How to Let Go of Shame and Write Authentic Smut
The first step to writing smut that resonates with readers, or to exploring your own spicy fantasies, is to look your shame in the eye with open arms. Today, I'm doing that right alongside you.
Anyone who has taken the dive into sexual and kinky exploration (as well as non-sexual kink exploration for all you asexuals out there!) can tell you that overcoming shame is the name of the spicy game. It’s never easy, and the journey of doing so never really ends. It's a bit like an onion—for every layer you pull back, there's another one underneath, and it's totally normal to cry as you open it up. But before you toss your shame on the cast iron to caramelize it1, let's talk about how to unpack it. Because if you want to write smut that sizzles both on and off the page for your readers, unpacking the shame regarding your own journey is one of the only ways to do it authentically.
Where does shame come from?
The number one thing that allows shame to fester is the fear of sharing it. Once it's brought into the light, it has no power. It goes by the same rule as Fight Club: The only rule about shame is that we don't talk about the shame.
There are multiple aspects of shame that allow it to take root, constricting its psychological tendrils around your spicy exploration to keep pleasure subdued. But most of its growth comes down to two base seedlings, depending on how it was first planted in your body—fear and guilt. Both come from a similar place, but guilt shares a specific piece of religious and controlling framework that makes it awfully unique.
There are plenty of ways fear and guilt can speak to you. A few common ones are:
I'm afraid of not being “enough.”2
I’m afraid of taking up space.
I'm afraid of someone/everyone leaving me.
I'm afraid the people I do have won't meet my needs.3
and most notably,
I'm afraid that if I'm my truest and most authentic self, I will be rejected.
Especially for those of us with religious upbringings (more about mine later), guilt makes for a perfect recipe of scarcity mindset. This is the belief that there's only so much to go around, that there's something about you and only you that keeps you from being “allowed” to enjoy something. That scarcity then acts as a whirlpool. Trying to swim straight out of it without acknowledging its core and currents just gives it more gravitational pull to suck you down.
That shame also takes a direct opposition to pleasure: the more authentic pleasure you experience without acknowledging that shame, the harder it'll knock at your door in ways you don’t anticipate. You might not even notice that’s where it’s coming from. And like I mentioned, shame is a slut for going unnoticed.
So how can we battle this nightmare of internal criticism?
By laying our swords down and embracing it.
Unpacking the Shame Holding You Back
Once you can see the pieces you’re ashamed of in all their glory, accept them. Tell that version of yourself there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Once you can embody that authenticity without judgement, the shame will eventually begin to loosen its grip, and deep, authentic exploration can begin.
Sounds easy enough, right?
Not quite.
Parts Work and Shame
Often, the part of you carrying all this shame is a much younger version of yourself, one that foundationally took in the words and beliefs of others around them. A sense of self was formed with that shame in tow, and you may find the Self you are now doesn't resonate with the messages you received when you were younger.
Richard Schwartz, founder of the Internal Family Systems therapeutic framework4, defines identifying with those beliefs and thoughts as being “blended.” IFS says there's a system of “parts” within all of us: protectors, managers, exiles. These parts make up our experiences, the foundational messaging we received from our caretakers and society around us. These are some aspects of the Archive I've mentioned in the Pyramid of Satisfying Smut—its everything that makes us who we are in relationship to ourselves and others.
These parts are often in conflict with each other when blended with the Self, causing the disjointed distress we might experience but not understand. When a person's parts have deeply blended with their Self—the essence of who they are, their core spirit, whatever language is preferred—the Self can drown in it. If someone had an experience of growing up too fast or being given too much responsibility at a young age, their body may act out in ways that lack mindfulness and intention. This can look like being quick to anger, possessiveness, inability to commit to things, and behavior that feels “childish” or immature.5 These are our fearful, shameful parts taking the wheel, whether we want them to or not. Our body remembers our hurt, even if our mind can’t always put it into words.6
When it comes to writers and kinksters who struggle with sexual shame, there are all kinds of ways it can rear its head. Someone whose shame is deeply blended with their identity might attempt to explore sexually but be faced with a teary explosion in the middle of play. Other individuals may avoid sexual exploration at all, shielding the need for pleasure with moral high ground. That sexual shame, the giant hole of guilt and fear, can be a massive ravine to climb out of.
But it’s not impossible.
