I’ve been writing smut, or porn, or erotica, or whatever you want to call it, for just about half my life, according to the spreadsheet that I keep to track such things. (Not just smut writing, but pretty much all the writing I do.) I have the date for my first R-rated story, and before that there was M-rated content, and gods only know what I was reading before then.
There have been a lot of reasons over that time, which amounts to about sixteen years. Obviously a big reason is that it’s for the audience: people give me prompts and I write responses. Or I get a kink bingo card and try to fill it out (it never works). Or I have an idea of my own and write that, which happens more often than I think I’ve made it sound like it does.
I’ve realised lately that the smut I write lets me do some genuinely fun exploring of genders and sexualities other than my own. Maybe it’s not all that recent a realisation, but it’s only in the last year or so that I’ve really looked at it and thought that it’s not just an exploration, but an expression.
In my smut, I can have whatever genital configuration I feel like, whatever sexuality I feel like, and whatever gender I feel like. I can vicariously experience a lot of scenarios through my characters that I can’t physically experience due to the limitations of my body as it exists in the real world. I love that level of escapism. I love the fun of trading scenes back and forth with my writing partner and knowing they’re enjoying the experience as much as I am.
For some people, fantasy or sci-fi is their escapism. For me, it’s smut. Because that’s where I get to be both someone else, and who I really am.
Originally published in CQ6: Smut.
Lauren E. Mitchell | they/them
Lauren E. Mitchell has been writing since forever. There’s a mostly complete list of their publications on laurenmitchell.net. Right now they’re too busy pinning badges and ribbons and a smaller hat onto their sunhat for Pride to write a proper bio. You can follow them on Twitter @LEBMitchell.
Concrete Queers 