Note: This piece, and the piece it links to, discusses my personal sex life and sexuality in some detail. Family members and others who don’t want to read that should probably skip this post. Thanks.
I have a new piece on the Blowfish Blog. It’s about my attempt to understand secret exhibitionism — a sexual practice that I don’t enjoy or take part in — by examining a practice that I do enjoy.
It’s titled On Writing Porn In Public, and here’s the teaser:
Iâm not usually a fan of exhibitionism. Not the secret kind, anyway. I worked as a stripper years ago and enjoyed the work â erotically as well as professionally â and Iâm perfectly happy to strip for a lover, pose and perform for them, etc. But the sort of sneaky, secretive, âfingering under the restaurant tablecloth/ fucking on the picnic table that you hope nobody can seeâ sort of exhibitionism has never done it for me. Iâm not comfortable with the consent issues raised by involving people in my sex life who didnât agree to be involved. And besides, the fear of being caught doesnât make me excited. It makes me anxious, distracted, unable to concentrate on the business at hand. Itâs one of those kinks that I more or less understand intellectually, while being totally baffled by it emotionally.
But Iâve been discovering an exception.
That exception is writing porn in public.
Like countless other writers with laptops â and like countless writers with typewriters and pens before us â Iâve discovered the joy of writing in cafes. Itâs a great way to avoid both the claustrophobia and the easy distraction of working at home all day.
And Iâve discovered that thereâs something uniquely hot about sitting down at a cafe, opening up my laptop, and setting to work on a dirty story. Something that makes me finally get what it is that turns people on about secret exhibitionistic sex.
To find out more about what I find interesting about writing porn in public, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!