We’ve talked about the first step of recognizing the shame. But how do you recognize it when you’ve spent so long trying to ignore and push it down (as in the burst of tears)?
When experiencing these reactions or feelings, ones that make you feel conflicted and out of control, use it as a signal to grab the grappling hook, jump in the hole, and start digging.
Ground in The Body
Check in with your body and take a few deep breaths when the shame hits. What does that shame physically feel like for you? Is it a roiling coil in your chest? Like you’ve swallowed your tongue and can’t speak?7 Take a moment to ground so you can recognize it’s shame controlling the wheel. Once you’ve reconnected with your Self, ask your body about the first time it felt this sensation. Don’t even focus on the shame, focus on the feeling. Use those body sensations as a path back into your memories. You might not get to the core right away, especially if you spent a lot of time dissociating.8 But bringing a light to that shame, in whatever form it takes, is the first step.
Once you’ve unpacked the basis of your shame, the rest of the work becomes at least a little easier with time. Then the process is about making the daily decision to recommit to self-acceptance. After acknowledging it once or twice, you’ll notice where the shame pops up everywhere. Often your body will register it before it hits your mind. Remember that your body speaking to you is the signal to dig again. Part of healing means doing this process over and over again, giving your self-acceptance muscles time to strengthen.
In recognizing that shame, allow it to become an old friend you respect and love even if you walk different paths with who you are now. As you peel those layers back, it will become easier to enjoy pleasure authentically in every aspect—including your writing, while reading, and during spicy time. Trust me, the pleasure on the other side of shame is tastier than you could ever imagine. But the job is never quite done, and the shame is always waiting to rear its head if you let it go unnoticed for too long.
You might be asking, “Alexa, you teach about sexuality and kink with reckless abandon. What kind of shame can you possibly have at this point?”
Well, gear up, folks, we’re turning on the lights and taking a ride along the Smut Editor’s shame tour.
My Shame Stories
My shame has many tentacles that spread throughout my psyche, and I’m sure I’ll find more as the years go on. But a large portion of it sits in the deconstruction of my Catholic upbringing.
Sexuality has been demonized by the Church for years, especially for women. The most notable women in the bible are Mary (the literal icon of sacred virginity), Eve (who “succumbed to temptation” and is the physical manifestation of origin of sin9), and Mary Magdalene (who was exercised of seven demons and is often labeled a prostitute10).
With that framework (and the limitation for how women are allowed to participate in formal Catholic ceremony in my childhood rite), it's no wonder that especially for women, anything sexual is inherently shameful. The Church thrives on shame.11
In the Byzantine Catholic tradition I was raised in, we had rituals that were a bit different than my Roman Catholic and Christian peers. For instance, when baptized, infants are presented before the entire congregation naked and are fully submerged (three times, including their face) in a basin of water.
When I feel shame, sometimes my body feels like its drowning, and everyone around me is just watching as I suffocate. As my paranoia of the shame being seen is brought to light, my body feels exposed, and I feel invisible, judgmental eyes all around me.
Those two experiences are directly connected.
In another example, when we gave confession, we didn’t use a confessional booth like our Roman Catholic counterparts. Rather, I stood at the front of our church as congregants arrived and could overhear if close enough.12 I wore a cloth shroud on my head, staring at the shoes of the priest, a father figure, who stood over me as I admitted my deepest shame. This included coming up with “something I had to have done” that was wrong in order to have something to confess13 and confessing to masturbating or petty shoplifting as a teenager.
I took my prayer penance assignment with an ashamed sob, often not silent enough to avoid the stares. I knew after service, he would walk down to the social hall and most likely share a conversation over coffee and donuts with my parents. While I personally believe he never directly spoke about it14 , I always felt that shameful truth hanging over my head during mutual interactions. This added to my shame the physical layer of not making eye-contact, of always having my head down in submission, and of experiencing a twisting terror in my stomach when I apologize for my actions, whether the apology is warranted or not.
When I go back to those experiences and witness them with my younger parts as an adult, I’m the one to shield my tiny body away from the crowd and keep my head from going underwater. I’m the one to stop my priest’s hand as he declares that in my current, infant state, I am with sin. I’m the one to pull back my confessional shroud and reassure that girl that she’s safe, that she’s normal, no matter what the Bible says.
Rather, I’m perfectly wonderful as I am.
