The reader could be a voyeur…

Like sex, writing is both public and private. Like an exhibitionist, a writer gets off in private by exposing her work to the public: to Facebook comments lauding her honesty, to a spiral of retweets. Because there’s no greater pleasure than a work well received.

These are metaphors, of course, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when my thoughts drift during sex, the first thing I think of is writing about it. There’s nothing more immediately satisfying than sharing personal intimacy with strangers — and genre-wise, for me, that happens most easily via the personal essay. This desire to be witnessed, or to put on display for others the things I believe are most important, is often the drive behind why I write.

More than any other kind of writing, and perhaps much like hooking up, personal essays face this challenge of connecting “I” with “you” or “them.” The reader could be a voyeur, or the object of attention. If a personal essay is the exploration of one private moment, publication is what exposes it.

Emily Smith – Radical Vulnerability: The Writer as Exhibitionist

owning up to a kink

Both sex and writing are about experiencing pleasure for yourself (the private) and if you feel like it, for others (the public). In the personal essay, those social boundaries must disintegrate: an exhibitionist and a writer need strangers, not just lovers, to watch. Personal essay writers publish for the thrill in stripping down for a reader. The act feels vulnerable, but the reception is more satisfying because of the risk. Although this can feel as difficult as owning up to a kink, the exposure is freeing. Sometimes, being seen is less shameful than not being seen at all.

Emily Smith – Radical Vulnerability: The Writer as Exhibitionist

Sex Writing –

The changing room in Macy’s. A rest area bathroom. The hood of a sports car.

If there’s a chance to get caught, I’ve probably fucked there.

Like sex, writing is both public and private. Like an exhibitionist, a writer gets off in private by exposing her work to the public…Writers are natural pleasure seekers, hedonists. I don’t know of anything more satisfying than laying on the hood of a car, staring into the black night sky, and watching cold breath float slow from my lips like I’m lying at the bottom of the ocean, like the stars are shimmers of sun from the top side of waves. I love the ashy, flat taste of Cabernet a whole bottle in. I love the thoughtless, cliff-wobbling moment before an orgasm better than the orgasm itself. But this is not enough. A writer must push her pleasure into risk, expose herself publicly to strangers with no knowledge of how she might be received, and become something that must be seen. The best kind of writing lives at this intersection…

There are many ways to expose yourself, if willing. I find pleasure in sharing my sexual exploits with friends, just as I do writing about the experiences. “I’m a very physically needy person,” I always start. Then, after some perverse account over coffee, I stir my cup and shrug as if I’ve merely recited the weather forecast. This makes me feel powerful for a moment: because the stories are unforgettable, I feel that I have become unforgettable. Sometimes, I bring my friends’ shocked reactions to the bedroom and share them with my partners, if for nothing else than to extend the pleasure of being seen…

One summer, I dated a married woman whose husband agreed to her seeing other women. He was a nurse who sometimes worked night shifts, which is when I would sleep over. The morning I met him, I woke up on his side of the bed, rolled on top of his wife, and woke her up by going down on her. She was in the middle of a loud orgasm when we heard her husband unlock the front door. She finished as he knocked on the bedroom door, then I wiped my mouth on their sheets and dressed quickly. I left their bedroom and held out my hand for his.

“Nice to meet you,” I wanted to say. “I just fucked your wife.” Instead, I shook his hand and sat next to him at the breakfast bar while his wife made us pancakes.

Emily Smith
Radical Vulnerability: The Writer as Exhibitionist