I’ve been drafting this article for weeks now.1 It’s been a thorn in my side every time I talk about it, and whenever I’ve attempted to put digital pen to paper, my internal critic turned its eyes to the news and drowned in existential hopelessness instead.2 I remained stuck in disconnection.
Today’s article is about why that’s exactly what capitalistic systems built on racism, sexism, classism, ablism, and power want.
It’s also about how to use smut and storytelling as a vehicle to snap the hell out of it.
When we ourselves are gone, the stories we told others are what live on. They connect us, and they’re the fuel keeping our fire burning until we get to our own bittersweet end. When faced with utter disaster ahead, when bleeding and sobbing into the floor, that connection is what keeps us going.
It reminds us that we are alive.
Connection is at the base of sexuality; it brings us closer to ourselves as well as others. By sharing that fire with others, often through the art of storytelling, we remember the desire to feel and why it’s pivotal to our existance.
When I say, “Smut is a tool of resistance,” this is why: it has the capacity to ground us in the reality that we are alive and that our stories will live on. It’s not just about the monster smut or the hottest open-door romance on Amazon. It’s deeply knowing our own stories and sharing our experiences to use them as avenues for human understanding.
In this article, I’ll be going over how storytelling and connection can be tools of resistance by using them to process your experiences, to speak out and educate, and to find community. I’ll also be giving some action steps for individuals who need more of a roadmap for how to keep going in this messy hellscape we’re in.
Personal Safety in Expression
When it feels like I can do nothing, I can write. When I’m cornered, I can write. I have the ability to explore, to escape, to discover, to teach, and to learn with nothing but a pen and paper or the closest electronic device I can find. No matter the uphill battle I face, no one will ever be able to stop me from writing my thoughts and bringing my ideas into reality as I script them.3
In the darkest moments of my life, I’ve always had a secret journal, document, or diary. A place where I’ve drafted the deepest desires and fears I carry with me beneath the surface. I write them down, separating myself from them, in order to relieve my shoulders of some of that burden so I can keep moving.
To process through storytelling is to look the urge to numb in the eye, staring it down as you sketch its silhouette.
When I was a pre-teen, my story was in a spiral-bound notebook of self-insert fanfiction I shared with my best friend featuring our favorite band. We started it at a sleepover and regularly traded custody of the notebook on weekends. As we lived in different zip codes, we eventually transferred the process to an emailed Word document. In it, we explored the fantasy of feeling wanted by the peers around us, “chosen” by someone we idolized. We even toyed with our real-life dynamics and family members in a way that was controlled and cathartic.4 We talked to each other about it and giggled over what we would do next without a creative ceiling. Our stories became so extensive that some portions were moved to an “outtakes” page, mainly used for inside jokes and out-of-canon laughter.5
We felt safe in that story, and I used that experience as a touchstone for my relationship with writing and catharsis as an adult. The urge only became stronger as sexuality took a more starring role in my life, leading me to complete longer stories exploring sex and gender. I wrote my first manuscript draft in 2019, a lesbian historical fantasy fiction inspired by P.T. Barnum and The Greatest Showman. I was newly out of the closet and in my first long-term relationship, and I wanted a place to safely explore my queerness and the magic that comes with first love.
That safe exploration through storytelling is the link that writing has always provided to my life. It’s also how I started building the ideas behind Smut Ed and my most recent manuscript.
Tldr: Writing cathartically connects you with your deepest self.
Getting Into Your Body
Smut and storytelling are tools that can get you in touch with your body, ground you in your senses, and help process your experiences and connections with others. Erotic stories have the added bonus of often inspiring direct connection with the body and grounding you, connecting to the text directly.
What does this look like in practice?
While reading a book you’re really enjoying, are there points you gasp, you cry, you grip the pages or your Kindle tighter, desperate to get to the next page?
Maybe a really spicy book has inspired you to explore your own pleasure at the same time, bringing the imaginative into the physical.6
Writing a book is even stronger of a physical connection. You’re using the imagination to bring characters, places, smells, sensations, experiences, fears, and pleasures into the physical world. Then it’s being consumed and grounded by all the readers who enjoy the book. That’s bringing the story into the physical on an exponential scale.
Clearly, stories, especially sexual stories, can bring you into your body. They ground you in who you are, both in relation to the world and other people as well as to yourself. They’re a way to find presence, to fully feel everything you’re physically experiencing, if you give it the chance to do so.
Put another pin in that. Let’s keep going.