Just as you are now. Your shame is just an embodiment of your experiences, trying to keep your heart safe. Now you can be aware enough to care for it yourself. Tools that helped us in another situation aren’t universally applicable.15
What Were My First Steps
In full hindsight, I started shining a light on my shame when, on a whim, I did a nude light bath photoshoot while living in New York City.16
I happened across a sex shop while crossing through Williamsburg called Shag, and they were hosting a pop-up photoshoot event by the wildly talented artist, Jarid Blue. I’d never done anything that vulnerable and exposing, and the sudden urge to rip the Band-Aid of shame hit me like a truck. I knew that doorway was where I needed to be, and a few months later, I applied for a job at the shop itself. Slinging dildos at Shag put me on a path I could never have planned17, but it’s one I wouldn’t change for the world. That was the day I decided to start looking my shame in the eye and treating it like an old friend. I remember that feeling every time I see my favorite photo from the shoot framed on my wall.
Obviously, that singular day didn’t turn off the shame I’d experienced up to then, and it doesn’t fix the shame I’ve built up since. It affects every aspect of my life, including my connections with others, my work and livelihood, and my self-image and worth. But until I started peeling back those layers and parts that have worked so long to protect me through periods of hurt, I didn’t know where the traumas ended and I began. It was all a big melting pot of reactive emotions. It still can be, on my hardest days.
When I started tracking my mental health, I learned my behaviors and headspace shifted drastically along my menstrual cycle. After some time and a diagnosis or two, it became clear that PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), as well as the mood swings and body dysregulation accompanying it, put those fears and shame on blast each month. Every two weeks, I’d be unpacking new layers to that fear and overwhelming self-hatred, thanks to the beautiful gift of my luteal phase.
And in a heartbreaking way, I do see it as a gift. I’m grateful for my mood swings acting as a signal that someone, somewhere inside me, is going unheard. Sometimes those signals are frightening, and many months I feel held hostage in my body. But even the shame I carry for my body’s experience can now be addressed head-on: I understand my body goes into chemical crisis every month, and every month, I need more support than I would otherwise. Bringing that shame to light means asking for help, letting my self-care reminders take center stage in living spaces, and giving myself ample time to decompress and process all the thoughts racing through my head. My latest strategy to cope has been the most powerful: sitting myself down at a computer or notebook and writing until I can’t write anymore.
This can mean pages upon pages of prose barely able to be called a single train of thought. It can sometimes mean thrusting my imagination into a scene and crafting a fictional moment to express the feelings at hand.18 It can mean taking a marker and writing the words, “Do not forget who I am,” over and over again until the ink pattern is tearstained and scattered from my stimming. However long it takes, I am willing to sit with myself until the whirlwind has passed through me. Unloading the words as they pour out is better than stewing in shame and guilt of those thoughts as they run amuck in my head. Now I hold myself to core tenants, things like never walking away from something out of fear and shame. I will only walk towards something with joy. That’s how I know it’s right for me.
When I make the effort to open my eyes, I can see the forest for the trees. As I learn to trust myself and my experience, it’s much easier to go for a walk in the woods, even if I can only see a few feet in front of me. The rest of the forest may be dark, but I trust my ability to take the next step and keep my balance with whatever terrain or creature I might find ahead.
The journey of accepting and coming to terms with your shame and the younger self that carries it becomes the goal. There is no final destination when every day is a choice to shine a light on those feelings. In doing so, they no longer act as weights on the scale. Rather, they become morally neutral signs you can act on and embrace.
Let’s Get Hot in Here
Now that we’ve spent all that time unpacking the roots of your shame (work that you’ll surely continue long after you’ve finished reading this Substack), it’s time to use that fresh sense of self as a key to unlock the door to your inner world. And that room is full of sexy, organic connection to yourself and others.
Fiction is one of many art forms that allows room for sexuality and expression of physical connection to flourish. Hell, I built an entire career out of it. The rising popularity of BDSM romances, monster smut, and spicy fiction are a testament to that.19 But with things like the harmful representation in Fifty Shades20, dismissing smut lovers who love monster fantasies, and those misleading illustrated covers currently trending21, there’s a strong undercurrent of shame beneath the surface even in mainstream published works.
If you’re exploring my work and the resources I have available on my platforms, you’re already doing the hardest part: noticing a craving for more knowledge. The next step is digging into those shame pieces of yours we talked about and reworking them into functional storytelling tools and themes!
