In my marriage I was not what you could call remotely sexually happy. My ex-wife and I had incompatibility issues that arose shortly after we got married. This is what happens when you marry at 19. I started writing mostly as a way to express myself sexually in a guilt free environment. I wrote my dreams, my fantasies and most importantly, I wrote about sex the way I wanted it to be, not the way it was.

What started as self therapy became a hobby I really enjoyed. Sex as a topic is rarely handled well in fiction. A majority of erotica stories that are written feel incredibly shallow to me, while the other end of the spectrum are stories that have sex but the real focus is some sort of disgust with the sex. I think sex can be fun, intelligent and arousing, and I love writing it that way.

A few years into our marriage, my ex-wife suggested we try polyamory and get our own partners. I suspect she suggested it because she was bisexual, although some days I suspect she suggested it because it took the pressure off of her to have sex with me. Regardless of the motives, it put me in perpetual dating head space for a good ten years. I was already writing and my fan mail was giving me a swollen head to go with my swollen member. My stories advertised me as a sexual person in a way, and I met lovers through my stories.

That in itself is not a healthy way to go. Since writing is something that intrigues me, I often write about things that interest me at the moment, not things that I am interested in all the time. I often met submissives who wanted the absolute strength my dom characters had instead of the rather overly sensitive hard on myself man that I am. It was like I was always answering someone else personal ad.

It also exerted a pressure on my stories that I was not aware of till lately. I edited myself because whether I was looking for lovers or not, I knew my stories reflected me. I over explained myself in my stories. I avoided topics like male submissives because I know writers have their sexual identities branded through their stories. If I was to ever met that dream submissive, it wasn’t going to be because I wrote about the perfect female dominatrix.

I could write a ton about what it is like to be in a poly situation where your primary relationship is in trouble, but that is something I don’t even like thinking about much less writing. Let me just point out that it made me feel like I was single during my marriage in that I didn’t have any one person who accepted me sexually the way I am. I would meet submissives who accepted me, which could be empowering but when my ex-wife would inevitably hate their guts, I would break up with them. It would strip me of any comfort I derived as well as really wrecking my self esteem.

On a more visceral level, being sexually frustrated meant I wrote a lot of stories just to have some sort of release. I didn’t write as much as I transferred. I think I wrote a lot of great stories that way but it is impossible to write objectively in that kind of frame of mind.

So here I am now, divorced and living with a wonderful woman who loves me completely. My ex-wife would sometimes say that if I ever were sexually happy, I would stop writing. I used to agree with her. Now I know better. Being with a woman who accepts and loves me hasn’t stopped my writing but it has certainly changed it.

For one thing, I feel like I have permission to do stories without fear of how a potential girlfriend will interpret it. The Victoria storyline in my Volleyball story was a female dominant story which is something I would never dream of attempting. Writing about a submissive male doesn’t make me submissive, but man, when you’re in that uncertain dating world, you don’t take chances.

The other thing I have noticed about my writing is my willingness to go out on a limb. I always want my readers to be entertained, and I never take them for granted, but I don’t have the added pressure of trying to attract anyone. I can write Master of Spanking (which concludes tomorrow!) and not worry about if I am coming across as too unserious.

I go back through some of my older stories and I wonder if I have lost some of the desperate passion that permeated my work but you know, I just don’t care. Last night I wrote the first chapter to my BDSM Werewolf story and if I do say so myself, that shit was hot. Getting laid certainly hasn’t affected my judgment on what makes for a hot scene.

I think having a better sex life doesn’t make for better writing, but I do know it makes for a lot happier writer. I hope in the coming years that my well laid ass can still entertain and hold your attention.