Smut is a kind of high.
Just enough story mixed with sexual stimulation. It keeps the brain in a focused daze, scrolling forward, forward. There’s compulsion in smut. A need to know what happens next. A need to keep the blood flowing in your genitals, slightly aroused, not so much as to force an orgasm or even touch yourself, but a casual rub on unwitting occasion. A sordid revelry in the time wasting.
Good smut is often bad, corny, or soap-operatic in its devices. There has to be enough plot to keep the reader going, a rising and falling action, without ever falling too much, spending too much time away from the fundamental purpose: arousal. Yes, she has a nearly-identical twin sister, but you can tell who he’s fucking by a mole in an intimate spot, one he might not be aware of. Sure, the father and son are into the same girl. Yes, the woman is indebted to a felon who treats her like a sex slave. Even when everything is exposed, something more to look forward to is woven into that moment. Like a good snack food, there’s a sharp opening, that crunch and a bright spicy flavor, followed by a falling action of mealy chewing, the oil and salt, but when you swallow, that bright flavor remains on the back of your tongue, reminding you that there’s more to come, that the story isn’t over.
Manga/anime adds a layer of the purely fantastic to smut. Often the smut takes place in a familiar setting, with a relatable character or scenario. Central is a confused boy of low status in his high school where the fate of the country is decided through gambling. A brilliant, beautiful girl with a reckless all-consuming risk fetish at her core falls into his lap, improving his standing in society and giving him something to finally look forward to in his boring mundane life. A boy is pulled from his high school window and lands in a fantasy world filled exclusively with girls who never live past the age of 20, girls who are evolved to lust impossibly after any man. The high schooler’s kendo lessons finally come into use as he becomes a hero of this strange new world. A high schooler keeps finding himself in improbable scenarios with his teacher which force him into compromising, sexual situations against both of their will, so they inevitably end up dating. Much of smut draws upon extending relatable scenarios into the fantastic, so they require a common language with the audience that can be drawn infinitely outward into a kaleidoscope of cocks raining from titty clouds in a universe where the vagina is god.
This lulls the reader into a kind of comfort with what would be, in reality, uncomfortable situations which they’d unlikely be able to handle. It is a safe way for the reader to experience simulated transgressions, insanities, or simple situations they’ve not the means to access. It’s an outlet for low, morbid curiosity. It gives a reason to look forward to a new release.
And, of course, it’s an outlet for masturbation. There’s the raw animal compulsion to view raw naked bodies heaving and smashing and groping and moaning. Smut also provides an excellent platform for the survey of fetish material without demanding one wholly involve one’s self with a fetish.
I find one needs a healthy balance of raw ballslapping, fanservice-y pornography with a good story that isn’t completely stupid. There’s nothing sexy about being talked down to or pandered to (unless you’re into that sort of thing, you degenerate moron) so the function of storytelling in smut is partially the normalization of a string of novel sexual norms/mores that allow a person to feel the heat without having their meat beat for them.
Smut is a kind of high because it keeps you in a place of suspended animation, appealing to the basest brain while engaging parts of the highest, an imagined encounter that does most of the work for the reader while shrugging off completion as long as possible. Like a good orgasm.
I’ve been watching and reading it for the past month, so you can trust me. I’m an expert.
Now go out and rub your filthy minds in sexy mud.
- 07.23.2019
