I (20sNB) didn’t used to consider myself a writer, but I’ve been told that the way I tell stories is immersive. It wasn’t a compliment I took to heart until I found out my roleplay partner was getting off on it.

I used to partake in art/writing communities where roleplaying original characters was common. You could advertise for Safe or Not Safe For Work roleplaying. Initially, I limited myself to SFW-only because, if we’re being honest, NSFW RP-style writing is pretty cringe. Yeah okay, pot calling kettle, but it’s a genre that naturally invites indulgence over actual writing, and that wasn’t what I was looking for.

I started messaging someone whose writing style matched mine. It was all good clean fun at first, but eventually he suggested we dip our toes into NSFW. While I don’t think sex is necessary to develop a fictional (or otherwise) relationship, I was interested in its potential for our characters.

So for context of my personal life: whenever it came to sexual content, I never cared to project myself onto the characters or live vicariously through the actors in a porno or whatever else, it just felt like I was observing from a distant fascination. It was still jerk-off material, but it wasn’t about me, if that makes sense.

Our sessions quickly flipped from SFW with the occasional suggestive scene to almost entirely NSFW. It never got old either, tbh I got pretty creative with it. Like I said, I have a fascination with sexual content even beyond my own kinks, so it’s led me down some interesting rabbitholes and communities. Some of these included, but were certainly not limited to: dom/sub, gender play, pet play, emotionless sex, etc.

One day after another session, our post-roleplay recap felt… different. He complimented me on my writing and told me how glad he was to have me as a RP partner (uh oh, praise kink foreshadowing). Apparently, I had introduced him to some new kinks (and while we were both eager participants, that would explain his enthusiastic shift to NSFW). I told him it was my first time actually getting to explore these thoughts with another person too, and that I enjoyed trying out NSFW RP with him. He was stunned at my inexperience, going into a whole ramble about how he would’ve never guessed, and that he had roleplayed with others before but they were all amateur in comparison, and how it was one thing to be good at writing but a separate skill to write smut in a way that was actually erotic. “No one else does it like you do,” he had said. I remember my face getting hot from this more than any of the raunchy shit we were saying through our characters (yep, that’s a praise kink alright), but I deflected by passing along the compliments back to him. He decided to seal the deal by sending me proof: a photo of his erect dick in hand, leaking from the session we just had.

My initial reaction was admittedly discomfort. It felt like we were breaking the 4th wall when I was, in my mind, only in this for my characters (very “I watch porn for the plot,” I know). All of a sudden, it just felt too close and personal. I was worried that I was sending off the wrong message, so I told him that while I was flattered, I wanted to keep it to our RP space. I’ll admit, this might have been a bad move because he immediately became embarrassed and apologetic, and things fizzled out from there. Which sucks because after this experience, it emboldened me to try NSFW RP with other people too, and unfortunately, no one else was as good as him either.

Looking back, I think I was also feeling embarrassed and vulnerable. I wasn’t used to feeling seen, especially not in a way that put me in the spotlight, so I panicked. It took some time for me to process how I really felt about the whole ordeal. I thought about how I was getting him worked up, probably every time we roleplayed, how I was checking off boxes for him I didn’t even know about, and how much courage he must’ve had to make a confession like that. I feel bad for embarrassing him, and I still think about his words sometimes. And not for nothing, but the photo was honestly hot, and that’s saying something for an unsolicited dick pic.

Needless to say, I’m fully into praise, both giving and receiving. I’m not active in those communities these days, and I’ve put that roleplay energy into my own solo writing. I wonder what he’s doing now. Hopefully he found a better RP partner since then, it’s been a few years so I can’t imagine my writing holds up.