0:02

A listener production Hi,

0:08

Simon Beaton here with The Briefing. It

0:10

used to be if you wanted to read a

0:12

smutty book, you'd do it in secret. It wasn't the

0:14

genre that you'd expect to find in your average book

0:17

club. But think back to ye

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olde times of Tumblr and it's pretty

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clear social media has definitely changed things

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up. Now search hashtag spicybook

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or smart on TikTok and you

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will find hundreds of thousands of

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videos. Scroll through and

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you'll find people sharing reviews, recommendations,

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arguing over favourite tropes and characters

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and more. But the

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popularity has also broken outside of the

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confines of the internet with smart series

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making the New York Times bestsellers list.

0:45

So what's behind this boom in extremely

0:47

raunchy books? You might

0:49

recognise Esme Louise James. She

0:52

joined Antoinette Latouf on the weekend briefing

0:54

to discuss her book Kinky History, where

0:56

she explores the kinky habits of humans

0:58

throughout history. And in this

1:00

episode, she joins Bensy and Seabert to talk

1:02

about Smut. Esme, thanks

1:04

so much for joining us on The Briefing. Thank

1:07

you so much for having me to talk about this topic. Define

1:12

Smut. Smut is generally by today's standard

1:14

any kind of novel that involves erotic

1:17

content first and foremost. There's a bit

1:19

of a debate about how much erotic

1:21

content you need to have for a

1:23

book to be taken from romance to

1:25

the version of Smut. I would generally

1:27

put it about 20, 30 percent. You

1:31

know, it doesn't have to be that much to be a little

1:33

bit fun. Right. OK. Could

1:35

you tell me the story of the rise of Smut? Where

1:37

does that start and where is it now? Smut

1:40

starts back in the 17th, 18th century,

1:42

which is what I love so much

1:44

that I'm doing my PhD on it.

1:47

And what's so fun about this is it happens

1:49

when we have the rise of literacy, when women

1:52

especially start being able to read and

1:55

being able to author novels, we

1:57

have this idea of Smut. Up until then. Smut

2:00

novels have existed for men in

2:02

an elite class. A lot

2:04

of the books that men would pass around,

2:06

their salons and their clubs, were very smutty

2:09

novels, but they didn't call it

2:11

that. It was very high art. As soon as women

2:13

are able to read and write novels

2:16

and sentimental novels, it becomes something that's

2:18

kind of dirty and something that we

2:20

see as not being very highbrow, which

2:22

is kind of where the debate is

2:24

today. And I find that so interesting

2:26

that we're having the same conversation that

2:28

we did 250 years

2:31

ago about whether these novels are

2:34

quite lowbrow, whether they're intellectual or whether

2:36

they're just frivolous pieces of

2:38

trash, really. In

2:40

I guess the modern era,

2:43

reading Smuts may have been seen

2:45

as sort of shameful some time

2:48

ago. You're the one who knows the

2:50

history, so please tell me if I'm wrong. But

2:53

I suppose you couldn't find them in the

2:55

main section of bookstores. So

2:58

what is the role of social

3:00

media in, I guess, the last

3:02

10 years in changing that story?

3:07

It's really interesting because the normalization

3:09

of Smut novels actually starts really

3:12

around the 1950s, 1970s. Oh really? And

3:15

yet it was all for academic purposes.

3:18

So something like that, Danny Hill,

3:20

which is considered the first pornographic

3:22

novel, was taken to court in

3:24

this time. And basically academics

3:26

were arguing for the fact that these novels

3:29

shouldn't be censored that if we're able to

3:31

read them in the 1700s, we have to

3:33

read them now. They have artistic qualities, they

3:35

have purpose. And the role of

3:37

social media, I think, in all of this is we

3:40

have like TikTok that comes along as well. And

3:42

people are able to kind of

3:44

converse about the fact that they enjoy these

3:46

novels, that they have this

3:48

kind of escapism and fantasy in a

3:50

way that's really safe to engage in

3:52

when it comes to erotic content. Far

3:55

more than kind of visual forms of media, this is

3:57

a form where people are able to put themselves

4:00

into a fantasy in a very safe way that

4:02

you know that no one's been hurt and let

4:04

the imagination kind of do its

4:06

thing. So social media has

4:08

really normalized the reading of SMART which again

4:11

previous to that has been very academic and

4:13

elite then it was seen as something that

4:15

you have to kind of change the cover

4:17

of the book to be able

4:19

to read it in public and now you

4:21

see people reading fairies SMART all over the

4:23

place every time I see someone reading a

4:25

court of sorts and raises and girl I

4:27

know what's up. I know what's

4:29

going on. How would

4:32

you describe the history of social

4:34

media in relation to it because

4:36

I guess the tumblr era is

4:38

quite different to the tik-tok era

4:40

now. Mm-hmm there's a

4:42

lot more conversation now tumblr I

4:44

wasn't a tumblr girlie but tumblr

4:47

has a very kind of like aesthetic appeal

4:49

and there was the kind of conversation of

4:51

SMART still at that time was something that you

4:54

didn't really touch as much. Romance

4:57

and aestheticizing romance novels was a

4:59

very tumblr thing. What tik-tok is

5:02

really changing is the honesty

5:04

to be able to talk about the

5:06

fact that we can enjoy eroticism and

5:08

that it can be a very

5:10

healthy part of sexuality to enjoy

5:12

erotic content and this

5:14

isn't really a new thing because we see

5:17

TV shows like I mean we've had Game

5:19

of Thrones and all of these shows

5:21

that we were watching on a mass

5:23

scale I was watching it with my parents and

5:26

that was erotic content in a visual media

5:28

but there's something about a book because we

5:30

do it in private that we're

5:32

really changing when it comes to book talk where

5:35

people are trying to say that this is

5:37

a totally normal and healthy way to engage

5:39

in both reading and erotic

5:41

desire. Mm-hmm can you talk

5:43

a bit about that element of it

5:45

being kind of a safer version

5:48

of that kind of eroticism. Are

5:50

people using book SMART

5:52

as an alternative to porn? They

5:54

are and this is a

5:56

really good conversation for us to be having

5:58

when we don't really talk

6:00

about how damaging a lot of

6:02

pornographic media can be. When

6:05

you have pornographic sites in particular that we don't

6:07

know about the safety of the performance, we don't

6:09

know about the ethics, we don't know about the

6:11

consent. There's a lot that can go wrong in

6:14

the erotic media that a huge

6:16

percentage of the population access on

6:18

a daily basis. And we

6:20

haven't been having that conversation. Now

6:22

come on to the current book talk

6:24

debate where I guess one side of

6:27

the argument is saying that reading smutty

6:29

novels is just as bad as

6:31

watching porn and having an addiction

6:33

to porn. And the other half

6:35

of the conversation is saying, well no,

6:38

because in this way you let

6:41

your imagination do the work for you.

6:43

No one is being harmed. You're able

6:45

to engage in fantasies. And fantasies we

6:48

have to remember are not a reflection of how

6:50

we act in real life, what we want in

6:52

real life. They are fantasies for a reason. And

6:54

we know from a lot of evidence and a

6:57

lot of incredible sex researchers that

6:59

fantasies are very healthy to engage

7:02

in. And they

7:04

are an escapist release. Book

7:06

talkers who are able to kind of engage

7:08

in smut novels, even ones that they wouldn't

7:10

want practice on in their real life, it's

7:13

a very healthy outlet for these kind

7:15

of desires. Is there a

7:17

degree to which there are characters in smut

7:19

books where the way that they talk, the

7:21

way that they act might

7:23

be sexy in a fantasy kind of a

7:25

way, but would be an absolute red flag

7:27

if it actually happened in real life. I

7:30

love that because I've seen some

7:32

fantastic parody videos on TikTok where

7:34

people are saying, you know, you're reading your

7:36

book, I'm going to reference the quarter thorns

7:38

and roses as well. And Reese,

7:41

who's the main love interest is growling

7:43

and saying, you're mine, you know, I

7:45

own you all of this. And you know, we're

7:47

eating it up. And then people are like, in real

7:49

life, if anyone did that, I'm like, who? Are

7:52

you? Get out of here. Who do you think

7:54

you are? Why are you growling? Stop snarling at me.

7:56

You know, again, that is not really how. Prepared

8:00

to face, I don't really want Amanda growl

8:02

at me, but I do want to read

8:04

about Rise As and it's very. We've got.

8:08

Some houses, the writing itself tends

8:11

to overtime. Some ways it has

8:13

it's which is a really lovely

8:15

thing when I spend my life

8:18

reading eighteenth Century for the gothic

8:20

novels. They do tend

8:22

to be some of them a

8:25

very very flowery and very he's

8:27

a mistake Others ah ah dirtier

8:29

than anything that is for inside

8:31

the writings that we had ah

8:33

from people like the Marquis the

8:35

Side for instance or so crass

8:37

and X boys at is ends

8:40

up really they wouldn't be published

8:42

say. The Moral: yes I

8:44

legally a microsecond every place. I

8:46

think that says a lot as well as

8:48

that we actually have the quite conservative in

8:51

a way as a society in a way

8:53

that we don't realize because it's good because

8:55

every one Rises have in their head things

8:57

like respects. And most most size as

8:59

an ad in a twenty. First Century

9:01

We have conversations, the percent said consent and

9:04

and has changed the way that we write

9:06

novels. And if you read the novels that

9:08

are blowing up today like a court of

9:11

thousands of roses and fulfilling a lot of

9:13

the relationships that was the unexplored a very

9:15

respectful and they do have a kind of

9:17

very mets at the center and they're also

9:20

very women said tricks that something as find

9:22

new as wow. Use the

9:24

heart of talk targeted towards

9:26

women is or is there

9:28

a more diverse audience? Tix

9:31

Asked really has created a ferry disaster

9:33

community and nilly everything it does. That's

9:36

not to say that book tacos are

9:38

not dominate is mainly by women because

9:40

they know that from book says it

9:43

is a huge percentage. Of women. But

9:45

what I always laws and mrs you know

9:47

going back to the eighteen hundreds as well

9:49

when women were the main raiders or something

9:52

like they know thing for instance he was

9:54

considered a pornographic right us as a times

9:56

and it's very interesting. Moon unless you know,

9:58

sort of Hatteras with. Actually considered more

10:00

low brow than pornographic novels at the time

10:03

where women guy they tend to create a

10:05

very diverse and inclusive community and that is

10:07

really what Books of has fostered. Some of

10:09

my favorite videos have been watching reactions to

10:12

dad's am too suddenly get hooked to full

10:14

swing and a coat of arms embraces and

10:16

that you know same I really to go

10:18

pick up my kids and very to my

10:21

jaw the however only one to do is

10:23

go home and read about this very very

10:25

man and I love that. So yes it

10:28

may be the majority of women that. I

10:30

think when you normalize that conversation

10:32

is open to everyone. Everyone loves

10:34

them. Fairies. Slope

10:37

just finally. What

10:39

Are your absolute top? Smartbooks,

10:42

School of all time. Now.

10:46

I brought a minute are free. Some

10:48

the ones I reference or Fanny Hill.

10:50

You've gotta put Fanny Hill on the

10:52

list. You have to go back to

10:54

your original point. A graphic Novels that

10:56

is a wonderful book. It's funny, it's

10:58

light hearted. I've mentioned a Closed on

11:00

the Roses many many times and I

11:02

think that is a great ah gateway

11:04

for lot of people into this world

11:06

of both romance and months. I'm finally

11:08

over to know what I want to

11:10

put Dangerous Liaisons on. Then they just

11:12

liaisons with the book that inspired Cruel

11:14

Intentions, the cult classic. From the early

11:16

two thousand and is the reason ever on. Love

11:18

that movie and that story and why we tell

11:21

it so many times. I think they just. They

11:23

as on wonderful so is there has been

11:25

such a phone conversation. Thanks so much! Thank

11:27

you so much for having me to come

11:29

and talk about Fairies! As

11:33

my louise I'm thinking we'd been since they but

11:35

the and if you want to know more about

11:37

her work with them back to a chat with

11:39

Antoinette The to on the weekend briefing. where is

11:42

my dogs into a favorite can see stories throughout

11:44

history. Speaking of the wake embracing it Will be

11:46

back again and what have you got on. Hi

11:48

guys! I was super fortunate to

11:51

sit down with the Cd rom

11:53

or rapper Artists authors who has

11:56

just published his memoirs human with

11:58

a Question Mark. If you

12:00

have a lot of questions about that

12:02

question Mark I did too. We sit

12:04

down and talk about his. We can

12:06

sense the Ireland A heritage and his

12:08

book is really an invitation for readers

12:11

to fight for a few that restores

12:13

humanity to. Old Australian is a fascinating

12:15

set. You weren't want to miss it for them,

12:17

that's all. But this episode of The Briefing If

12:19

you like what you heard, please do share this

12:21

episode. We the friends we love it when you

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spread the word on some a decent such the

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next.