Pleasure and Pain, Refusing to Be Silenced
As the war machine keeps turning, it becomes clearer that our current reality is one filled with sadness and suffering. We’ve been watching children and families be ripped apart and killed in places like Gaza as well as the United States, and hateful violence tints every news story on our feeds. We are in times that are not unprecedented, but they are indeed horrific and traumatic.
The systems around us, specifically capitalistic ones, thrive on our ability to detach from ourselves. This is the disconnect I mentioned earlier. Individuals craving power are able to do so in societies that lack self-awareness, which is part of the base the idea of seeking class consciousness.
Our attention spans are the newest brand of digestible colonization, and numbing through the difficulty our current crises are part of why industries like online gambling and cannabis are also thriving. The economy depends on you ignoring how exhausted you are, or at least distracting you with things you want to push you through that exhaustion. It’s a well-oiled machine, and to truly be in connection with yourself is antithetical to the digestion of the ouroboros.
Writing cathartically connects you with your deepest self and grounds you into presence, however painful it may be.
Even just the simple act of remaining present in yourself and your experience is an act of resistance. Use it as fuel to keep your ball rolling.
Pleasure in Opposition to Fear
In Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are, she describes how fear presents itself in the body in terms of our nervous systems. Capitalism keeps your body in fight or flight, locking your nervous system with fear and scarcity in order to make you easier to control.
Nagoski looks at research by Erick Janssen and John Bancroft at the Kinsey Institute in the late 90s regarding the dual control model of sexual response. The model describes our central nervous system (brains and spinal cords) as made up of a series of partnerships of accelerators and brakes—like the pairing of your sympathetic nervous system ("accelerator") and parasympathetic nervous system ("brakes"). The Sexual Excitation System (SES) and Sexual Inhibition System (SIS) come into effect when "almost everything is perceived as a potential threat," such as when your brain is in a consistently stressed state.
"More than half of women report that stress, depression, and anxiety decrease their interest in sex; they also reduce sexual arousal and can interfere with orgasm. Chronic stress also disrupts the menstrual cycle, decreases fertility and lactation, and increases miscarriage, as well as reducing genital response and increasing both distractibility and pain with sex. When there's too much happening, the brain starts to triage, prioritizing, simplifying, and even ignoring some things. If you can't breathe, then it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've eaten, you will not feel hungry."
Emily Nagoski, Come as You Are
The status quo (capitalism) likes it when we’re stressed, angry, and exhausted, because that means we’re too overwhelmed to give much thought to the situation we’re in. If you’re struggling to survive every day, you don’t have time to question the fairness of the whole arrangement, or what any realistic alternatives might be.
This conversation of consistent states of stress becomes heavier when considering that our bodies are one of the only things we have control over, especially in a growing authoritarian state. That control is one of the first things governments seeking power will hit, which is why you see things like Roe v. Wade overturns and attempts at overturning Obergefell v. Hodges with the current administration. Vulnerable populations become more so when the 1% is taking shots, and these communities are also ones often societally hit with ostracizing racism and bigotry.
For marginalized people, our pleasure shouts “I see your violence, but you do not get to take THIS from me. My pleasure is mine, and mine alone. I will revel in it, defying your crusade to strip me of any joy. I am in charge now.
So capitalism exists in direct opposition to pleasure, making it the perfect point for individual resistance. Seeking freedom through pleasure and sexuality has always been a pillar of revolution. In 2025, it looks like that freedom is being questioned all over again, so take root in your pleasure and ground yourself in it.
Smut as Education
There’s a reason why book bans have flourished over the past few years. People can learn a lot from the books they read, whether that’s direct information from textbooks or reading the experience of someone wildly different than them in a fiction novel.
Especially concerning sexual education, there are so many aspects of storytelling that can be used as vehicles for education and representation. And seeing as it’s borderline irresponsible relying on our current public education system to do the heavy lifting at this point, storytelling is one way we can take the reins and start walking the walk we expect our children to understand.
Stronger Together
As I mentioned above, the systems we’re trudging through thrive on our sense of disconnection to yourself and others. Capitalism, hatred, power, all those things that keep us on the hamster wheel of suffering—they want you to believe you’re alone. But I promise, that is absolutely not the case.
One of the best parts of our internet age is our ability to find endless amounts of people from all across the globe and talk to them. There are various communities on every social media network out there covering everything kink, sexuality, and smut fiction. I traverse through them myself, and perhaps you initially found me on one! Whether you’re interested in birdwatching or being chased in the woods by a sexy man in a mask, there is a group of people out there just like you. Nothing about you is too weird, too broken, too kinky.
