Author Kandi Steiner was leaning toward no more casual sex when an experience with a friend bolstered that decision. She now creates female characters who voice their desires. And erotic fiction can help inspire steamier experiences. Take it from writer and editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel. Learn much more in this week’s Girl Boner Radio episode!
Stream it on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio or below. Or read on for a lightly edited transcript.
“A Casual Sex Fail + Creating Sexier Experiences”
a lightly edited Girl Boner Radio transcript
August (narration):Have you ever had a sexual experience that went nearly the opposite of what you had hoped for? I think most of us have. And, we have probably all daydreamed of better experiences.Kandi Steiner has done so, big time. And what she conjures up as alternatives go far beyond her own mind.
Kandi is an international bestselling author, best known for writing romance that “hurts a little before it feels good.” Which is sort of how her experience with sex has been–or at least, casual sex. It hurt at first. In the case you’re about to hear about, it hurt literally—and not in a kinky, pain-you-want type way. And stopping it, both that experience and casual sex in general, felt dang good.
Before you hear her story, I have to rave a little bit about this episode’s sponsor, because I love them. Seriously.
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Okay, back to Kandi’s story.
Kandi:
At the time that my friend and I had this encounter, I was freshly divorced and young, divorced very young. And so it was sort of this experimental time in my life. I was figuring out dating for the first time.
I had never really dated before I met my before husband in high school. So unless you count getting walked to my locker between classes, I had no experience in dating.
But I was also sort of thrown into this hookup culture, which I discovered very quickly I’m not a fan of and it does not sit well with me. So navigating that and trying to figure out every person’s intention that I spoke to and that I had an interest in was very challenging. It was a roller coaster to say the least.
August (narration):
Sex with someone she had just met or barely knew just felt…off to her.
Kandi:
You know, I never really could get into the one night stand state of mind. I have quite a few friends who are into it, and I love that for them. I think it seems so freeing and exhilarating and just has such potential or at least I thought it did. But my experiences, unfortunately, were never good in that manner. I think, for me, a sexual connection is more intimate. And I have to feel connected to the person. Which I think is why, when my friend and I had this experience, I was sort of optimistic.
August (narration):
Plus, he was really funny and someone she felt comfortable hanging out with.
Kandi:
He had sort of told me in not so many words that he was interested in me and wanted to take me out. And I took that for what he was telling me. Again, I was not really versed in trying to read between the lines.
August (narration):
If he wanted to take her out, that must have meant out on a friendly, casual date. Get to know her. Hang out. So one night she was like-
Kandi:
Maybe I should just give this a shot. He’s nice. He’s not typically the kind of person I go for but he seems like maybe he could be a good guy. So I just asked him if he wanted to hang out. And I thought he was going to come over and we would just sort of break the ice and see where things went.
But he very quickly made his intentions clear that he wanted to hook up.
August:
What did he do exactly?
Kandi:
Well, we were talking. We were both having a drink and having a great conversation. I was really enjoying myself and like in the middle of a story, he was like, “Yeah, so we should just put on the movie.” And I was like, “oh, okay.”
August (narration):
So they put on a movie, she doesn’t remember what one.
Kandi:
The opening credits had not even passed before he was making a move. And we started kissing and one thing led to the next and I was like, Okay, like this is very clearly where this night is going. I’m fine with it. I guess we’ll see what happens.
August (narration):
She described what followed as a nightmare from the beginning to the end.
Kandi:
He spilled his beer in his attempt to sort of maneuver us into the position he wanted—all over my couch and my carpet—and so I had to fight against like my instant reaction, which was to clean that up, right? I’m like, Oh, this is great. This is like what happens in the movies. I’ll clean it up later. It’s fine.
August (narration):
Then he broke her glasses.
Kandi:
Which was also unfortunate because I loved those glasses and if you wear glasses, you know that prescription ones are not cheap.
August (narration):
So one thing led to another.
