do it as an experiment, as a hobby, or as a laugh. Especially as a laugh.