How writing an erotic novel transformed my sex life

“Telling people I was writing an erotic novel was a great icebreaker. Suddenly, I was talking with strangers about sex, kinks and the writing process.”

It started out as a joke. A coworker lent me a copy of her favourite book. I knew immediately it wasn’t my kind of novel – the swirly, cursive text alluded to subject matter much different from my usual Penguin Classic – but of course, I read it anyway. I’m a people pleaser.

I’d never read an erotic novel before and to be honest with you, it was terrible. There was a lot of ‘unsheathing’ of ‘manhood’, weird hyper-masculine dominance and ‘soft folds of skin’ (yuck).

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“I can write a better book than this,” I told my mum. “Then do it,” she said. Never one to back down from a challenge, I opened up a new Google Doc and started the first draft of Lake Pleasure. Little did I know that the project would take up two years of my life, reroute my career and reform my relationship with sex altogether.

Here’s the summary of Lake Pleasure, because I know you’re dying to hear it. “After a turbulent breakup, Safia decides to spend the summer in her hometown in upstate New York to get away from the hustle and bustle and focus on her art. When her childhood friend Jerome returns after a decade of disappearance, her curiosity is peaked. Will his dark past come back to haunt him or is their connection stronger than all of the drama?”

I went hard (much like Jerome). There was drug smuggling, secret wives, blackmail, bicurious exploration, a gay bell boy named Mario and a whole lot of sex. My only real plan was to make the ratio 50/50 plot to sex. I figured it would make the writing process easier as sex is pretty formulaic.

I worked on it in the in-between hours. Because the book was supposed to be bad, there was no pressure on the writing process, so it quickly became one of my favourite things to do.

It felt like playing The Sims – I had created these characters and I could do whatever I wanted to them, no matter how dumb or perverse. Plus, my friends all loved it. We’d have reading nights when I finished a new chapter, drinking wine and doing our best French accent (Jerome is French).

What I didn’t realise was how much I’d have to think about sex in graphic, gruesome detail. When writing in cafes, I’d make sure no one could see my laptop screen. I didn’t want to disturb anyone’s morning coffee with aggressive finger-banging.

Because I had tasked myself with writing so many sex scenes, I had to get creative with my use of language, positions, props and locations. This meant I spent a lot of time considering what I find hot as well as what I find off-putting.

As my writing got kinkier and more fantastical, I started to realise the appeal of some of the more experimental subject matter. The process of writing the novel helped me learn more about my own interests, which translated directly to my IRL sex life.

It also led to some very illuminating conversations. For a while, writing was the only constant in my life – I’d dropped out of university, was backpacking through Europe and finally finished it during the pandemic lockdowns.

Telling people I was writing an erotic novel was a great icebreaker. Suddenly, I was talking with strangers about sex, kinks and the writing process, which was a lot more interesting than the usual hostel small talk.

And I’m sure it made me seem quite creative and open-minded. I sent the draft to one guy I had hooked up with in Munich and I’m pretty sure he implemented some of the tricks he read when we met up in Morocco. You have to teach them, right?

When I finally finished, I felt this weird emptiness. I had written a 45,000-word sex book that no one was going to read. I sent it to a few publishers, but unfortunately for me, the golden era of erotica was over and most had gone out of business. The joke was over and I was the only one laughing.

But it’s about the journey rather than the destination, as they say. I figured out I liked writing, so I switched my degree to journalism, which I now do for a job (hi!). I’m thinking of writing a non-erotic novel one day.

I won’t say I have a newfound respect for erotica because I don’t – I’ve still only read one. But no matter how silly and pointless the end result is, I think there’s beauty in creating for creativity’s sake.

You can read Lake Pleasure, Ferrari St Germain’s erotic fiction novel, here.