Are you ‘out’ as an erotic author?

[JennaMonroe]

Do your friends and family know you write on Lit? Or is that something you just don’t talk about?
There are a couple of people in my life that know but it doesn’t come up in conversation much. The other day my friend mentioned that she was having a pure romance party (sex toys if you’re not aware) and she didn’t send me an invitation because she didn’t think I’d be into that!! I literally laughed. Apparently I come across as prude?!

 

[SamScribble]

There are more than a few of my friends and family that know I occasionally write erotica. However, I suspect that there are even more who would have trouble believing that an old bastard like me would even know what a dirty story was.

 

[NotWise]

Do your friends and family know you write on Lit? Or is that something you just don’t talk about?
There are a couple of people in my life that know but it doesn’t come up in conversation much. The other day my friend mentioned that she was having a pure romance party (sex toys if you’re not aware) and she didn’t send me an invitation because she didn’t think I’d be into that!! I literally laughed. Apparently I come across as prude?!

Maybe you need to work on that image. I'm not sure how to do that.

My wife knows, but no-one else.

I would let my (grown) kids read some of the stuff I've written. I have a daughter and a son-in-law who are professional artists and illustrators, and it's a personal fantasy of mine that either of them would illustrate "The Third Ring."

 

[TxRad]

I tell everyone I write porn. Most give me a look like, yeah, right, shake their heads, and walk away muttering about me being a crazy old coot. Hiding in plain sight.

 

[_Lynn_]

Do your friends and family know you write on Lit? Or is that something you just don’t talk about?

Yes, they know I often write erotica and I've given many of them the link to my Lit page.

 

[JennaMonroe]

I tell everyone I write porn. Most give me a look like, yeah, right, shake their heads, and walk away muttering about me being a crazy old coot. Hiding in plain sight.

Lol if they only knew... how many stories do you have here? Are you the most prolific writer on this site?

 

[miniwritessmut]

It's not something I hide, but most people don't give a shit. Although it was fun telling the 'rents - I think they're just happy I'm doing something I enjoy.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Do your friends and family know you write on Lit? Or is that something you just don’t talk about? ....

Apparently I come across as prude?!

Absolutely no-one I know except for my partner knows I write on LIT and I keep it that way. I have friends who know I write, but what they see is more mainstream romance / action.

Prude? LOL. Yes, where I live now, I have a fairly conservative image. I keep that one up too

 

[TxRad]

Lol if they only knew... how many stories do you have here? Are you the most prolific writer on this site?

235 stories posted here, 70% have red H's and there are 9 blue W's in the mix. There are over twice that many unfinished on my hard drive. As for most prolific, I'm nowhere close.

 

[Adder4321]

Most people know that I'm an author, but I've never told them exactly what I write.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Absolutely not. My laptop is a portal between two completely different worlds which cannot exist together.

Ditto.

 

[YDB95]

A lot of my online-only friends know. Back when I first started writing here, I was heavily involved in a sex-discussion group on Facebook. This was an outgrowth of an earlier online community where most of us had known each other for several years, although we mostly hadn't met each other in real life. After entering my first contest (Winter 2011), I posted in that group that I'd just entered an erotic Christmas stories contest, and of course the other members of the group wanted to read my entry. Feeling shy about it, I posted a link to the contest page and said if anyone could guess which one was mine, I'd come clean about it.

The very first guess anyone made was correct, and two others chimed in immediately afterward to say it was their guess, too. (It was A Rose for Christmas.) The friend who had nailed it explained to me that I have an extremely distinctive writing style. I had no idea I did, but I guess she was right.

A few of my real-life friends know. I'm open about it if the topic comes up and I sense that they'd be interested, or at least not weirded out. But I am careful about whom I tell. My family certainly doesn't know - but my wife does; she's the one who introduced me to Lit in the first place.

 

[ChloeTzang]

A lot of my online-only friends know. ....

Well, I guess I could say I have two lives. One on here that I enjoy a lot, and where I have a lot of "on-line" friends, and then there's the "physical me" - and the two never intersect and I take great care that they don't.

I'd hate for anyone I actually know in person other than my partner to read my stories and get that insight deep into my little fantasies and my oh so weird at times imagination. Maybe that's just me being too timid but I do think you have to be so careful with these things.

The sense of humor is the same tho

 

[MelissaBaby]

It's bit complicated for me, because I wrote what amounts to a novelization of my own life experiences.So, while I don't mind if people know that what I write has erotic elements, I don't necessarily want everyone I know to read about some of the things I've gone through.

I would love to have my mother read it, as she is in many ways the heroine of the story. But I'd prefer she not read about, oh let's see, blowing a stranger in a highway rest area, or having sex in a prison mop closet. Maybe I could show her an edited version...

My boyfriend was wary of the two chapters in which he is a character, but now he likes to brag that they are the chapters that got the highest ratings.

 

[lovecraft68]

Partially. I have two pen names so one I'll 'own' but the one that has mostly incest e-books I don't say anything about for obvious reasons.

