Tag: erotica

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How Audio Erotica is Making Smut More Inclusive

Published on by Amy
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Do you prefer to read your smut or watch it? Some people love written erotica, others love visual porn, and many of us enjoy a mixture of the two. But now there’s a third option that’s making waves and taking the adult industry by storm: enter audio erotica! 

Here are a few of the ways that audio erotica is making smut more welcoming, more inclusive, and more enjoyable for everyone. 

More ways to consume

Many people find written or visual porn inaccessible for various reasons. For example, for people who are blind or visually impaired, traditional porn videos are likely to be somewhat or completely inaccessible. While many sites offering written smut, such as Literotica, can be used via a screen reader, that’s not necessarily a super sexy or appealing option. 

But audio erotica opens up a whole new avenue of smutty enjoyment. The best audio smut is narrated by skilled voice performers with sexy voices (which can, of course, mean different things to different people.) Because quality erotica is for everyone, regardless of ability and whether they choose to watch it, read it, or listen to it. 

Pleasure focused and sex positive 

Much of the audio porn currently on the market seems to have been created by women and with female pleasure in mind. Whenever I’ve engaged with audio porn I’ve found the stories to be pleasure focused, consent minded, and overall sex positive. They feature safe and mutually pleasurable sexual scenarios. And when stories do feature an element of coercion roleplay or consensual non-consent, it’s generally made clear that they are fantasy, not reality. 

So much mainstream porn is focused on male pleasure and the male gaze. But audio smut creators understand that women, non binary folks, and queer people want quality erotic content just as much as cis men do… and they’re giving it to us! 

I’ve also found that audio porn trends much less towards using dehumanising terminology and artificial categorisation. Mainstream porn sites often use terms that are problematic at best, and downright sexist, ageist, racist, or transphobic at worst. I haven’t seen the same issue in the audio smut world. 

More options for creative scenarios

Don’t get me wrong, porn makers and performers can get VERY creative! But ultimately, visual content will always be limited by what’s possible (and affordable) to pull off on screen. Audio porn, though, allows for almost anything that the writers and creators can dream up. So if immersing yourself in a futuristic, fantastical, or historical scenario sounds up your street, or you fantasise about sexual acts that are physically or biologically impossible, you can find all of those things and so much more. 

More surreptitious

You (probably) wouldn’t watch visual porn while on the Tube or walking to work, right? And while it’s possible to sneakily read written erotica via a Kindle or smartphone app, there’s always the danger of someone looking over your shoulder. 

Audio porn, though, can be completely discreet. Just choose your story, pop your headphones in, and no-one will be any the wiser. You could be listening to the morning news or a perfectly innocent podcast, for all they know! 

This is also particularly useful for those who live with family, have roommates or children at home, or even have a partner who gives them grief about consuming erotic content. (I’ll argue forever that porn and masturbation aren’t cheating, but I know that’s a losing battle with some people.) Audio smut allows you complete privacy. 

Can be more ethical

There’s a huge amount of fantastic feminist, queer, consensually-produced ethical porn out there. I enjoy visual porn, but at this point I prefer to access it either from production companies I trust or directly from the performers themselves. 

For the average consumer, though, the “tube” sites are still by far the most popular way to access traditional porn. And while these sites do contain some good and ethically produced content, they’re also rife with stolen clips and even non-consensual videos. 

If you’ve ever watched mainstream porn and wondered whether the performers are really consenting or being abused or coerced, you’re not alone. It’s a real and valid concern. Audio smut means you can relax in the knowledge that no-one has been harmed for your enjoyment. 

Allowing you to insert yourself into the fantasy

When it comes to visual porn, it’s often more about the scenario than the individual performers for me. I find a wide range of body types and genders attractive, after all. However, sometimes I find myself distracted because I want to insert myself into the fantasy being played out on the screen, but I can’t find scenarios I like with bodies that look like mine. But when all I’ve got to work with is a voice, I can envision the main characters looking however I want them to look. Instead of the pretty narrow standards set by mainstream porn, you’ve suddenly got a whole world of potential. 