Kandi:
I’ll leave out some of the more sinister details but the worst part was, the meat of this story that I’ve elected to tell, which is that he was like a 12-year-old boy when I took my shirt off. I mean, you would have thought he’d never seen them in his life.
August (narration):
His eyes grew to like triple size and he had this goofy grin on his face like he had just met Mickey Mouse for the first time. She said that definitely made her feel like he was more focused on her body than her, and she knew whatever connection she had thought they’d had was null and void because he “clearly just saw [her] as a piece of meat.” At least, that’s how she felt.
Kandi:
I wondered from the moment that we started this encounter what it was going to be like, and the first time that he touched me, I knew exactly what I was in for. And I wished that I could go back in time and undo the invite. [laughs] of having him over.
August:
So you wished you could uninvite him. I think so many of us have had experiences where the sex isn’t ideal or doesn’t feel good at all, but we keep going to sort of get it over with – or because we feel like we owe it to the person or something. Did you feel that way?
Kandi:
Yes! Oh my gosh, yes! And why – My friends and I have talked about this now that we’re sort of older and recognize that we don’t owe anybody anything, right? But at that time in my life, I certainly felt like I did.
I was like, I invited this guy over. He brought beer. Clearly, he thought this was the intention.
August (narration):
She’s here now, she thought, and this is what has to happen. She didn’t really feel the power to stop it in that moment.
So things progress, and-
Kandi:
-I can just tell that he is like holding on for dear life, like a gearshift or like you would hold on to the handle of a roller coaster when you’re going over the top of it and barreling down towards the ground.
August (narration):
Holding onto her breasts for dear life.
Kandi:
And I’m trying to sort of give subtle cues like “Hey, please stop doing that.” Like it, kind of like trying to guide his hands in other places.
August (narration):
But he does not take the cue.
Kandi:
And I get to a point where it’s no longer something that I can shrug off. It’s no longer something that I can say, Okay, this is fine. I’ll just ride it out to the end. I just hit a point where I don’t care if it upsets him. I don’t care if it embarrasses him. I don’t care what I have to go through. I just need the encounter to stop altogether.
So I climb off, and I’m just like, “I’m sorry. I just don’t think I want to do this anymore.” And he was like, “Oh. Well, it’s okay. Like let’s just hang out, and we’ll see what happens.” And I was like, “No, I think – Really, I think you should leave.”
And it was so hard because he is a friend. And…I didn’t want to ruin that but at the same time it was the point that I felt very uncomfortable.
[minor jazz riff]
August (narration):
So fast forward, he does leave. Kandi stood there relieved, but still rattled by the awkwardness, and called her best friend.
Kandi:
And I’m like, “Oh my god. Why did I do this? Why did I do this?” And she’s like, “Kandi! We see him all the time. What are you gonna do?” [laughs] I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
August (narration):
The next day when she woke up, she said, the full embarrassment and how horrendous the encounter was, really hit her.
Kandi:
But the next day when I wake up is when the full embarrassment and the full effect of how horrendous this encounter was really hits because
I go to the bathroom and take off my shirt to step in the shower and look in the mirror. And my poor girls.
I mean, they look like they’re a cheetah. Just bruises of every shade. All over, like fingerprints… It’s so awful that I literally took pictures and sent it to my girlfriends and they were like, “You look like you’ve been beaten!”
It was just a nightmare and definitely solidified that that relationship or whatever could have been there was definitely going nowhere.
August (narration):
She took care of her Cheetah spots with a topical cream and gradually, they faded away.
Before that, she did take a photo of herself wearing a sports bra, so you could see the top of her breasts and plenty of bruises and sent it to the man with a message: “Obviously things did not go the way either one of us planned, but I just wanted to share this with you.” She didn’t want the same thing to happen to someone else.
Kandi:
He was my friend, and I just wanted to tell him so that he knew for the future. I was like, “If you do this with another girl, like just please don’t do THIS with another girl.”
August:
How did he respond?
