When did writing erotica begin, Phoebe?
I started writing erotica during high school. It was an outlet, a way to explore desires that clashed with the quaint, conservative town where I grew up. Since everyone in the city knew everyone’s business and I differed from those around me, especially my religiously fanatical mother, I realized I should probably keep my thoughts to myself, if I didn’t want to get my ass-kicked every day and to be honest I wanted my mother to stop calling the exorcist to have the demons expelled from my sinful mind. So, I traded my gender-bending experiments and my submissive nature in for a macho skin and a pen. Yep! Back then, we had pens and paper, no computers.
So, I bought a lined journal, one of those marble journals, and cut my mattress open to hide it from prying eyes. When I wrote my first story, my first story of the way I wanted to have sex, I’d never watched porn, never heard of the BDSM community or limits or any of the rituals and practices and wrote. I filled my journal. Words became a way to live my life and let who I was spill out, raw and honest.
When I enlisted, I turned to my trusty pen and paper while living the lies society had shackled me with, and I wrote more erotica. I lived on those pages like I wanted, and it kept me from exploding. I wrote secretly wherever I could, hidden in my shroud of machismo, crafting tales of forbidden lusts that would have made 50 Shades look like child’s play. Oh, the joys of letting my characters run. But my characters weren’t just characters, they were me long before I played.
Phoebe, what is important to you when writing erotica?
As I navigated through life’s intimate encounters, I realized that true pleasure doesn’t merely stem from connecting body parts. It’s not just about inserting part A into slot B and hoping for fireworks—oh, the sheer absurdity of it all! Reliving a three-minute porn clip wasn’t all that and believe me I’ve been through those anonymous three-minute encounters. But sorry, you can’t unwrap the thrill in the dance of dominance and submission, the tango of power dynamics that reigns supreme with me in three minutes. Through trial and error, I learned that the real fun isn’t in the mechanics but in the intricate interplay. Without the chase, sex was boring, mechanical. Might as well masturbate. So, when I write erotica, I enjoy writing about the build-up, the give and take of submission and dominance as much as the sex. Most times, I’m more aroused by that than the actual sex act. A cold shower is often necessary before I get to the juicy stuff.
So, though many of my stories push the limits of sexual exploration, without the setup of power dynamics they are nothing more than cheap porn. When I write about bodies meeting, about flesh slapping against flesh, or paddle against flesh, what matters isn’t the act itself but who controls it and how they got to the final act of sex, or the denial of sex.
The truth for me, a submissive, is that sex without hierarchy, without someone yielding and someone taking, lacks the electricity that makes my fingers tremble against the page. When I write erotica, I want to show the engine revving and what drives the engine. I want to capture when someone surrenders their will or claims another’s. I want to capture and relive the emotional turmoil of shedding the roles society makes us wear and show how power exchange develops. The power must flow somewhere, must pool in someone’s hands while draining from another’s. Otherwise, the sex act lies flat, clinical, and hollow, regardless of how many body parts I name or positions I describe.
Phoebe, how do you decide on your characters and the setting in your erotic writing?
I still write for a catharsis, for me, for my pleasure, but I also try to think outside of the box and write about what my readers want to read. In writing short erotica stories, readers want to read about sex, wild, crazy, insane sex, maybe like me, they can’t live it. Let’s be real; life can be demanding, and I know it’s hard to find someone.
Sometimes, I see a video clip on Fetlife, my favorite place, because they’re real-life people experiencing a situation. I watched a free use clip for my last published story Sissy Used by Thugs and mixed in a man struggling with his desire to be more feminine, to express that submissive kinky taboo side locked away (which I experienced and do many of my readers) and created a situation that would propel him into a bathroom to be used freely.
I was lucky; I found my wife/mistress of nearly two decades by sheer luck. Unfortunately, she’s in that great big dungeon in the sky. (Twenty-six-minute break to recover from the lightning bolt from heaven.) So I have some personal experiences to draw from since I lived in a dominant/submissive relationship as the feminized submissive. For example, my series My Sissy Cuckold Husband takes personal experiences and turns them into wild journeys of sexual exploration.
Phoebe, why do you enjoy publishing erotica?
In writing the forbidden, the taboo, the kinky, I have found an honesty of who I am. In writing, I achieved a revelation. I could say this is who I am. That there is a filthy, twisted part of me is who I am. A part of me I have to hide, that is, if I want to survive in the world, to pay my mortgage, to work, to live day-to-day, and not be stoned to death or be forced into an exorcism. When I began publishing my work, I discovered others found a way to express themselves through reading my erotica.
So, I write erotica for both me and you, my reader, allowing us both to explore our taboo cravings.