Audio porn makes it easier to mentally put yourself into the scenario. Since the action all takes place in your ears and your mind, you can immerse yourself and place yourself into whichever role takes your fancy. Do you want to be the whip-wielding Domme, the helpless maiden, or a member of the couple exploring group sex for the first time? Now you can! 

Sofia Sins actually takes this premise a step further. When you choose the story you want to listen to, you can read a little bio for each of the main characters and decide whose perspective you want to hear. 

Do you listen to audio porn? Whether it’s your go-to or you’re just curious, I’d love to know what about it appeals to you. 

FYI: today’s post was sponsored by Sofia Sins, a new audio erotica platform from the folks behind Sofia Gray. You can enjoy a 3 day free trial to see if you like it. After that, a subscription is just $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. All views, as always, are my own! 

Header image for a post on erotic fanfiction by Kelvin Sparks

[Guest Post] Erotic Fanfiction as Sexual Exploration by Kelvin Sparks

Published on by Amy

Today’s guest post comes from a new-to-C&K writer! I’ve followed Kelvin Sparks (he/him) on Twitter for some time and enjoyed many of his writings. I’m delighted to be publishing this essay on the history and appeal of sexually explicit fanfiction!

Amy x

Erotic Fanfiction as Sexual Exploration by Kelvin Sparks

When discussions of fanfiction reach the mainstream, one of the go- to jabs is always to talk about erotic fanfiction as a punchline in itself. Even when fanfiction has its defenders, they often try to distance ‘the
good stuff’ from explicit works within the genre. This is something I don’t think is fair, not just because I think erotic work is unfairly maligned in general, but because of the history of explicit fanfiction as a safe space for people (particularly women and/or LGBTQ+ people) to explore sexual ideas and fantasies.

A Short History of (Explicit) Fanfiction

Although people have been a) interested in building on existing stories and characters and b) horny for pretty much the entirety of human history, fanfiction as we know it currently is rooted in the sci-fi fan
culture of the 20th century.

While plenty of people talk about Star Trek as having the first fandom in the 60s, many of the activities associated with this early fandom activity were derivative of more general sci-fi fandom culture. For example, Star Trek fan magazines (or ‘fanzines’) weren’t something original or exclusive to the fandom, but were simply more specific versions of sci-fi fanzines, which printed amateur writing. The difference was that Star Trek fanzines, starting with 1967’s Spockanalia, contained and popularised derivative fanfiction rather than original work.

Star Trek was also influential on modern fandom in other ways. For one, the term ‘slash’, used to refer to same gender (primarily male/male) pairings within fanfiction, comes from ‘Kirk/Spock’. While not all explicit fanfiction is slash fanfiction and not all slash fanfiction is explicit, the reputation of K/S (as the pairing was also known) fans was often as smut-peddlers. While it’s hard to know specific details about the early history of smut fanfiction—first-hand sources are hard to come by—we do know that by 1978, it was prevalent enough that the editors of Star Trek fanzine Fantasia discussed the “rift between the porn-haters and the porn-lovers”.

Fanfiction—and specifically smutty fanfiction—became more visible as internet use became more common. While internets had been used for fandom since pretty much their creation— bulletin boards and mailing lists were promenant in the 80s—the creation of the world wide web and more widespread internet usage in the 90s drove some of the most prominent fandoms of the period, such as The X-Files and Xena.

For the most part, fanfiction was kept in private archives, although the creation of Fanfiction.net and LiveJournal in 1998 and 1999 respectfully changed this. Fanfiction.net banned NC-17 fanfiction in 2002, and while Adultfanfiction.net initially filled the void, Archive of Our Own (created in 2007) has become one of the leading alternatives. While AO3 doesn’t hold a monopoly on fandom— FanFiction.net is still under use, and other sites like WattPad have thriving fanfiction communities—it is one of the leading communities, especially when it comes to erotic fanfiction, which is still banned on FanFiction.net and is less prevalent on WattPad due to its younger demographic.

Why Do People Like Erotic Fanfiction?

The main reason that people enjoy erotic and explicit fanfiction is pretty clear—people enjoy erotic media! The real question here is why do people enjoy erotic fanfiction over other kinds of erotic work and art?

