Pretty Lynne Writes

A little while ago, I wrote an impassioned post about making smutty content as long as I wanted to, no matter how old I get. I’ll do it as long as it serves me, I said boldly. 

Welp. 

I love to write, but lately the motivation to make things has been lacking. I’m going through a period of emotional distress. And now I’m just finding that I am tired and less motivated. Things feel heavy. 

It doesn’t really matter in the end. The world will go on without my contributions to vanilla erotica and audio content. There is no shortage of porn in the world, and my fans will move on to find something they like if I stop writing and making audios. 

But the question on my mind has been this: who am I without making smut? 

People get into this world for all kinds of reasons. Hobbyists stay for validation, creative satisfaction, titillation, and fun. They leave for all kinds of reasons, too. It’s very common for people to come and go without declaring to the world that they are finished. Often there’s a disappointed post on Reddit asking where such-and-such creator went, and no one has an answer. 

I’ve been doing this for a little over two years now and it has consumed a lot of my time and energy. I am coming to realize the amount of work my hobby was doing to distract me from life stuff, too. I could pour my feelings and fears into a story. I could avoid things I didn’t want to think about by making an audio. I could comfort myself with validation when I was feeling sad or unloved. 

To be fair, I also worked through a bunch of feelings and experiences and questions for myself by doing this creative work. I met cool people, made good friends, and felt part of a community. 

But even that feeling is waning for me now. 

Maybe it’s a matter of perspective. Maybe I just need to step back and realize that it’s okay to produce less stuff and spend more time in my day-to-day world. But I’ve been splitting myself into these two sides of myself for such a long time now that I’m not sure what happens to me when I stop. 

Who am I without my sexy persona? 

If I give up this secret second side of me, am I not just a regular old divorced lady with bills and a job she finds increasingly stressful and a boatload of relationship trauma to work through? 

Our smutty personas are both us and not-us. They are highly curated, hyper-sexual sides of ourselves. They are made from our fun, wild selves who feel free to say or make or do anything without the constraints that often bind us in our everyday lives with jobs and kids and partners. 

That’s an aspect of me, for sure. It’s not a lie. It’s just not the whole story. That’s one reason I like to write this blog. I find it hard to constrain some parts of my personality in my persona and here, I can write more like my whole self.

Perhaps the problem is that, these days, I’m trying to figure out who that whole self is. I thought I’d be all through that process by now, but it seems like my whole post-divorce glow-up is taking longer for me than it does for others. 

I’m not saying I’m finished with this work. I’m just saying it’s not giving me the satisfaction it once did. The big stuff happening in the background is no longer being hidden behind the Instagram posts and Blue Sky thirst traps. It’s making itself known and needs to be reckoned with.

I’m probably overthinking this. I do that a lot lately. But it might be time to spend a little more time focusing on [real name], so that Pretty Lynne can have a rest.

I think she needs it.