Many people love reading erotica. Instead of its movie counterparts, erotica gives you the ability to imagine all of the details for yourself. (How many times has a book been adapted to a movie and you find yourself annoyed that the on-screen characters don’t look like how you imagined them from the books?)
This flexibility allows you to really imagine yourself in the action – or to replace the characters in the stories with people you’d find sexually attractive. Also, with some of the laws out there, some things are hard to find in video format – such as fisting or more hard-core BDSM. Plus, some pleasurable thoughts and feelings can’t be communicated through video the way it can through text. After all, knowing a character’s inner thoughts about how tight it feels has a much more potent effect than the cheesy dialogue that’s found in many pornographic movies.
For those reasons and more, some people just prefer erotica over any other type of erotic material – and that’s totally great! But how do you go about finding good erotica? There’s a ton of erotica out on the internet, but with the “anyone can publish” mentality that the internet provides, many of those may have questionable content and even-more-questionable writing and comprehension skills.
First off, I always suggest you look for paper books of erotica (or e-books; whatever floats your boat) Whether you love anal sex or are looking for real dogging, there are a multitude of erotic novels and erotic short story collections to suit your fancy. (Unless that’s your type of fancy, most people tend to avoid the Letters to Penthouse books, but some people swear by them). Seek out different publishers as well as different authors in the beginning. (Starting with the publisher Cleis Press is always a good place to start, and they’re available is most bookstores – though Cleis Press focuses on more mainstream sexuality and doesn’t do too much hardcore fetish books). Since published books require stages of editing, usually only some of the best writing skills and stories tend to make it through to give you a better chance of falling in love with something. By trying different books and authors, you’ll give yourself the chance to find ones that you really love.
Since published books have some limitations (they cost money and they’re limited in most fetish material), you may want to go online. Searching for erotica online is a mindfield of dangers – again, because anyone, anywhere, can publish anything they want. I recommend you try to avoid using search engines to find your stories. Instead, find a large erotica site (Literotica is one of the largest), and sort through erotica that way. See, if you go through Google, you may search for “hot sex story”, but you might end up on a hot sex story…about sex with a goat. Which might end up killing your buzz pretty quickly. Large erotic literature sites tend to have “warnings” about fetish content – or at the very least, they usually at least have an easily-read, short description about the story to allow you to skip it if you want.
Once you’ve found some erotica you like (whether on the internet or in a published book), stick with that author as long as you can. Most people tend to write (or, in the case of an editor, tend to select and publish) things that they find arousing. So when you find their writing to be arousing, it’s likely that you share possible sexual preferences. Sticking with their writing is more likely to provide a good fit for you. But what happens after you run out of their writing? Well, most websites allow author profiles to “favorite” or “like” other authors or stories. Check out that author’s faves. If you’re reading a book, most erotic authors or editors tend to have comprehensive websites, so find their website and look to see what the authors are reading and enjoying lately.
Depending on your thoughts on your favorite television, video game, and book characters, you may want to try looking into usually-forgotten fan fiction. Multiple sites cater to R-rated fan fiction that will have those delicious, never-explored-in-the-shows sexual encounters you wanted to see. Like the previous erotica, when you find an author that portrays the characters and the sex well, try to stick with their material.
The biggest thing about finding good erotica is having an open mind and being willing to try new things. You’ll never know when you’ll be finding your favorite author, so it’s vital to try new types of writing – even if you’ll stick with that writer once you fall in love with their stuff. I, personally, would recommend starting off with author Violet Blue (my favorite!), Rachel Kramer Bussel, or Alison Tyler. All three edit wonderful erotica collections that will give you exposure to multiple authors all at once.
Updated: September 2023.
Inspiration for this article came from the Come Dogging site.