Written erotica in general provides a space that’s low risk while being explicitly erotic. A fantasy or desire may feel unapproachable or anxiety inducing in real life, but fiction allows us to play with these fantasies and desires in a space that’s totally controllable. If you like the idea of bondage, for example, reading erotica about bondage may feel easier than actually attempting to act out these fantasies because a book can be closed at any time.

Written erotica tends to have an easier time expressing emotional aspects of sex than visual erotica (which isn’t to say that either is better than the other, just that they are different mediums), and for people who experience a lot or most of their satisfaction from the emotional aspects of sex, written erotica can feel more satisfying.

Fanfiction erotica can heighten some of the characteristics that written erotica already has. Because fanfiction is derivative, the audience for it already has a familiarity with the characters involved, as well as some kind of emotional connection to them. I would also argue that the writing side of fanfiction has a heavy focus on emotional continuity. In order to write a character so that they’re recognisable as their canon self but distinct enough to fit into a new universe, a writer needs to have a good handle on their interiority, meaning that fanfiction often becomes a very character-focused and emotion-focused type of storytelling.

Both the derivative nature of fanfiction and the internal tropes of the
genre can make it feel even safer to explore erotic ideas than conventional erotic fiction. Fanfiction archives often display information about the content included in the piece of fiction. For example, with Archive Of Our Own, pieces of fanfiction are given clear warnings for content like character death or violence, and authors can choose to tag works with various bits of information about their content, such as (for example), ‘Threesome – F/M/M’, ‘Rimming’, or ‘Rope Bondage’. This kind of archive system not only lets readers know about what content they’re likely to see, but allows them to search for specific or particular themes or types of content.

The nature of romance or erotica centric fanfiction often means that readers know that their preferred pairing (or more than pairing) will end up together, but the appeal of reading fanfiction is to watch the journey unfold. This safety—as well as the community built into fanfiction as a genre—means that it can feel like a safe space to explore ideas, both as a reader and writer and not necessarily connected to erotic preferences and practices. Plenty of people I know within fandom discovered that they were queer and trans through fanfiction, sometimes discovering it was even a thing because of fic and sometimes having their first encounter with depictions of what it was like to be trans/queer in terms of internal emotion be fanfiction.

My Experience with Fanfiction

No blog post would be complete without some personal context or story! I’ve drifted in and out of fanfic circles over the years, sometimes having periods of time where I write a lot of fanfic all at once and at other times not writing it for months or years at a time.

During my teenage years, I was pretty active in fandom, and used it as a space to explore my sexuality. It wasn’t so much an exploration of queerness for me. I’d already come out as trans by the time I started
writing fic, and I didn’t discover I was bisexual because of fandom. But fandom and fanfic did allow me to explore my sexuality in other ways.

While I was already devouring romance novels prior to discovering fanfiction, fanfic gave me access to stories and fantasies about people outside of the cisgender, heterosexual, vanilla relationships that I found in my my local library’s romance section. I was able to read not only about transmasculine characters written by other transmasculine people, but about polyamory, about BDSM, and about fantasies I would never have come across in other circumstances.

At the same time, the fact these ideas were explored through characters I already knew and cared about made it feel far more approachable than original work with the same themes would have. It also gave me a built in audience when it came to writing my own erotic fiction, exploring what kinds of kinks, scenarios, and emotions I found compelling.

Kelvin Sparks logo for guest post about erotic fanfiction

About the Author

Kelvin Sparks (he/him) is a bisexual trans man who writes about sex on the internet. You can find him at KelvinSparks.com, or at @Kelvinsparks_ on both Twitter and Instagram.

Header image for a post about erotica and feeling gender euphoric

[Pride Month Guest Post] Euphoric Erotica by Quenby

Published on by Amy2 Comments

For the second guest post in my Pride Month series, I’m delighted to be hosting Quenby for the second time (they previously wrote an utterly charming piece about lessons in boundaries from a cat!)

I loved today’s piece about exploring gender identity and creating gender euphoric feelings through the possibilities which exist in fiction but aren’t available to us in the real world. I hope you guys enjoy it as much.

This post deals with gender dysphoria, so please take care of yourself if that’s likely to be difficult for you.

Amy x

Euphoric Erotica

This Pride Month, I’ve been thinking about how erotica can allow trans people like me to navigate the at times strained relationships with our bodies.