Kandi:
That’s what was interesting is. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess I didn’t expect the defensiveness that he sort of came at me with. And you know, of course, it’s like, “Well, a lot of girls like it rough” and blah, blah, blah. And I just wanted to be like, “Oh, but honey, there’s a difference between like the light choking and this, you know.”
August (narration):
There’s also this super important thing called consent. Please don’t ever assume that someone “likes it rough.” Ask first. Talk about what you’re into. Get on the same page.
Speaking of pages, I asked Kandi if experiences like that one, or far better ones, inform her writing. Do doozies motivate her to conjure up better sex scenes that we, as readers, can take inspiration from?
Kandi:
Oh, yeah, definitely. I feel like I get more into my creative, imaginative space when I’m writing, particularly sex scenes. And I think it’s because that’s a part of me that’s a little too intimate, right, to just could put on paper and put out there. But sometimes, if there’s a really great experience that I have, I can’t help but write about it. It definitely bleeds into it because it was something so exciting and something that’s easy to get excited about writing.
August:
Has the opposite been true, too? Like has writing sexy stories had an impacted your sex life?
Kandi:
Absolutely. I think from writing romance, I have 100% opened myself up to being…more communicative with what I want, what I need and what works. There was definitely a time when I would sit back and just whatever happened happened and whether or not I finished or not was not even on my radar. It was so far from what I was thinking in that moment. It was more like, Do I look okay? Am I making the right noises for him? It was just all thinking about what the end was for the person I was with.
And then I sort of hit this milestone where I realized I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to shy away from what I wanted anymore. And I knew what I did. I knew my body pretty intimately. I just was too scared to ask, as if it was like embarrassing to ask for a man to—I don’t know if I can say this on your show—but to touch my clit or like to let me be in the position that works for me. I started writing about women who took control of that situation. I mean, you can see it in my writing.
August (narration):
In her first few books, they guy leads in sex and he has a “dominating alpha energy.”
Kandi:
And then this transition starts to happen. And now in almost all of my books, it’s the woman who’s totally in control, and taking control of what’s happening and where it’s going. And she’s always the priority.
Not that that necessarily has to be the way it is all the time, but I want any woman who picks up my book to know they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for what they want and that it is sexy to confidently claim what turns you on and what turns you off, and that it can broaden the sexual experience to be so much more.
[acoustic, encouraging music]
August (narration):
That story reminded me of an interview I did last year, with Logan Pierce – a former porn star and the author of Between the Sheets: Rise of a Working Stiff – which he wrote under the pen name, J.R. Verlin. I spoke with him in 2020 for the Girl Boner episode called Sex Tips from Erotica Authors. For his advice, he spoke about the importance of learning to accept sexual feedback from a partner. Here’s a clip from that episode:
Logan:
My primary advice would be to be more open minded and receptive to constructive criticism from your partner, as well as encouraging. And by association, speaking up for yourself about your wants, your needs, and your boundaries. You know, things that are very sensitive topics. Things that a lot of people rarely discuss. They keep it inside, and they hope that their partner will just read their mind and do what they want. And in that case, a lot of people are left unsatisfied, you know? The criticism portion, if our partner has a specific want or need that we’re not fulfilling, when they bring it up to us, I know from my past experience, I might have a tendency to be defensive about it. It’s not a healthy habit to have, because A, you’re almost guaranteed to not fulfill those needs, and be you’re sort of shutting down your partner, and by association, limiting their ability to, you know, to openly speak up about a very sensitive topic that leaves people very vulnerable.
August:
Logan said he learned all of this through personal experience, like so many of us do. And largely the hard way, he can’t quite offer tried and true wisdom on how to address these challenges, he said, because he is still figuring it out for himself.
Logan:
But I’ve come to realize that that’s very important through my failed relationships. I’ve had quite a few relationships in the past that have started off amazing. And they would continue that way. And then once small issues, specifically regarding sex would arise, I wouldn’t be as open as I might, you know, have once thought I was. Or even as I might claim to be sometimes. I would become defensive, and it just wasn’t a very healthy thing to do. And it would just cause a lot of issues in the relationship, outside the bedroom, too.
