I’ve had the good fortune to meet only a few people who read the kind of erotica I write.

Years ago, long before I typed my first smutty word, I half assumed that erotica readers were the female equivalent of seedy men who went to back alley sex shops. When Fifty Shades became popular, I remember how all the articles and opinion popped up to ridicule “mommy porn” readers and it seemed fashionable to make fun of women we all just assumed were a little sex-starved and had shamefully low-brow interests.

But one thing I learnt really, really quickly was that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I’ve come to see that the mild disdain I had for whoever I assumed read “trash” like that was more a reflection on me.

Here’s the funny thing. I think (like a lot of people) that I was projecting. There was something gross and uncomfortable about erotica, even the word itself sounded like something cringey from the 80s, some embarrassing term your mom would use like “coitus” or “climax.” What’s more, back then I looked at the tacky Mills and Boon style covers and read the blurbs, and I made an assumption: the poor, poor soul who read this must have a pretty pitiful sex life of her own, right?

Wrong.

I was just projecting, once again.

It took me a long time to “get” it. But I did get it. The women (and men!) who read erotica were just ordinary men and women, of all kinds. And they read erotica for all the same reasons anyone chooses any kind of entertainment – they like it. And frankly, they don’t care that the book cover looks a little nasty. In fact, that might be part of the appeal! They don’t really care if the plots are a little predictable or if the hero’s too good looking for it to be “realistic.” Because they’re not after realistic.

Didn’t I watch Game of Thrones with everyone else and didn’t I indulge in marathon sessions of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Makeovers and didn’t I read trashy tabloid specials on the year’s worst bikini bodies? Yes, yes I did.

So why did I think erotica was any different?

Well, I think at the time I was the one with the pitiful sex life, and it was me who was sex starved, me who was a little ashamed of myself. A few years ago when I began writing erotica I was in the middle of a very difficult time with my relationship. The sex side of things was about as complex as you’d expect a sex life to be after almost a decade together.

I was jaded. I felt angry at men, angry at life, and yes, I hated sex and everything to do with it. I went to quite a dark place, feeling that the joy of life had been sucked away. I didn’t trust people, I was cynical, and I seemed to have lost my sense of humor. You see where I’m going with this? When I laughed at all the “mommy porn” readers with their “sad” lives, it was really my own sad life I saw in them.

I now understand that erotica is not stupid. It’s very, very smart. It’s not lame, it’s fun. I used to look down on “escapist” reading, but now I see how valuable it is to keeping you engaged and connected to all those things you actually do need a break from once in a while. In erotica, the stories are made up and the points don’t matter. The men are hot and the sex is amazing. As cheesy as it looks, this is a kind of reading that keeps the little fires in us alive, keeps women from turning into …well, the kind of person I was a few years ago. I had gotten it backward – people who read erotica are not old and jaded and pitiable. It’s because they read erotica that they avoid all that!

In erotica stories, there are seldom money problems, no issues with aging and ED, no kids from a previous marriage or long term relationships filled with resentment. No mortgages. No illness, no ambivalence. In other words, not much like real life. But to visit such an imaginary world now and then is good for you, I think. It keeps things hopeful and alive and juicy. A woman who purchases a book for no other reason than that it will give her pleasure, then makes time to read it alone – well, bravo for her. Seriously.

The ones who should be really embarrassed about themselves are those who prefer to be bitter and judge rather than live and let others live. I can see now that my discomfort with “smut” was really discomfort with my own sexuality. I remember my stepmother (yes, she was wicked, if you’re curious) once caught me reading some sex positions article in Cosmopolitan magazine. She was and still is the bitterest woman I know, and I remember her reaction: she smirked and frowned and shook her head and looked down at the page and said, “disgusting.”

Look, nobody’s going to rush to Cosmo’s defense here. But I think what she found disgusting wasn’t the article, and it wasn’t even my awkward adolescent sexual curiosity. It was the fact that she had none of that sexual curiosity left in herself. She had killed something in herself, and hated to see it still alive and kicking in someone else.

Wasn’t I doing the same when I judged “trashy” erotica? I wasn’t exactly jealous of those who were enjoying themselves… but it was close. It reminds me of a William Blake quote I really like: