That evening I downloaded an edition of "Best Women’s Erotica" edited by Rachel Kramer Bussell. I was flying home that day, and it was thrilling to listen to a few of the stories as I traveled on the train to the airport. It was like having my own secret world, streaming through my headphones.
I remembered the books I read when I was in my20s, growing up and exploring my sexuality. "The Story of O" by Pauline Reague, "Delta of Venus" by Anais Nin. I had shut off from the world I used to know, and with it, my erotic imagination and my libido had gone too. Now I knew that if I just kept feeding my imagination, and writing down my ideas, then it would return. I decided that I would begin reading and writing erotica regularly.
As the days went by I forgot about that experience of my libido returning. I got caught up in my daily routine, parenting, and working on a memoir about my healing journey to recover from my experience.
As I read through what I wrote, I realized that I couldn’t continue the story because I wasn’t practicing what I preached. I knew that erotica could help me, but I hadn’t made reading or writing it a regular part of my life. I’d slipped back into my old normality.
I Had to Get Back Into Gear
I knew I couldn’t let this happen again. I knew that my sex life was never going to get back in gear if I just treated it as something that happened on the periphery of my life. Half an hour on a Saturday night wasn’t going to work for me to turn my sexual self back on. I had to return to who I was before and make sex a central part of my life.
So, I bought "Desire: 100 of Literature’s Sexiest Stories" by Mariella Frostrup, and "The Big Book of Submission," by Rachel Kramer Bussell. I listened to a short story a day. It was kind of like a mental workout to keep my mind and body in a state of erotic inspiration. I started writing erotica daily, even if it was for just 10 minutes. I downloaded the Scrivener writing app to my phone so that wherever I was, I could whip it out and write a few paragraphs.
On a weekend, if I had a longer stretch of time, I would immerse myself in this private erotic world, reading books, sketching ideas out in a notebook, or finishing a new story.
After a day, spent like this, it was pretty impossible for me not to be in the mood for sex!