For most of my tenure as an erotica writer, I have generally kept my work realistic. The experiences are edited and simplified to bring a narrative to those sweaty, gloriously chaotic moments when we give ourselves over to intense sensation. But I prefer to keep things as close to my real life experiences as possible.

There are a couple reasons for this. Firstly, I want to encourage more inclusive beauty standards and write about real bodies. I want big bellies and asymmetric tits, sweat drips and positions which don’t require gymnastics training.

The other reason is that, by sticking to things I have personally experienced, I know how they feel. My aim when writing erotica is to immerse the reader in the experience, to allow them to imagine what it would feel like to be degraded in public, to be fisted, or to be spanked until they cry. To do that, I need to know what that feels like to begin with.

Recently, though, I’ve started making an exception to this rule. Why should I bind the trans people I write about to a body that feels wrong to them? In prose I can grant a body denied by nature and the medical system, one which affirms and meshes with their gender identity.

In a recently published piece of erotica I imagined my boyfriend with a flat chest and a factory installed dick, and I saw the joy that imagery brought to hir. From now on, I will not be bound by painful accuracy. Let’s use this as a way to imagine trans bodies freed from dysphoria, immersed in gender euphoria which blends with and amplifies arousal.

When we are freed from the constraints of accuracy, we can explore options which would be impossible in the real world. Wish your genitals could shift between cunt and cock as easily as your identity shifts between masc and femme? Me too! I can definitely write about that. Wish you had an androgynous gentacle rather than conventional genitals? I can write about that! (Also you should really check out some hentai.) Wish you transcended the mundane and had a 6 dimensional vortex between your legs? I love the way your filthy mind works you brilliant queerdo, and I can (try to) write about that!

For all the issues that plague the world (including the sex writing industry,) erotica can serve as a glorious escape, a way to imagine experiences and connections shared with others. So let’s use that escapism to help trans people explore their identity and imagine bodies in which they feel more at home.

Quenby is a queer perfomer, writer, and activist. If you liked this post you can check out their blog, or follow them on FB and Twitter @QuenbyCreatives.

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Yes, I Have a Problem with Fifty Shades… But It’s Not What You Think

Published on by Amy2 Comments

It’s actually more accurate to say I have several problems with Fifty Shades of Grey, the infamous erotic trilogy (plus rewrites-with-the-pronouns-flipped) about the kinky-ish love between naive college student Anastasia Steele and young handsome billionaire  Christian Grey.

Yes, I’ve read the first book, and enough of the second and third to get the gist. I’ve also read Cliff Pervocracy and Jenny Trout’s recaps (which are hilarious, by the way). Make no mistake: these books are horribly written and I did not find them erotic in the slightest. The sex depicted in them is either boringly vanilla, dubiously consensual (or straight up rapey), or both. The main characters are both awful people and the dialogue is about as sexy as a root canal.

As a kinkster, I hate that people think this is what we’re about. As a person with professional ethics, I hate that it’s Twilight fanfiction with the names changed (reading and writing fanfic for fun is just fine, but making money off it is called “stealing someone else’s intellectual property”). And as a writer, I think it’s a travesty that Ms. James has made more money than anyone ever needs in a lifetime, while genuinely talented artists are underpaid and undervalued every day.

So yes. I have issues with this book. But they’re not that it’s an unrealistic kinky romance between a clumsy high-schooler virginal college student and a vampire billionaire.

“But it’s fantasy!” fans cry.

And yes. It is. Look, I’ll be the last person to tell you that you can’t have your fantasies, even your problematic ones. Fantasy is not reality and fantasy exists to enable us to escape from the real world for a while. And nowhere is that more true than in sexual fantasy.

A huge part of the reason that erotica and porn should only be accessed by adults is that adults, typically, understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Jaime Mortimer wrote a really good post on this recently.

I’m not going to infantilise everyone who reads Fifty Shades or any other problematic book and tell you that it’s going to turn you into a rapist or make you leave your husband for an emotionally stunted billionare (or a vampire in a Volvo). I read plenty of erotic fiction and plenty of it has themes that would be super problematic if they were real – doctor/patient scenarios, professor/student scenarios, consensual-non-consent roleplay, voyeurism and exhibitionism, public sex and more are just some of the themes I’ve enjoyed in my sexy fiction.