Your sex life is an extension of everything else. So if you’re unfulfilled, sexually it can come out in other ways. And with a relationship, it’s a tough thing to navigate. Your partner should be someone who you can confide in, who’s willing to offer the things that you personally need. And if they’re not willing to do that, then the relationship most likely will not work out.
August:
Not only that, Logan said, but the flip side of that is really positive. And might be just the thing to not only bring more heat and pleasure to your sex life, but salvage and benefit your relationship in some pretty awesome ways.
Logan:
If your partner is satisfied, you will be satisfied. I mean, at least in my life, I find that I usually get a lot of satisfaction out of making people happy. And once again, your partner is the closest person to you. That’s the person you love, the person you want to give everything to. So if you can make them happy, they will bring happiness into your life as well. But like I said earlier, that’s an ongoing struggle for me. And due to COVID, and everything, oh, my last relationship ended, essentially at the start of 2020. And I haven’t had sex in my private life since then.
So it’s hard to really put all this into practice, but I’ve had a lot of time away from a relationship to really reflect on it. And that’s where I’ve sort of come to this realization that I need to be more receptive, I need to be more receptive, we all benefit from being more receptive, and more encouraging of other people’s voices. And once again, their wants, needs and boundaries, three very important things, boundaries, especially, which are very hard to discuss. But moving forward, I would like to just encourage that from my future partners.
[guitar strum]
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[guitar strum]
August (narration):
Learning to express our desires and accept feedback really are important for all of us in terms of sex. And trust me, it goes in all gender directions—although women and femmes more often learn to be pleasure and men and masculine folks more often learn to see sex as a conquest and not really express themselves intimately.
Still, I would say that most of us, regardless of sex or gender, can all stand to hone these skills. I know I’ve personally been on both sides of doing not so well – not communicating my desires and not taking feedback well.
So before we get to today’s last segment, here are a few practices I recommend:
First, get in touch with your own desires, so you know what to express in the first place. Self reflection and journaling can work great for this.
Second, use positive framing when you share a desire. Say something like, “I really love it when you ____ my _____,” versus something that sounds like complain-y.
(As a caveat, you can complain as much as you’d like and as loudly as you wish when sometime is harming you – always. Whack that person where it counts, if you’re in danger. These tips are for a safe and healthy pairing.)
Third, as far as feedback goes, ask your partner(s) thoughtful questions. Ask about their desires. Ask how they’re feeling. Pay attention and check in.
And fourth, when someone shares feedback about their desires or experience, really listen. They’re probably sharing because they care about you and your experience, too. And if this kind of communication is new for the relationship, it may take a lot of vulnerability and courage. Which means you mean a lot to them and they are really putting forth effort. If you feel yourself starting to get defensive after hearing a request or feedback, pause. Take a breath. And say, with genuine care and curiosity, “tell me more.”
Last, know that we all make mistakes. If you mess up, you start talking and the wrong words come out of your mouth, start over. You could say, “Wait. Can we hit the pause button for a sec? That didn’t come out the way I hoped it would and I would like to try again.”
Now, our last segment.
August (narration):
Rachel Kramer Bussel knows a lot about ways that stories can impact our sex lives. She’s an author, journalist, erotica writing teacher and editor who has edited over 70 spicy anthologies.
She told me she has always been a writer, even writing letters to the editor when she was in high school. In her early 20s, she started writing erotica, which is still the only fiction she writes.
Rachel:
I think I, in general, maybe have more of a nonfiction brain than a fiction brain. But for some reason, erotica really captured my attention. I was reading a lot of it. And I was intrigued by it. And at the same time, I was experimenting a lot in my sex life. And those were things that I wanted to write about.
I had been reading erotica for a few years. And then I saw a call for submissions for a book called Star Fucker, which was celebrity erotica. And, I thought, I’m going to try this. Like I’ve never written this kind of thing before but I’m just going to write what comes to mind. And that was a story called “Monica and Me,” which was about Monica Lewinsky.
