Erotica is a way for many people to satisfy their sexual feelings or fantasies, but, as it turns out, writing fictional erotic stories seemed to help one writer deal with her anxiety. As most of us know, many experts point to writing as an outlet to help gather thoughts and clam your nerves, so the genre of erotica seems like a good way to release some of that energy.
In a recent piece published in Broadly, Kayleigh Daniels Dated founder Almaz Ohene opened up about her experiences writing erotic fiction, describing how it helped satisfy some of her mental issues, while also giving her an outlet to describe some of her sexual dreams, too. And, while she admitted that there was a disconnect between how she was raised in a religious household to what she was writing in erotica, she just sort of tried it out after visiting a friend and hooking up with someone.
“The first time I wrote erotic fiction, I was on a train back from a night out. I’d gone to visit a friend and ended up hooking up with someone while I was there. As I sat on the train, I remember thinking about how hot it was. I had a notebook with me, so I started writing those feelings down. I’d write a couple of sentences, and then giggle to myself and scribble them out and try something else. I’d written blogs about my life and things like that, but I’d never written anything erotic.”
It’s interesting to see that Ohene mentioned she had never written erotica before, but, after doing it, she found that it was a release for her. That said, she was quick to say that she doesn’t necessarily write it to get turned on, but that, naturally, it can happen sometimes.
“I don’t write erotic fiction to get turned on, although sometimes it can be arousing. I write it because I really, really enjoy it. After that experience on the train, I started writing erotic fiction more regularly, and posting it on my blog. Sometimes I’d go to parties and read it out loud! People found it quite raunchy.”
You might be wondering where Ohene gets her inspiration from, right? It’s natural to think that writing erotica would just come from our own experiences, but that’s not always the case. In fact, to tell a good story, sometimes it’s simply just using your imagination in your surroundings, which is why Ohene says she will often write on trains during a commute, but, more frequently, at her home by using mannequins.
“Inspiration strikes in strange places. I’ll often write notes in my iPhone when I’m commuting to work. But I usually write at home: I actually have two poseable mannequins on my desk, because it’s so hard to choreograph realistic sex scenes! I used to shut my eyes and just imagine it, but sometimes it’s difficult to remember where all the different hands are. At the moment, I’m trying really hard to write a five-person sex party. It’s going to be wild.”
You might be wondering how all this erotica writing helped Almaz Ohene with her anxiety, right? After all, that’s what she said was really at the root of the inspiration to stick with it. Well, she had a pretty cool reason for that, admitting that, in 2006, she was having “a hard time mentally and feeling very anxious about stuff,” and erotica acted as an outlet for her.
“Writing erotica felt like a release. For me, it felt very grounding to write about bodies: too often, we forget that we’re physical beings. We don’t stop and think about how we’re feeling. Writing erotica has helped me to think about how bodies interact with each other.”
We all have various ways to deal with mental health issues like anxiety, and, while some of us release that energy by working out, reading, listening to music or simply surrounding ourselves around good people, seeing how erotica helped Almaz Ohene deal with her stress is a reminder that there are no limits as to how people can do it. It’s also a pretty cool reminder that Almaz slows her mind down by thinking of people with positive energy for her stories, which surely makes the sexual tone even hotter.
To read some of Almaz Ohene’s erotica stories, you can check out her website, called Kayleigh Daniels Dated, which details the life of a girl living in London who owns he sexuality. The stories are definitely worth taking a look at.