Exploring Kinks: #3 Animal Characteristics

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Hey guys, so this topic is another favorite of mine in erotica. It actually has a couple of layers going on, which I’m going to show you. It’s not just about animal characteristics, but also what you’re trying to achieve with those behaviors. You’re not just imitating an animal. Sometimes you’re actually trying to talk to the animal inside your reader.

This topic actually fits really well with the first two. Why? Because dubcon and noncon feed your inner animal. Don’t believe me? Well let me try to prove it to you.

So to start, what do I mean by ‘animal characteristics’ in writing? This is about people acting animalistic in their lives where prim, proper behavior is disregarded as boring and dull and you instead get a more raw, primal experience going on. Growling, biting, clawing, ignoring appropriate settings and mating behaviors instead for blunt sexual release, embracing pain, nudity, dirt, blood, battle, and death—Think of anything some highly religious person would consider ‘godless’ and I’m pretty sure it has animal characteristics in it. The stuffy religions are fucking terrified of the primal human animal.

What do these characters look like? They can vary depending on intensity but some shining examples would be werewolves, shifters, vampires, demons, monsters and aliens, usually with humanoid features. You could also have outright animals but I prefer the extra duality that comes with humans acting animalistic.

The physical beast

Personally, I have a few reasons to why I’m drawn to this subject. One is a double edged sword of growing up with PTSD and being in a highly alert state for the majority of my life. While people walked around me oblivious, from family to strangers, I found myself hyper vigilant, aware of scents, sounds, sights, movements, atmospheres, approaching storms, etc, etc, that others didn’t notice. Part of my anxiety disorder revealed as me just spending every waking moment outside of my home waiting for someone to come along and murder me. I know, super fun. It took until I was an adult and in therapy for a while to figure out just why the hell I was always alert and expecting to be harmed.

My twin brother was also aware of many of these things that others never noticed, which made me wonder if it had less to do with that hyper-alert issue from trauma at a young age, and more something genetic. We’re both Blackfoot Native American so maybe it has something to do with being wired a little different. No clue but I’m leaving it open as an option.

The sexual beast

Let’s see, so another reason I’m drawn to animal characteristics is because of my part time nympho nature. And I’m happy to say part time because whenever I slipped into full blown nymphomania, I found it to be far less pleasant than just having a high sex drive. For those that have never experienced nymphomania, this state of being is like being hijacked by your body, quite literally, where sex is less about desire and more about just relieving an insane itch that won’t ever fucking let up. It’s not actually pleasurable the way normal sex is. I don’t know about men, but as a woman, orgasming wasn’t even of interest after a while because it was rarely achievable. It really was about just relieving the ache as you find your body in a constant state of arousal.

As you can imagine, when your body starts taking over, you feel less human and more primal and animalistic. There is no getting your logical brain on board with the self-destructive behavior nymphomania can lead to, so it feels as though another part of you is taking over your life, one that really doesn’t give a fuck about society, or rules, or properness because you’re in a constant state of agitation that needs relief. And after a while, when the feeling fades, you start chasing it because your brain and body has gotten used to those patterns and doesn’t want to go back to being normal, hence the more addictive side of nymphomania.

The emotional beast

What else… The final animal would be the one I kept in a cage.

I have lived with an animal caged inside me all through my high school and college years. One I was actually quite terrified of. In my mind at the time, I thought it was my inner sociopath that didn’t care about anyone or anything, just survival and self. It was violent, cold, intelligent, calculating, watching people and dissecting them while looking for something I refused to dig too deep into because it scared the fuck out of me. This was of course during a time when I needed to survive and wasn’t realizing it. I was taking care of my dying adoptive mother, and then ailing adoptive father while getting high grades in school, ignoring the fact that I was bipolar, severely depressed, fighting an anxiety disorder every second of my life, and very upset about the shit that had happened to me as a child. So while I was a compassionate, loving, caring human being giving of myself all around me while making art, singing in plays, and planning to be a functioning part of society, there was a monster I had caged inside me wishing that everyone would just disappear so I could heal.

It is amazingly beautiful how the most dangerous, terrible parts of you can exist just to protect and love you. It took me a long time to understand this part of me and not fear it, and it has been my greatest ally since. But that’s part of the journey of life. We all have an animal inside of us on some level. I live with a duality of nature and I think I’m not alone in that state of being. I think the human animal is forever walking around in our clothes, snorting at the stupid rules we’ve created that has over complicated everything, while our other halves insist on trying to win the cerebral, social game that humans have constructed.

Undomesticating the social animal (or at least taking it for a walk)

Part of erotica, just in general for me, is about tearing down the ideas of right and wrong when it comes to sex. As you’ve probably noticed, I don’t write about balanced sexual relationships. I don’t write about socially normal, healthy sexual relationships. Depending on my mood, it could be dark, to loving yet obsessive, to outright bestiality. I like to write sex that can be an indulgence in filth, pain, and emotional turmoil.
This is not sex outright accepted in the majority of society but it is sex that speaks to the inner animal we all hide inside. I don’t write erotica that talks to the logical brain, I write erotica in the hopes of waking up the inner animal. It needs to be fed otherwise it atrophies, and let me say from experience of someone that truly loves and appreciates my inner animals, it’s important to keep them fed to be a full, healthy individual. I’m going for an emotional experience and a highly sexual one at that—What the hell does logic have to do with it besides help in the process of translating?

So I listed some obvious things when it comes to trying to talk to that inner animal; growling, biting, claws, etc. But animal characteristics aren’t just the obvious. It’s about embracing the physical side that our logical brain and social trappings would have us ignore or keep caged. Sweat, saliva, cum and blood; you can’t even have a small stain on your shirt without people thinking you’re a slob. Uncomfortableness—How society hates to be uncomfortable! Most of our paychecks go into keeping us comfortable from the roof over our heads to furniture, clothing, gas, AC/heat, convenient food, etc. Animals don’t have any of that shit. Pain is part of the life experience along with uncomfortable emotions that aren’t curbed, shown in acts of violence and aggression.

The prey experience

Just a quick word here, on top of that very strong, merciless predator that might be lurking inside, there is also the frightened, vulnerable prey. One that experiences everything wide-eyed, reflecting it all back in their dark gaze. Heightened emotion, vulnerability, fear of death and pain—even if you don’t necessarily want to be feeding this animal in your writing or reading, your predator enjoys the prey’s experience, watching it react, run, gasp, and grow weak. What is a predator without its prey? They’re dance partners and when your predator needs feeding, it sometimes needs to see the destruction/defilement of something beautiful. And to be clear; it doesn’t feel bad about it. Part of the animal nature is understanding the roles they play. If an animal started questioning as much as a human did, it would starve to death.

So, yeah. When I write my somewhat rapey werewolf, he might just be a metaphor for poking your inner beast to give you a sexual thrill. And if you find that it gets you off and it kind of freaks you out, it’s because you’ve been ignoring the fact that you have a duality to yourself. Your body is an animal and it is wired to survive, fuck, and survive some more. It understands and accepts its own nature, even if you can’t always wrap your brain around it all the time. What wakes it up and gets it hot might have nothing to do with your logical ideas of romance, love, or sex. It can be uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and absolutely foreign to your ideals. But it’s still real and valid and needs to be embraced.

Or maybe I am just really fucked up and my inner animal is uniquely mad. Either way, it is content with who it is and we get along just fine.