The other character, the me, was basically me. So, you know, in some ways, it was a celebrity fantasy. And then that got published. And it was so exciting to me. Like I remember I cried when I saw it published for the first time. That was so thrilling. And then I wrote more stories and not all of them got published but some of them did. And that was just really exciting.
And now being on the other side of that I get to be that person for many writers. You know, a lot of them will say, “This is my first time writing erotica.” Or they’ll put that in their bio. And that is really inspiring for me. That just motivates me to want to keep editing more and more anthologies.
August (narration):
Rachel now works with authors from around the world who bring different perspectives on sex, relationships and writing. She’s always learning about how to turn people on with writing, she said. And she believes that we can all learn a great deal from erotic fiction, in ways that bring more heat and pleasure to our lives.
Rachel:
This is not to knock nonfiction because I’m a fan of nonfiction sex books—I think they’re really helpful to a lot of people—but I think because erotica is fiction, that alone, regardless of the details of what’s in the erotica, I think, can put people in a different headspace.
Because it doesn’t feel like Oh, these are instructions to follow or, you know, especially if you’re, you’re sharing it with a partner and saying, “Oh, maybe we could read this together. What do you think of this?” I think there’s just something freeing about that.
Because it’s like watching a movie or reading any other kind of fiction, the organizing principle is that it’s other people. And you know, they’re, they’re strangers when you start reading about them. And I think that can be really exciting. Because if you go into it with an open mind, you may discover something that turns you on about that story that you wouldn’t have thought would turn you on.
And that’s something that’s happened to me as a reader where if you had said to me, “Oh, like, would you be interested in reading about X?” Just something that I wouldn’t have thought that personally would turn me on. And then if someone brings it to life in a way that I’m like hanging on their every word, I think that’s such a magical, in some ways, experience. It’s a really powerful one.
And I found that erotica readers will remember what they’ve read for many, many years, if it’s something that really speaks to them. You know, I think for that reason it can be very powerful, and it can give people ideas but it might not be the literal idea. It might not be Okay, this person wrote about, you know, being hogtied to a bed and having this happen to them, like having hot wax melted on them.
Maybe that is what the person who reads it wants to do but maybe that just opens up an idea for them of Okay, that turned me on a lot. What about that turned me on? Was it the specific sex toys that they were using or the specific, you know, language or dirty talk that they were having? Or was it just that someone was restrained? Or was it just something totally different that they had never thought about?
August (narration):
That’s important, Rachel said, because it can be easy to limit ourselves as far as our desires or what we allow ourselves to fantasize about.
Another way erotic stories can bring more sizzle to our sex lives involves what we were talking about here earlier: communicating our desires and bringing them up to a partner.
Rachel:
I think it can be very hard to talk with a partner. And I actually think the longer you’re with someone, if you haven’t been talking about it all along, the more challenging it can be. Especially if you think that they’re going to feel like, Oh, you’ve had this thought, and you haven’t told me. You know, I think that can build up.
And then it can be a cycle where you don’t speak to them, because you’re not sure what they’re gonna say. So, I think erotica – You can read it together, you know, maybe one reading to the other or alternating reading or also listening to it. There’s a lot of apps and podcasts and audiobooks that you can listen to.
August (narration):
You can present it as just something that’s enjoyable, or as a way to bring up a specific fantasy. For example, you could say:
Rachel:
“I’ve been thinking about, you know, spanking, and I’ve been fantasizing about it. What do you think?” It can be, “Hey, I found this thing. Maybe we can read this together or listen to this and see what happens.”
You know, I think it can be more open ended when you’re starting that conversation of “let’s try this.” Like, the listening or the, or the reading can be the activity.
August (narration):
Reading or listening to erotic stories can also provide an alternative for folks who aren’t into visual porn.
Rachel:
Yeah, I definitely do. I mean, I never want to pit the one against the other because I think for some people, visual porn is amazing. And for some people, they’re more into wanting to use their imagination. And I think listening to erotica or reading erotica lets you visualize it in whatever way you want to visualize it.
