“I didn’t realise how giddy I was until a friend jokingly asked if I’d met someone because I was so glowy and hyped,” laughs Charlotte, a 31-year-old marketing manager. Charlotte can trace the onset of her giddiness back to February. Only, it wasn’t meeting <one> like-minded soul that triggered her spa-weekend glow but discovering a whole community via a hashtag on TikTok.
On the hunt for book recommendations, Charlotte had begun engaging with BookTokers – literature lovers on TikTok who share paperback picks, plot dissections and memes parodying fictional characters. Delve deeper into the #BookTok tag, as Charlotte did, and you might scroll upon a raunchier literary offshoot whose titles you probably won’t share with your mum when she asks if you’ve read anything good recently.
Its name? #SmutTok. Its role? Reinventing reading for pleasure.
If “smut” sounds grubbier than white bedsheets after a bedtime fake tan, welcome to the source of That Glow. #SmutTok focuses on romance novels: unputdownable YA fiction not lapped up since The Twilight Saga robbed you of going out for daylight, as well as tension-simmering, chemistry-climaxing, hand-clutching period dramas like Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series.
What makes #SmutTok a pioneer for female pleasure is two-fold. Firstly, creators recommend books that celebrate the (much-derived) genre of romances written by women, for women. Secondly, SmutTokers are not shy about revealing exactly what turns them on. They take the dirty sentences that you hope no one on the train ever reads over your shoulder and superimpose them on videos of themselves feeling hot and bothered.
#SmutTok is where anti-book-snobbery and self-pleasure hook up, and it’s a powerful partnership: the tag has had two billion views, while Barnes and Noble’s NYC book shops have in-store #SmutTok sections featuring viral titles.
“Romance is undoubtedly on the rise – the last time we were talking about it in this way was ten years ago with Fifty Shades of Grey,” confirms Kate Byrne, editorial director at Headline Eternal (the romance division of publisher, Headline) who attributes lockdowns and Covid-19 isolation for people’s thirst for comforting and escapist reads, and TikTok for raising the visibility of books that satisfy us.
One #SmutTok creator cheerleading the literary resurgence is 32-year-old Kristie. When she’s not working for a healthcare company, she’s at @read_between.the_wines – a TikTok that pairs two undisputed pleasures: reading romance with a glass of wine. “I actually first joined TikTok with an account for my dog,” she jokes. “Then a romance reviewer called Rachel Baldwin (@fitteacherrachel) popped up on my For You page and I saw her openly talking about smut. I was so excited and realised it was something I wanted to do.”
Kristie was initially hesitant to hand her intimate desires over to the internet. “I was so scared that people [I knew] would find me or it would be seen as too taboo, but once I realised there were thousands of women like me, who love all things romance, I went for it.” Her approach hit the spot: she currently has 105K Followers and 6M Likes.
So, why is #SmutTok striking a collective chord? “Growing up, women are taught to be smaller, to be submissive, to not express what they want because men are the sexual ones. It is so empowering to discover books that have sex written (mostly) by women, where female characters are always taken care of, and where the male ones would do anything for them,” Kristie explains. “#SmutTok is teaching us to be confident in what we want. That it’s OK to like things, such as smut books, which for the longest time were only ‘behind closed doors’ activities. I went into TikTok as vanilla as they come and have learned new things about myself thanks to #SmutTok and #KinkTok.”
For Charlotte, it was discovering one particular author, Sarah J. Maas, and her adult fantasy series, A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR to those in the know), that transformed the action in her book shelf and the action in her, well, you get it. Maas has written 16 books (so that’s your holiday reading sorted until 2029) and the first, ACOTAR, is a loose re-telling of Beauty and The Beast that sets up a love conflict between a female huntress and an immortal faerie. For anyone tempted to scoff, it’s a New York Times bestseller that’s currently being adapted for TV by Hulu.
“This was my first TikTok-influenced purchase. I found the plot to be really romantic, as well as sexy, and I became completely addicted to the series,” Charlotte admits.
“As far as social media goes, this is the first time I’ve been exposed to women talking so openly about what turns them on, and making light of it. Seeing others joking about sex has helped me to think of sex in a more lighthearted, adventurous, fun way, and that has definitely boosted my self-esteem.” Charlotte has since recommended ACOTAR to every woman she knows and jokes that she is yet to find a disappointed customer.
It's not only romance sales that #SmutTok is influencing, though, but what’s written inside them. “Prioritisation of verbal and enthusiastic consent is a big trend, and can be the basis for whether or not a book is recommended,” says publisher, Byrne.
“Readers want a modern understanding of feminism, such as female protagonists in STEM, strong friendships, diverse characters, or less traditionally alpha heroes. For example, ‘cinnamon roll heroes’ – men who are gentle and sweet.” Some of these aspects are not new to the genre, but Byrne admits that an outspoken online readership has made them a priority. Take the recently published A Brush With Love by Mazey Eddings, a neurodiverse author. The protagonist’s struggles with anxiety proved so relatable that the book hit one million TikTok views just days after it was released in the US.
The internet is rarely an empowering place for women’s pleasure. But TikTok creators are showing that the right hashtag and reading material can open up a new chapter for female desire. The results of which can be found in your Kindle, and in the uncanny glow on your face.
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