Pixie Isobella

I’ve been doing some reading recently around romance fiction, erotica, censorship and social attitudes towards smut and porn.

Something that jumped out at me in my reading was an analysis that both romance fiction and pornography are about creating sexually pleasing fantasies. Smut is so far away from attempting to re-create real life or teach about real life that the two might as well be galaxies apart from each other.

And, yes, I mostly already knew this, but it didn’t hurt to be reminded.

Making effective porn is about making a fantasy realm that turns porn viewers into a hot steamy mess. Similarly, writing an effective romance is about writing a fantasy that turns the romance reader into a hot aroused mess.

We don’t read romance fiction (I love romance fiction) to learn about how to navigate a real-world relationship or to understand what our partners actually want from a relationship or sex. We read romance because it makes us feel hot and gooey inside.

Similarly, I honestly don’t watch much porn, but every so often I see something (e.g. an image or a short video) that turns me on inside and then I want to fuck or masturbate (or, more likely, given that it’s me, probably I want to sit down and write).

The smut I write is – I guess – somewhere in between porn and romance and frankly, the reason I write it is that it turns me on. I want it to be read by people who are turned on by it – and if it doesn’t turn you on, I don’t want you to have to read it.

The corollary of this is – of course – that we shouldn’t look to smut of any kind to inform us about what real people actually want, how real bodies actually behave or how to negotiate a healthy sexual interaction or relationship.

Obviously, it would help if sex education for everyone (young people and less young people) was better and more accessible. Young people frequently report that formal sex education teaches them about the mechanics, especially of straight sex, and the risks (STIs, condoms, even abusive relationships). It frequently doesn’t teach about pleasure or how to understand and learn about what you actually desire, or even how to stay safe and negotiate sensible things while you’re working that out.

And it’s worth noting that while we always talk about sex education for young people, it isn’t like there’s a certain number of fucks you can have, and then suddenly you know everything there is to know about sex. Sex education should continue and be available forever through our lives. We shouldn’t ever stop seeking to better understand ourselves and better able to negotiate consensual, safe, fun-for-everyone scenes and relationships.

It bothers me when I read that young people (and maybe older people) turn to smut for sex education.

I think it’s okay (and good) to learn from porn or erotica or romance what turns you on and what doesn’t turn you on. Every so often I poke my head into a new fetish to see if I want to write a story about it. Recently (because I’m an old person now), I learned about the omegaverse and my instinctive thought was ‘nah, I’m not into that’. Five minutes later, my brain was concocting hot omegaverse-esque fantasies and I discovered that I was very into it, as long as I wrote it. (That happens to me a lot).

I think you can learn a lot about your own kinks from using porn and smut – as long as you have control over what you’re watching and you’re not forced to watch or use something you don’t like. That ability to control what we access – both physically and in terms of setting healthy boundaries for ourselves – is very important.

But learning about other aspects of navigating a healthy, safe scene or relationship can’t come from smut. I’ve said before – please don’t turn to my writing to negotiate consent (like, really, don’t do that) and please don’t assume that because I wrote something, it is physically safe or even possible.

(There’s a funny side story about that. Sometimes I’m writing a scene, and I get an idea for something that is hot, and I can’t work out if it’s actually possible for two or three human bodies to even do that. Once, it involved a belt, so I grabbed one of my partner’s belts and took it in to him where he was reading or gaming, and we tested it out. It worked – and it was actually rather hot, so yay!).

I’m interested in your thoughts and your recommendations. Where do you go to to learn about about to do and negotiate safe and fun kink? And how do you learn about what you enjoy?