Interviewing just over 130 authorsof erotic fiction, I asked how openly we discuss our work with friends and family and how far we keep separate our ‘writing identity’, to avoid social stigmatization.

As ever, this article is intended as a starting point for discussion. All comments are welcome.

Slipping into a Pseudonym

While a number of authors do write under their legally recognized name, more than in any other genre, we pen our words from behind a pseudonym.

Some do this for commercial reasons, separating writing identities across genre categories, to avoid confusing readers. CherryWild comments, “There are benefits to compartmentalizing writing identities. I believe readers should understand what they’re going to read from an author, instead of having a shocking surprise that what they thought would be a standard murder mystery is actually a sexed-up erotic thriller.”

Male writers, on occasion, write under a female pen name…