Speak to almost any sex therapist and ask them what their most common concern they see in their practice is, and they'll almost all say sexual desire - lack of it, a drop in it or a difference within a relationship. There are so many myths and misconceptions still so heavily attached to the concept of sexual desire. Some of the more prevalent is that it is something to 'fix' or that something that is 'broken' if you don't feel like having sex.
How I often see this play out in sessions is that many folks who experience an inevitable drop or fluctuation in sexual desire then take to the self-help book aisles to 'fix' what's going on, in search of a magic pill or formula that will reignite that spark. There will always be a lot to learn when it comes to sex education and literacy, and no doubt books like Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are are revolutionary in their own right. In a world where inclusive and judgement-free sex education is scarce, learning the science and research behind good sex is important. However, I make the case here that those self-help books won't offer you much when it comes to reconnecting to your pleasure and eroticism. As a fierce reader of both, I say less self-help books, more smut.
Where self-help books is the science, smut is the art. It's the practice of pleasure and as our sex education queen, Emily Nagoski wrote in their recent book Come Together, "pleasure is the measure". We read self-help books, but we indulge in smut. We're learning with self-help books, but we're creating worlds with smut. With smut, we're exploring, we're playing, and we're moving with it in a way that we can't with self-help books.
It has surprised myself how impactful reading or listening to smut has been across my clients who want to re-ignite their responsive desire, learn more about their sexuality or simply practice switching their brains off for the day. How many times have I said that the brain is your most powerful sexual organ? Smut plays right into this because it stimulates what we call psychogenic arousal, which is arousal that starts in the mind. Not only does it help you mentally and emotionally switch over from work-you or family-you and into imaginative-and-playful-you, it also encourages you to immerse yourself and explore, whether it be with a delicious enemies-to-lovers arc, scary dragons or sexy faeries.
What you won't find in self-help books but you can find in the right spicy book:
Imagination and creativity
Sense of play
Escape from the day-to-day
Stress reduction
Sexual self-exploration or self-acceptance
A roadmap for sexual fantasies
Sense of community
A sense of creativity and play are inseparable from sexual desire and eroticism. What is sex if not adults sharing and playing with their bodies? While many folks read or listen to smut as a way to reduce stress and escape from the mundane, an underrated component is also the sexual self-exploration it can offer. Like any other form of explicit content, we get to dip our toes into a new world and vicariously experience what it might be like and if we'd like it. Whether you're a sexy dragon rider, you're gender-bending or dabbling into queerness or kinkiness or something else entirely, it is an incredibly low-stakes and accessible way to explore and learn. In a similar vein, this can provide a roadmap for some of our sexual fantasies and we can start to understand what it is about these books and storylines that we savour and what makes them so uniquely impactful for us. Looking at Jack Morin's Four Cornerstones of Eroticism, is it the longing and anticipation? Breaking taboos? Searching for power or overcoming ambivalence? This doesn't mean that we necessarily want to replicate these fantasies, but it's useful in getting to know our erotic selves and what we find pleasure in.
While many of these spicy books are obviously not grounded in reality (unfortunately), the right book can also serve as inspiration in modelling communication, consent or sexual play. In reading or listening to smut, many folks report feeling more comfortable in their sexuality by exploring more or communicating what they want. They often feel more comfortable talking about sex and during sex.
What I love to see is that it can also demonstrate how sexual arousal naturally ebbs and flows. In a good book, you'll feel the teasing and the tension grow, plateau, return, build and inevitably erupt. In some books, it'll even be painfully and torturously slow but that's also part of what is so good about it. It organically builds arousal rather than forcing it down your throat, and instead you can savour the tension and the foreplay. Speaking of, indulging in smut can also be its own delicious form of foreplay for all these same reasons, whether you're playing solo or sharing with a partner. Again, it's a great way to kickstart the responsive desire system.
In writing this piece, I realised that there's also something so radical about choosing to read a book that serves no purpose other than unadulterated and raunchy pleasure. In doing so, we opt out of the internalised pressure that we have to constantly be productive or in our self-help eras. Instead we can opt into pleasure, play and fantasy. Now that is hot as hell.
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