Pick your poison: “steel-wrapped velvet” or “straining member.” If the title of this article enticed you, you already know what I’m talking about.
Smut. There, I said it.
We all know it exists and I’m willing to bet that most of us have partaken in the genre. Personally, I grew up surrounded by the 50 Shades of Grey series. Hopefully, other people had parents who were into that series or this is going to be awkward for my mom…
Whether it’s Elle Kennedy’s The Deal series or Ruby Dixon’s hit Ice Planet Barbarians (of which I am a staunch fan), there is an erotica out there for you. AO3, Kindle Unlimited, and (dare I say) Wattpad are all available resources to pursue this genre in ways that women previously haven’t been able to access in past centuries.
Not to say that erotic literature hasn’t been around for a long time. Vatsyayana, an Indian philosopher, is credited with the Kama Sutra, written around 400 BCE-200 CE. It is said that this is the only surviving account of this period of ancient Indian history. Go figure. Medieval accounts of erotica started to emerge in the 12th century, especially with The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (1391), which featured themes of lust, passion, seduction, generosity, and more. The book was banned for over 500 years in many countries. It’s interesting to see the reaction of literature to rigid class structures and harshly imposed moral codes, such as in the Victorian era (1837-1901) and the Edwardian era (1901-1910). There was an intense outpouring of erotica in these periods, partially as a response to the severe sexual repression championed by the Church at the time. It just goes to show that when sexual expressions are suppressed, they don’t die, but instead flourish and manifest in new and unique ways.
Literary scholars argue that erotica was originally written by men for men. After a few decades of this, literature started to emerge that was written by men for women, an interesting inversion of expectations of everything that came before. And then, finally, came smut written by women for women.
For the first time, the literary world opened itself to what had always been there—female pleasure. Not only was female pleasure being written into hard copy form (allowing for its existence in new and visible ways), but all sorts of manifestations of female pleasure erupted. Women could feel pleasure and arousal, and not just in the restrictive normative modes. New kinks and perversities emerged that allowed women to explore their sexuality as men had been allowed to for centuries.
In the past, women might have read Fear of Flying by Erica Jong or Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (worth a read, in my humble opinion). There would’ve been few options for a woman trying to branch out in her sexuality back then. The repression of female sexuality speaks to a disempowerment of the female condition at the time. Now, the options are limitless. It’s much less stigmatized for women to read smut in the 21st century. Even books like Twilight, which aren’t inherently about sex, reek of erotica. Speaking of, did y’all know that 50 Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight Edward x Bella fanfiction? I knew Christian’s archetype (rich, powerful, restrained, trembling white man) seemed a little too familiar…
Now we get to the fun stuff: fanfiction. The rise of fanfiction has been exponential over the past twenty years. Before the 2000s, fanfiction had been around for years, the first use of the word coming into existence in 1939. Fanfiction wasn’t entirely mainstream, so to speak. The rise of Star Trek really kick-started the genre, with an outpouring of fans writing their own endings to the show and creating new pathways for characters. The once-obscure subculture of fanfiction grew into a respectable genre in its own right. The site Archive of Our Own, AO3 for short, represents the explosion of the fanfiction genre—AO3 has over 5 million published stories (the topics of which include Harry Potter-Dramione love stories, recreations of Percy Jackson lore, and more) posted by 2 million users, garnering the site over 200 million views per month.
There seems to be a stigma around fan-fiction (not as much as in the olden days, pre-1990s). After all, fanfiction writers are not taken as seriously as other writers. Despite popular opinion, this is not factual. Let me just say this—there are some fanfiction writers (I’m looking at you, SenLinYu) who need Nobel Peace Prizes for their publications (I truly believe that Manacled broke something in me, no joke). It’s funny, some of the best work on AO3 and Wattpad will be prefaced with “Sorry, guys! English isn’t my first language” or something along those lines and then the words that follow will be the best thing you’ve ever read in your life. To weave such intense narratives in a language that wasn’t the one you were raised with, my goodness. The power these authors have, taking literary canon and manipulating it to fit their own imaginations. Respect.
Honestly, I believe that the reclamation of smutty romance over the past few decades, being able to read erotica on so many mediums and not face any kind of intense negative repercussion, speaks to a feminist-leaning shift in modern literature. It makes me think of how reality television shows, like Love Island or The Bachelor, are seen as less serious mediums of entertainment, whereas sports television is taken incredibly seriously. This comes from an anti-feminist, anti-woman point-of-view, in which whatever modes of entertainment that women happen to enjoy are considered lesser, simply because women enjoy them. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of The Bachelor because I hate seeing beautiful women fight for one aggressively mediocre man, but I understand the appeal more than I understand wanting to watch a couple of men grab each other on a field. Also, let’s not forget statistics here—a Lancaster University study done in 2014 in the northwest of England shows that domestic abuse reports increased by 26% when the national team won and by 38% when the team lost. Other studies hint at worse abuse when England wins. We don’t see these kinds of increased domestic violence reports when the Bachelor chooses the “wrong” girl…
Smutty romance is a way for women to unite over the exploration of their pleasure, a phenomenon that has been suppressed for so long. Anyone who doesn’t take that unity seriously needs to take a long look inward at themselves. No matter what you’re into, whether that be enemies-to-lovers hockey romances or blue aliens on a frozen planet with horns everywhere or slow-burn Dramione love affairs, modern literature has made room for it. With the rise of the internet and other mediums of discreet reading, smut has never been more available. On that note, feel free to drop your recommendations in the comments—who knows? Maybe someone at Kenyon could use a little more…exploration. Have fun!