SEXY MUSINGS | CONSENT | BOUNDARIES | ART | CULTURE | ONLINE LIFE

Breaking news (apparently): Smut writers have boundaries too

Everyone should know this, but here we are

I don’t know what it is with people (mostly men, but we all knew that) and their complete inability to separate content from creator.

Just because someone writes about a filthy anal gangbang does not mean he or she or they (mostly women, but we all knew that) wants to have one in real life, let alone with you, Internet Stranger.

Just because a writer might share their fantasy (and the best erotica is the writer’s deep, personal fantasy) doesn’t mean they are picturing you fulfilling it, @ilovesexyfeet69.

And just because someone writes smut does not mean they’ve thrown their online door wide open to flirting, teasing, dick pics, or a story featuring them. Don’t invade their virtual home like a criminal. And don’t act like a violent, abusive shithead when the door is slammed in your face for being a perv.

This, it should go without saying, applies to everyone, whether they write smut, have an OnlyFans, do sexy audios, post nudes, or anything else they choose to do online. Everyone. Because people are not sex objects (this apparently also needs to be said to ostensibly functional adults).

But let’s focus on sexual creatives, since there seems to be the gross idea that they want creeps and would-be doms to send them pictures of their junk and have strangers tell them just what they would to them. And because, even worse, it seems like there’s this other idea that sexual creatives deserve it whether they want it or not.

(This should also go without saying, but because apparently there’s a lot of arrested development and a complete lack of shame online: DO NOT TELL STRANGERS THE SEX ACTS YOU WANT TO PERFORM ON OR WITH THEM)

It’s really disgusting that so much of this behaviour is coming from other sexual creatives. You know the difference between art and real life better than most people, don’t you? And why that difference is so important. Why don’t you act like it? We teach toddlers to keep their hands to themselves. Why do adults need to be told to keep their skeeze to themselves?

When you are enjoying the sexy corners of the Internet, imagine there’s a mask between you and favourite content creators; the ones for CPR with the one-way valves they used to have in first aid kits. The rescuer (that’s the creative) can give breaths; the valve prevents backflow from the victim (that’s you, @moodyssunglasses69) to the rescuer.

Smut writers and other content creators are giving you the breaths. Be grateful, by all means. Leave a comment or review (or claps on Medium), support their Patreon or Ko-Fi or Throne. Buy their books or a subscription to OF or Substack.

And then stop. Fucking STOP.

The content creators are vulnerable like everyone else on the Internet, and very often much more so. A very dear friend has observed that the world of sexual content is fraught with power dynamics, and is sensitive to even the slightest degree of miscommunication. Like money, sex is powerful and dangerous.

So you need to imagine the mask is there. You need to not breathe back your fantasies, your inappropriate thoughts, your harassment, or your abuse. Or even your light-hearted teasing or jokes. Your humour is someone else’s horror.

You are not special. You are a stranger. Remember that. Be a normal fucking human. Treat people with respect. That they write about gangbangs and/or participate in them does not remove their right to respect and decency. And it doesn’t remove your obligation to provide it.

And for Christ’s sake, don’t encourage others to do it either, like the cruel, unfeeling, adrenaline-hyped mob cheering on the bully in the locker room giving the new kid a wedgie. Don’t hide them. Don’t make excuses for them. Don’t wave their transgressions away. You’re not God and you’re not in a position to offer absolution.

Your financial or other support of a sexual creative entitles you to sweet fuck all. You deserve no more than a thank you for your appreciation of their art.

Some of these creatives do welcome more personal and even sexual engagement. How do you know which they are? They will tell you. Or you can ask, respectfully. Try respect. Try decency. Maybe even try a hello before you bleat “I WANT TO LICK YOUR PUSSY UNTIL MY TONGUE FALLS OFF.” At least pretend you’re not pond scum (looking at you, @iconvertlezzies69).

To echo Hank Dolworth, if you can’t pretend the mask is there and act as if you’re not a common peeping tom or an ass-grabbing office boss or an even worse goddamn sex offender, smut writers and other sexual creatives will deploy the mask themselves: on social media, it’s the block. That is, they will continue to create (because why shouldn’t they, fuck you) but you won’t be able to poison them.

If you mock the block, you are announcing to the world “this person is silly for having boundaries” and you are perpetuating a lethal lie. You are saying, quite literally, “they asked for it.” That puts you, @validatemeplease69, on the same subterranean moral plane as the pond scum. There is no fucking excuse for it, especially here at the end of the year 2023.

Our smut, our pics, our audios, our videos — that’s our art. You don’t get to invite yourself over to Stephen King’s house just because you’re a huge fan of The Stand. And you don’t get to invite yourself over to ours, either, just because you enjoyed “My Daddy Dom Fucked Me Like a Whore.”

Not even the filthy-minded deserve filthy treatment.