When you’re watching, it’s a very clear image. That might still spark a different image for you and you can fantasize, but I think you can more easily put yourself and/or your partner into a situation when you’re reading about it or listening in a way that you can’t as much when, when you’re seeing it right in your eye.
August (narration):
Reading erotic stories can also bring you deeper into the character’s minds, which is where the hottest parts of sex happen.
[soft human moan]
Rachel:
You’ll find a lot of the characters’ thoughts about what’s happening and elements about the sexual tension and their arousal that you wouldn’t necessarily get in most visual porn.
August (narration):
You can also read about things that aren’t traditionally considered sexy but that relate to sex. There’s a good example in Rachel’s anthology released last summer, Coming Soon: Women’s Orgasm Erotica, in a story called “After,” by Katrina Jackson.
Rachel:
And it’s about a woman dealing with her sexuality after having had a baby and her hormones are out of whack and just her body feels different. And her life is different. And she and her partner are trying to figure out how to handle that. My sense is that they’re each trying to figure that out. It’s troubling to them because she, she wants to be turned on.
They both want to be having the kind of sex that they used to have. But they’re facing obstacles.
And I feel like that kind of thing in terms of people facing whatever kinds of obstacles you won’t see as much in visual porn, because I think people are watching that for maybe different reasons.
So I think you will find in erotica people having stumbling blocks, whether that’s anxiety or physical issues, and then overcoming them and, and finding that sexual happiness.
[happy, hopeful music]
August (narration):
Erotic fiction can also bring a sense of relatability and representation, while sparking desire or new ideas. Another story in Coming Soon, “Love and Porn in a Retirement Home” by Claire Cup, tells the story of a sexually curious woman in her golden years.
Rachel:
It’s about a woman, you know, a grandmother who’s living in a retirement home, and, you know, is curious about some aspects of sex. And she, she actually does start watching some porn, and some adventures ensue from that. And that is a perspective I would like to see more in erotic writing.
August (narration):
Rachel has also received many submissions that involve social distancing or long distance sex and romance, given that she’s edited stories throughout the pandemic.
There’s also a great story called “House of Fingers” by Sienna Saint-Cyr, about a non-binary character who goes to a sex party. It features a lot of negotiation and consent and people’s comfort levels being taken into account.
All of the stories Rachel edits have an emphasis on pleasure, but that’s far from all that’s happening—which, in a lot of ways, is like sex. It’s almost always about more than merely getting off, even in Coming Soon, which puts female orgasm at the center.
Rachel:
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I don’t want to downplay it. Like, of course, the stories I think are sexy, and that is their purpose, but I think there’s also more than sex going on.
And I think they also grapple with kind of sometimes that push-pull of people want something, but then there’s a part of them that’s like, I don’t know. They know that they want it, but then, you know, fulfilling that maybe is challenging.
Of course, there’s lots of orgasms in, in all my erotica books, but I think by putting the focus on it, especially when we’re talking about women’s orgasms, you know, it, I think it gives, it gave the authors a chance to explore, you know, a.) sometimes how fraught orgasm is for women.
Like in the story about the woman after she’s given birth, like how something that you think you know about yourself, how that works for you, how your sexuality works can change with time.
August (narration):
Rachel’s books also feature many fantasies getting fulfilled, which is something we can all learn from and strive for—whether we hope to act on them or if the fantasizing itself, as she mentioned, is the activity.
Learn more about the guests featured in this episode at the links in the show notes. Reviewer’s have called Kandi Steiner’s latest book, Washed Up, sexy, inspirational, emotional and hopeful.
Rachel Kramer Bussel’s latest anthology, Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 7 , is available in print, ebook and audiobook form and her next release, The Big Book of Orgasms, Volume 2: 69 Sexy Stories, will be out in February.
If you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, I’d love to hear from you by way of a review on Apple Podcasts or the iTunes Store. To support this show and get fun extras, join me on Patreon at patreon.com/girlboner. Thanks so much for listening.
[outro music that makes you wanna dance]
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