On learning how to write for yourself (by writing porn)

This is the second in a series on how writing sex in fiction can help your development as a writer. The first, ‘On deconstructing shame’, can be found here.

Like the previous, this post is more about attitude than it is about technique. This is on purpose: a lot of the trouble writers have when approaching their writing has more to do with how they feel about their writing than the writing itself. Unlearning some bad and societally-enforced emotional habits is vital to a writer continuing to write — and enjoying it.

That’s today’s topic. When was the last time you, as a writer, was afraid to write something in case it wasn’t like, well-received, or you didn’t think your readers wanted it? And this is as applied to writing in general. When you think about writing, how often do you think about your enjoyment of it, or write purely for the indulgence?

Many writers, especially starting writers, are more concerned with what the audience thinks rather than what do I think. Don’t forget that you are also part of your own audience. How can you expect anyone else to be invested in your writing in a good way if you’re not invested in it either?

I mentioned earlier that there’s no stipulation on having to show your writing to anyone. That’s not just if you decide to try your hand at writing porn, and in many cases I do believe it’s best to keep your writing secret and safe to preserve your enthusiasm for it. When it comes to writing porn I especially think it’s wiser to start from a position of showing no one, not out of shame but out of intimacy.

Let’s be honest: writing sex is an indulgence. If you haven’t read much of my stuff before, then know that I don’t use the word ‘indulgence’ as a bad word. Generally speaking I refuse delivery of the notion that we should feel ashamed or guilty about enjoying ourselves in any given context. But when it comes to a story, sex is very rarely necessary to the telling of it. Writing sex, more often than not, is just about having fun.

This is a good thing. Writing is fun. Writing is about playing with words, worlds, characters and stories. If you find yourself too wound up about Writing Correctly, then throwing all that away purely to write something indulgently unnecessary can be a good way to teach yourself that it’s okay to let loose. If you’re not writing to please an outside audience, then you’re only writing to please yourself. It’s a lot easier to write for the pleasure of it when you’re already accustomed to writing for your own sake.

And yes, obviously, there are stories where the sex is the point. There are stories where important things happen during the sex, because of the sex. All these are fine, and my point is that they’re far easier to write when you’re having fun with them instead of stressing about anyone else’s reaction. It’s an unfortunate state of writerdom these days that writers need to train themselves into being allowed to have fun.

The moment you approach writing from the perspective of ‘I’m going to show this to someone’ is the moment you open the door to start worrying about their opinion. When you’re writing porn, that goes double.

So don’t go there. If you’re seeking to unlearn the fear of writing and striving to learn the enjoyment of it, start from a place of writing only for you. It might be that you decide to show someone after the fact, and that’s fine! But begin by writing for you.

Since a lot of people are reticent about showing porn to anyone else anyway, it makes for a good subject to start engaging with writing for yourself, and in terms of what you like in your writing. Sex is an absurdity. It can be messy, funny, noisy and kind of gross, which means you can have a lot of fun making up weird situations that you don’t have to be afraid of anyone else witnessing (and often wind up making the actual porn better, once you get a handle on it — for reasons I’ll be illustrating in a later topic). Writing porn you don’t intend to show anyone often gives you permission to play around and be foolish in ways that can be harder to do with other subjects.

When you’re confident in writing indulgently, just for the hell of it and just for the sake of being delighted in your own words, you can bring that same attitude to other things you write; and in doing so, you make your stories more compelling.