You can trust me on that one.
No matter how vanilla or deliciously twisted you might think you are, someone else is ready to back you up.7 Now you just need to discover them. My location preferences for finding like-minded kinksters and smut lovers are Facebook (surprising) and the BDSM/fetish social network, Fetlife (less surprising). Neither are for the faint of heart, but with patience and an ability to sift through a lot of useless muck, they’re gardens of smutty Eden.
Facebook is home to numerous private and public groups for every topic and community one could imagine. Spicier kink groups mainly exist by flying under the censorship radar, so keep in mind it may take digging, personal recommendation, and strict rule-answering to make it to the communities that work for you. Great places to start are wider-scope groups (podcasts, video games, hobbies, locations, etc.) and interacting organically to find subsections and individuals you flow well with in conversation.
Fetlife, on the other hand, is a social network dedicated to the kink/alternative lifestyle scene. It’s mainly used by people who actively practice or seek out kink and BDSM in their life (as well as ethical nonmonogamy), and there are a plethora of events in whatever area you may be in listed on their catalogue. It’s often more populated in city areas, but there are also online groups available. You may even gain the confidence to host your own event, such as a social or munch (a safe-for-work, vanilla event for kinky or ethically nonmonogamous people). Public places like food courts, diners, and parks are great for events like these, and you can scroll through other listings for inspiration on rules and etiquette. Always be safe when meeting individuals from online, and always practice considerate and consensually appropriate behavior regarding how you present in public.8
Action Steps
We’ve talked a lot about how smut and sexual erotica can be used as a pillar of resistance in theory, but let’s give some action steps for how it can realistically be brought into practice.
As discussed above, finding community is a great step to building strength in resistance. It’s much easier to keep standing up for what you believe is right when there are others standing with you. Whether it’s other writers, other kinksters and people to play with, or voices of people educating about the importance of sexual safety and wellness, consent, boundaries, and sex-positivity, continue following and supporting individuals who inspire you and push you to keep going.
Another way to support community is by championing your local library and school systems. Vote for and help fund organizations that lift up education and community care. Libraries are often some of the first spaces hit by economic downturns and federal cuts in funding, and we already chatted about how harmful book bans can be. But the more we support the written word, in any capacity (whether sexual or otherwise) the easier it will be to maintain that supportive communal space.
Aside from finding other like-minded individuals to build your network of support, do what you can to get yourself educated on current events and how you can get actively involved in a way that feels safe for you. This can be voting in local elections, attending local rallies, and donating to worthwhile causes9.
The Power in Smut
I don’t think that stories about people getting pleasure will fix things. Seeing seeing innocent families torn apart and bombed, seeing nonverbal autistic teens like Victor Perez shot by police multiple times before any semblance of mediation was attempted…
Books promoting sex positivity and consent will never bring any of those people back.
But there’s a chance that by creating a world that is less judgmental, that is more open to learning about themselves and others in ways that change them for the better, that ideas like empathy can be spread. That story can be used as a bridge to connection, with yourself and with others around you.
Smut won’t fix things. But it just might make the interim between peace and suffering a bit more bearable. Don’t let that fire go out—it’s what will keep us running.
I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself in its creation, namely, to ensure that my voice on this topic is well-educated and intentionally spoken. I also want it to serve the best interest of my current readers as well as individuals who might be floundering and seeking new resources.
Months, to be more accurate.
My inner critic has been demanding evidence for why I have any authority to speak on topics this vast or serious. What right do I have to show people how to resist when I’m barely keeping afloat myself?
To absolutely no one’s surprise, my writing is also a dedication to my own accountability and messages I also need to hear at times.
This belief is how I know I’m meant to be a writer, rather than just someone who writes.
We mainly rewrote interactions we had to better suit our emotions, or we pretended to be bolder and more assertive. There was also plenty of sibling and religion processing happening, but that’s a different blog post.
To call anything in our Jonas Brothers Self-Insert Fiction “canon” is the funniest thing in the world to me, but it works for this anecdote.
My personal favorite way to comfortably read for any one-handed activity (this could be spicy or just eating dinner) is using my Kindle’s remote clicker from Amazon and a little gooseneck holder!
This is, of course, a sharp double-edged sword. There are a lot of people out there with ideas that are incredibly dangerous to those around them. People like that have figured out this thing on connection too, and that’s how hate-groups can grow.
For more information regarding munches and etiquette for first timers, check out this post by Ms Morgan Thorne.
Palestinian relief funds, bail-funds, and local food pantries are great places to start donating.