I even made a free tool for you to start digging under the floorboards to unpack storytelling tropes and themes you’ve carried your whole life. But maybe you’ve just been too ashamed to explore them further. Here at Smut Ed, unpacking shame is the name of the game!
The worksheet is called Knowing and Writing Your Truest Self, and in it, you’ll answer some questions about story aspects you've had interest in since childhood. Then we’ll take those details and pull out story nuggets for you to explore further in your fiction and nonfiction journey.
To get access to the worksheet, you can subscribe below. Your worksheet will be available on the welcome page!
If you’re already subscribed and can’t find the link, shoot me an email and I’ll send it right over.
Until next time, my smut loving crew. Best of luck on your digging, and my doors are open if you ever need a hand with your shovel.
This metaphor went further than anticipated, but now I’m excited to make lunch.
Whatever enough means to you. Most often, it’s shapeless. That allows it to expand and contract to whatever situation your fear enters.
Your protective part’s solution to this may be, “—and so I need to become smaller. Guilt’s translation of this one could be, “I’m afraid they’ll meet my needs, and I don’t deserve it.”
While these are mostly examples, they’re also ones I’ve personally worked through (and am always working through) as they come up. Growth isn’t linear, a fact I’m always reminded of during my luteal phase.
For more on this concept, my favorite book to recommend is What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo.
My body has the blessing and curse of being deeply psychosomatically in tune. Some of my earliest symptoms of anxiety and shame are gastrointestinal issues, nausea, and vomiting. It’s taken years of coping, digging, and learning to live with the effects my mental state and trauma have had on my body. I’ll be writing more on this soon.
Dissociation is the base of three different disorders itself, but it’s also a common symptom of many mental health disorders, including complex PTSD. In addition, late-diagnosed neurodivergent individuals commonly experience c-PTSD symptoms from needing to acclimate and survive a world they didn’t understand without guidance. The scientific boundaries of where one disorder may stop and the other may begin is still murky, but this was a portion of my own experience.
As someone who has hormonal fluctuations, the reasoning behind pain during childbirth and period discomfort using Eve infuriates me.
Mary Magdeline’s identity as a prostitute was all due to a papal homily in 591. Pope Gregory the Great stated that she and two other women in the bible (Luke’s unnamed sister and Mary of Bethany, the prostitute in question) were one in the same. The Catholic Church simply let girls like me grow up thinking she was one (and I learned almost nothing about Mary of Bethany, who was). Of course, it fit their narrative—God helps you release all those sinful sexual indulgences, so why bother correcting anyone?
There are multiple reasons why the Catholic Church is home to some of the most pedophiles. Shame gives abuse ample room to fester.
I have always struggled with the volume of my voice, so this is a large piece of that shame for me—being afraid if I’m too loud that others will hear me and judge me for what I’ve said or sounds I’ve made. This has taken years to outgrow in order to stim, sing, and speak to my heart’s delight.
The inherent shame of being a woman, mostly.
The priest I grew up with for my pre-teen years to high school was incredibly kindhearted and supportive, for what it was worth. He fostered a love of music, and he carried an appreciation for theatre that made me trust him as an adult. I believe he took that responsibility with serious respect. But the shame aspect was still beneath the nurturing relationship I had with him based on who he was to me.
As a kid, I used plastic toolsets (my dad was a contractor). But as an adult, I need something different to complete my DIY projects. Namely, a functional metal screwdriver. We outgrow the tools that no longer serve us, and that’s okay to recognize.
There are four photos I did with Jarid in the link listed, but the entire collection is gorgeous (as is the rest of his work). This is the first time I’ve posted them publicly, so talk about putting my de-shaming money where my mouth is!
Including meeting one of my mentors, Dirty Lola, who has just been featured in her second sex education textbook!
This one began with a lot of fun—I’d been nose-deep in Daisy Jones and the Six (both the book and the newly released show). I’d always loved epistolary novels, so I decided to start interviewing myself 50 years in the future. It was a wonderful experience of manifestation combined with gaining perspective on situations that were far too scalding to touch from close up. I’ll be sharing this as a writing exercise soon.
When these books first came out when I was in high school, I got a hold of a copy from a friend and hid it under my bed like old-school porn.
There’s a conversation being had on this trend of cover styles that I’ll most likely cover in another article soon. But here’s some commentary connecting it to the fluctuations in YA (where the style may have been pulled from).