My wife tells people more than I do because she likes the reaction which is generally 'wow good for you." I've found a lot of women think a man who can write erotica is sexy because it shows we think more about sex and that its more than just 'sticking it in' of course that depends on the stories and the writer.

The reaction I like is the insecure men who if my wife says it in mixed company roll their eyes or are like 'whatever' 'big deal' or some variation of being feminine because my work appeals to women.

I only responded to something like that once because the guy had been an obnoxious ass all night. I shrugged and said "Not my fault my words can get your wife off better than you can."

This ladies and gentlemen is why I now have a firm four drink limit at social gatherings.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Maybe that's just me being too timid but I do think you have to be so careful with these things.

The sense of humor is the same tho

Ring ring. Ring ring.

"Hi dad, how are you?"

"Just wondering, honey. Your mom found these stories on Literotica, something like that, written by a Chinese American girl. She said this girl sounded very familiar... It's not... No, it couldn't be. Sorry honey, I don't know what I was thinking."

Chloe looked across at Steve. "I've just had an idea for a story..."

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

Are you kidding? I'm not even sure most of the people in the AH realize I write erotica.

Honestly though, my spouse is the only person I have told.

 

[Wyatt]

My best friend knows. He has read them all. They are based on people he knows or he was part of the real backstory. He loves them. He is in two of the stories as he was in the real events.

 

[PuckIt]

My wife did the editing for me on "Heatstroked" just a month before she passed. (I take full blame for anything that snuck in after the last she looked at it. "Desert" instead of "dessert" for example.) Before she passed, it was pretty well just her and one gal that was a friend of ours who reads non-human gay male stuff so thought mine was pretty tame, almost boring.

After my wife passed, I find I really just don't give a shit. Kids know. Sister and stepsisters know. Father knows. Half of the plethora of nieces and nephews know. Neighbors know. Landlord knows. The people tending the shop where I buy groceries know.

Hell, I'll be standing in the tobacco shop and the little gal (who is in her late twenties but looks about fourteen to me) behind the counter will ask me how I'm doing.

"Eh, you know. Kind of stuck on the scene I'm writing where the guy goes down on the gal for three hours while she's tied to the bed. So how are you doing?"

Guy in line behind me: "I'm sorry. Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Hmm? Well, that depends. Do you think I said I'm writing a story where the guy ties the gal down to the bed and uses his tongue between her thighs for three hours?"

*pause to reset brain processing. variable length that typically seems to correspond to the thickness of the neck*

"Man! There ain't no way a dude is going to lick some pussy for three hours!"

Slow smile. "If you say so." Wink at gal behind counter. "Y'all have a good day now."

Exit scene. Try to figure out how I can use what just happened in one of my cheesy porno stories and make it seem believable during the hour long mile and a half walk home on my cane.

(Yes, in fact, I did once about twenty... seven(?) years ago. A long ago girlfriend who had some trouble climaxing with me (or anyone) in the room and I was trying to help her past what we had worked out was a mental block after I stumbled across something in the sex pages of a psychology journal. )

Anyway, yeah. Pretty much anyone who makes the mistake of talking to me for any length of time is gonna find out. I write porn and I don't give a shit what you think about it. Hell, I'll write out the web address and tell you to "rock the vote."

(No clue if any of them have actually READ any of my stuff other than my daughter-in-law however.)

 

[Carnevil9]

I tell everyone I write porn. Most give me a look like, yeah, right, shake their heads, and walk away muttering about me being a crazy old coot. Hiding in plain sight.

The best way to lie is to tell the truth, but make it sound like a lie!

Nobody knows that I write for Lit. Everyone I know knows that I write (mostly horror and crime) and publish under my real name. But this little seamy side of my activities is a complete secret from anyone who knows me.

 

[KCWinter]

For several years, I had somewhat of a career writing erotic romance, and had a lot of novels, novellas, and short stories published (under a different name) by various publishing companies. I was proud of that, because hey, published author, so I told most of the people I knew, including family. Hubby's family raised a few eyebrows, but other than them and a couple of uber-religious "friends" who decided I wasn't the "right" kind of person to talk to anymore, I got positive reactions. Even my kids (who are now adults) know what I wrote.

Most of them, though, don't know I started by posting stories on Literotica or that I've started doing so again. The only people still in my life who know I write stuff that's on Lit are my husband and my two Doms, one of whom enjoys challenging me to write things. (And none of them actually *read* anything I write...)

It isn't that I'm hiding it from anyone else; it just hasn't been relevant.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Uh...yeah. I even have business cards I hand out when people ask what I do. The card doesn't tell them, but if they go to my website they find out quick enough.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Most of my family and close friends are aware that I write erotica, though I haven't pointed them at the site.

 

[ZeroDarkDirty]

My wife knows, because I write for and about her. My friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, church choir, bartender, and assorted hooligans don’t. I’m strictly an amateur doing this for thrills (mine and my sweet slutty wife’s) and treat it as part of our sex life: just between us and whichever anonymous strangers we meet in the club.

 

[MindsMirror]

We told our brother and sister respectively. -MM