Guess what? Fantasy. And again: adults, overall, have the capability to understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

So enjoy Fifty Shades, if it’s your thing, as a fantasy about a naive young woman being seduced by an dude with more money than God and pants that hang from his hips (yes, this is an actual line in the book). Enjoy the light BDSM, the sexy  helicopter rides, the grumpy, brooding, damaged male lead if you want to. I’ll be the last person to judge you for enjoying some silly escapism or some improbable erotica if that’s what gets you off.

My problem with Fifty Shades is actually in the social and cultural narrative surrounding Fifty Shades.

Because this is not a great love story. This is not something to which young women should aspire! And the problem is that it’s being sold that way.

There is tonnes of erotica (and straight romantic fiction) out there that relies on problematic tropes and scenarios that are hot in fiction but would be a terrible idea in reality. That’s fine. Again: fantasy is cool, y’all!

But none of that has the marketing power behind it that Fifty Shades does. Ms James and her publishing team have made their collective fortunes not on selling Fifty Shades as fluffy erotic fantasy, but on selling Fifty Shades as a style of relationship to which we should all aspire.

And that is what is dangerous about this book. Not the fantasy it depicts, but the marketing power that sells that fantasy as genuinely aspirational. Because make no mistake, the relationship between Christian and Ana is very often abusive.

How many young women do you think have watched this movie, and decided that if this is romance, my boyfriend must only be super jealous and controlling because he loves me? Or, Ana loves Christian out of abusing her, so if only I behaved better my husband would stop hitting me? Maybe not in quite so literal terms, but make no mistake – these messages are out there, and victims of abuse are listening and absorbing.

You might think this is hyperbole, but it’s not. This is the kind of power that massive marketing budgets, ingrained cultural narratives about love, and a total lack of sensible sex-and-relationships education has.

I don’t blame Fifty Shades for my own experience in an abusive D/s relationship, of course. But I do partly blame growing up surrounded by the idea that if a man hurt me, my job was to heal him so he could love me properly in the end. Fifty Shades didn’t come out until I was 21. It wasn’t the first example of “he hurts you because he loves you” and it won’t be the last. But it might be the most culturally pervasive example of this particularly damaging trope.

Fifty Shades is far from the only story to suffer from this phenomenon

We have always built collective cultural narratives around these deeply problematic stories. I am reasonably confident in saying I doubt that Shakespeare intended Romeo & Juliet to be considered the greatest love story of all time. If you read it as a love story and analyse it for more than three seconds, it’s a ridiculous play. If you reread it as a satire about “love at first sight” and teenage stupidity, though, it becomes utterly brilliant. (While we’re at it, Wuthering Heights isn’t a great love story either. And Christian Grey bears a passing resemblence to Heathcliff in a variety of ways.)

Despite being for children, even Disney movies sell us some pretty horrible messages about relationships. Think about it: marriage is the ultimate goal for any girl. Once a man chooses you, you’ll live happily ever after.  Cinderella tells us to be good and subservient and pretty until a man rescues us; The Little Mermaid tells us that what we have to say is the least valuable thing about us; Sleeping Beauty suggests that kissing a sleeping stranger is totes a sensible and romantic thing to do… and so it goes on. We’re drip-fed these messages from earliest childhood, so is it really any wonder that so many of us grow up with totally screwed up ideas about what relationships are actually supposed to look like?

Don’t ban – educate

In closing: I don’t support the banning of Fifty Shades or other problematic stories. Fantasy is important and something we should all be able to have access to. Instead, we need a greater cultural understanding and greater education around separating fantasy from reality, and understanding what healthy relationships actually are.

I’d be much happier with the thousands and thousands of twenty-something women enjoying Fifty Shades as sexy, escapist fantasy if they weren’t already surrounded by a culture that teaches them if he hits you, it’s your job to be better so he can heal from his fucked up past.

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Woman peeking over the top of a book for a post about why I read erotica

5 Reasons Why I Read Erotica (and You Should Too!)

Published on by Amy3 Comments

Outside of very specific environments, it’s not “cool” to admit you read and enjoy erotica. E.L James might now be a household name, but people still occasionally try to convince me that they read Fifty Shades of Grey for the gripping plot.

