Turning a Weakness into an Asset: How Writing Erotica Freed me from Doubts

My whole life, I’ve been fascinated by self-confidence. And like most true fascinations, my feelings regarding this elusive character trait have not always been only positive.

As an introvert, as a woman, as a “big girl” – I have always been more liable to doubt than to believe when it came to my own strength.

I think a lot of people – and especially a lot of women – can relate. I just wasn’t raised that way, to praise myself even if it was justified. I learned how to be humble to the point of self-abasement.

For the longest time, I viewed people who stand up, fully confident in all their abilities and their character, as an alien species cohabiting on this planet. I was told to “fake it, until I make it,” when I am more comfortable in awkward honesty; when everything inside of me was humming in protest against that piece of advice.

I was told to stop over-thinking everything, to grow a thicker skin. But as Laurie Penny once so aptly said: “I’m a writer, a thick skin is the last thing I need.” The very last, believe me.

In turning writing from a long-nursed dream and fickle hobby into my every-day reality, I have found a whole host of traits – weaknesses out in the real world – that are suddenly beneficial to me. It was like I turned a switch and I had a use for the ability to store long conversations verbatim in my head so that I could spend the evening going over them, analyzing them in every detail.

Now I can use all my doomsday-like worst-case-scenarios, because that’s exactly what happens in fiction, however crazy it is in the real world. And I certainly rely every day on my tendency to think about people, to put myself in their place and forget about myself.

All of this I know. Recently, though, I’ve found another – a slightly more unexpected one, and I think I’ve changed for the better for it.

Ever since I was a very young teenager, I’ve always enjoyed erotic scenes in fiction. I devoured the Earth Children series by Jean M. Auel, left guilty dog ears at the naughty spots.

Over time, I found more – I found them in literary fiction and in romance, I found them thinly veiled (and therefore playing out in my head all the stronger) in YA and fantasy and in time, I started writing them, too. It was a guilty pleasure at first, a game of holding back and provoking more, of fear and giddy, naughty joy.

The older I grew, however, the more I was convinced that this interest, the secret glee at writing dirty scenes and the need to know such intimate details about characters, was somewhat base. A serious writer, I learned, was supposed to eschew such gratuitous pleasures in favor honest, fresh and surprising observations.

There were times when I questioned why sex can’t be full of just that – of honestly, fresh language and surprising observations, but deep down I was sure: in order to be a writer, I have to leave it behind, or – at the very least – lock it into a guilty pen name from which I can distance myself completely.

Over the last year, I realized that I don’t have to do any of that. It may be a weakness in a lot of people’s eyes – but it can also define my very brand as a writer. I found myself doing my very best work in erotic short-stories I penned for submissions calls. This surprised me, frustrated me for a while.

Why couldn’t I be this clear and honest with my characters, so vivid in my language and expression in “clean”, “serious” fiction – you know, the kind I could send to serious and impressive lit magazines?

And isn’t that just typical of how we treat ourselves sometimes? We find something good, something to be proud of and still find a way to turn it into something we dislike about ourselves.

Understanding issues, of course, is not the same as moving past them. In a way, I’m still in that process – but today, I am proud of the way I get into my characters heads as well as their pants. If I do some of my best work writing thoughtful erotic scenes, I owe it to my readers to write just that.

This is me – with filthy language and relationships analyzed and depicted in intimate detail. That’s my starting point, and I figure the only way to keep improving is to write work I can be proud of, work soaked in who I am as a writer. And that will always be a little dirty – literally and figuratively. Today, I am proud of that, find it empowering and important.

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Tags: erotica writing, featured

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing