What is Smut? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)

I’ve been asked, “Isn’t smut the same as erotica?” Maybe to some, but to me its based on the books I relished in high school. Since the YA genre didn’t exist back then, I was exposed to the glitzy romance books of the 80’s. I cut my teeth on Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins and fell in love with their story lines filled with many characters, glamourous lives, multiple bedroom scenes and epic final chapters which always ended with an explosive revelation of long hidden secrets and motives.

This genre went away for a while here in the U.S. in the 90’s and 00’s but never really left the world of British publishing. Because of Amazon.co.uk I have been able to find such amazing smut authors as Rebecca Chance, Jo Rees, Olivia Darling, Leonie Fox, Victoria Fox, Ilana Fox, and many others, the Smut genre is alive and well!

Smut, to me, isn’t only about the bedroom scenes. It is the taller, older, darker cousin of fluffy “chick lit” and romance. It can be just as mindless as fluff, but has hotter action in the bedroom. And that’s why I love it.