I think erotica gets a bad rap for several reasons. Firstly, it’s written and read by women more than men. Unfortunately, work by/about/aimed towards women still tends to be regarded as frivolous. (See: anything with a female protagonist risks being labelled “chick lit”). Similarly, content connected to sex is also still treated as something shameful, dirty, secretive, or something to be embarrassed about.

I also think this is a damn shame. A lot of erotica is absolutely wonderful. Masturbation is important, sex is important, arousal is important! Despite myths to the contrary, writing good smut is hard work and requires a lot of skill.

Read on to find out why I think sexy fiction is the most underrated genre and why we can all use it in our lives.

A safe way to explore your fantasies and limits

Reading about something is generally infinitely safer than doing it. Let’s say you have a kink or interest you can’t explore in reality for some reason, or aren’t ready to explore in reality yet. Reading about it can be a great way to scratch that itch. You can’t get hurt by reading about something, no-one else’s consent is required, it’s not cheating. (Dear God, if your partner thinks erotica – or porn, or masturbation – is cheating, break up with them like three years ago).

Reading about something and exploring if it turns you on in a masturbation setting is lower pressure than exploring with another person, especially if you’re not sure if it will work for you or not.

And in case you’re wondering: yes, it’s fine to get turned on by something in fiction that you wouldn’t want to act out in real life!

Introduces you to new kinks, roles, scenes and ideas

I was reading erotic fiction with dominance and submission themes long before I was practicing BDSM in real life. Erotica helped me to discover the types of scenarios that interested me, the names and words that turn me on… and also, the things that completely leave me cold. Reading woman-on-woman scenes was actually a huge part of coming to accept my own bisexuality.

Erotica can introduce you to kinks you never knew existed (ask me how I learned that orgasm control is a thing), make you feel less alone (ask me how I discovered that I wasn’t the only freak in the world who liked to get spanked), or even help you open up lines of communication about certain kinks with your partner.

If you’re not sure what you’re into? Pick up a sexy compilation collection to give you lots of ground to explore.

It can make it quicker, easier or more enjoyable to reach orgasm

The best way for me to fire up my sexual desire is to read some really good smut. It works better than visual porn and, usually, better than my imagination. Plus, taking the few minutes to find a filthy story that works for me is a good way to get into a sexy headspace. If I want a long, luxurious session, taking my time to immerse myself in an erotic book is glorious. If I’m more looking for a hot quickie with myself, then a favourite story and my Doxy will get me done in ten minutes or less.

It’s great to share with a partner

As I already mentioned, sharing the erotica you enjoy can be a great way to share what turns you on with your partner. Perhaps you can’t say out loud “I want you to bend me over and spank me while you call me a dirty little slut“. But you can point them to a story with these themes that really did it for you.

Reading erotica together, or aloud to each other, is also a mega sexy thing to do. A really hot D/s scene we did a while ago involved Mr CK reading out some erotica that I’d chosen, and instructing me on when I was and wasn’t allowed to touch myself (and, of course, come).

And sometimes, it has damn good plots!

I don’t, primarily, read smut for the story. But just occasionally an erotic novel will have a plot so good that the sexy bits are almost just a very enjoyable bonus. Cooper S Beckett’s A Life Less Monogamous and Approaching the Swingularity (the latter reviewed here) are two great examples.

Is erotica for me?

Yes! Regardless of your gender, orientation or particular kinks, there’s bound to be something in the wide world of erotic fiction that appeals to you. And if no-one has written the story you want to read? Well… why not give it a go?

So where can I find good smut?

For some of my personal top picks, check out the books linked in this post.

You can also visit Literotica, an amazing free resource where thousands of amateur writers have uploaded their stories for your masturbatory pleasure. There’s a lot of crap, of course, but some real gems in there too. You can search by category, keyword or tag.

You can also find some great quick reads on Amazon Kindle. These typically cost $1 to $5 each – and you can read loads of stuff for free with a subscription to Kindle Unlimited.

Finally, of course, read your favourite sex bloggers!

Basically: smut is great. Go read some smut.

Heads up: affiliate links appear in this post!