I Told a Group of Strangers I Write About Sex
The room went quiet
I write erotica, so it won’t come as a surprise to many of you that Emma Austin is a pen name.
It’s partly for aesthetic reasons. I love my husband dearly, but he didn’t exactly gift me with the sexiest last name.
But a bigger part of it is just worry.
I worry about the kind of reactions I’ll get when I tell people what I really do.
I worry that people who know me look at me a little differently - even the ones who know I’m a horndog at heart.
And yes, I worry about what my mother will think. (Serves me right for writing autobiographical erotica.)
Still, I feel incredibly conflicted about writing under a pseudonym.
I want to use my writing to help everyone embrace their deepest sexual selves. I want everyone to have frank, open conversations about sex. And I want us to live in a world where women can admit to wanting to be fisted, double penetrated, or spanked by a daddy as readily as men admit to wanting to stick their dicks in just about everything.
And yet I do it without showing my face and hiding behind a made up name.
I Came Out This Week
This week, I admitted to writing about sex and publishing erotica for the first time. It was on a private Facebook group (baby steps) for moms.
I know, I know. I probably should have known better than to come out to a bunch of moms. Maybe I should have listened to traceybyfire when she wrote that outing yourself to soccer moms is just asking to be ostracized.
But I kind of assume that moms are the target demographic for my books (shout out to all you horny moms out there!) So, I always kind of figured I would come out to moms first (but maybe not my own - that will take some time).
Someone in the group asked what I do for a living. Normally, I tell people I’m a stay-at-home mom. It’s a good cover. My husband is a successful freelancer and he brings in enough money to support the family, so I can point to him as the breadwinner and pretend my life is just diaper changes and listening to my son drone on about Minecraft all day.
But after a lot of deliberation, I decided to tell the truth. I admitted I was writer.
The response was amazing. I got tons of positive, supportive comments. At least five women even told me it was their dream job.
It felt like a relief - until the follow-up question came: “What do you write about?”
That one needed even more deliberation. I paced around the kitchen wondering whether I should tell the truth, lie, or leave the group, delete my Facebook account, and maybe bury my smartphone in the backyard.
After agonizing for a while, I told myself that we’re all women. We all have needs and desires. And from the stories I hear about these women’s husbands, a lot of them could use an escapist fantasy now and then.
So, I typed my reply - “I write X-rated erotica and blog about sex” - and waited for the response.
Instead of cheers, I got crickets. The normally gabby group of gals who can’t get enough of TMI stories went completely silent.
And I felt completely alone. As the hours crept by without a single notification, I felt like I had gone from being one of their fellow moms to being seen as a pervert. I went from feeling like I was part of their circle to feeling like I had been pushed out of it.
A Little Ray of Light
The woman who eagerly asked me what I write about never responded when I told her.
The flood of Likes I got when I said I was a writer turned into a tiny trickle when I said I was that kind of writer.
All the encouragement. All the camaraderie. It all evaporated.
With one exception.
One fellow mom commented. She wrote, “Like I said, that’s my dream job!”
Bless that mom!
She’s the reason I don’t regret coming out to this group. She made me feel like someone was in my corner.
And more importantly, she showed me what happens when you put your real name to your smut. Not everyone will be happy about it, but you’ll find your people.
I’m Not Going to Hide Forever
I’ll eventually be completely and entirely open about my smutty, dirty, sex-driven life and career, with my real name and all. I know I’ll get there. In my future, I’m always horny on main.
I’m just not sure when or what it will take to get me there.
Do I just need to be a little more successful with my writing? Does one of my books really need to take off?
Is it going to be when my children are a little bit older, so that I no longer have a baby at my hip?
Or maybe I’ll just have to take a deep breath and rip off the band-aid.
This week, I dipped my toe into revealing who I truly am. The results were mixed. The reaction was far less enthusiastic than I would have hoped.
But I’m glad I did it.
And I know I’ll do it again.
If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Treat That Clit Right (Clit Balms, Liquid Vibrators, and the Right Way to Rub It) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
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