Why boomer bonkbusters taught me to love life again

Out of all the hobbies I’ve tried, learning to write erotic fiction has got to be the most fun. For a start, it’s hard to write anything at all without your inner 14-year-old sniggering over the feeblest pun. (Hard! Lol!)

Then there’s the deliciously hilarious challenge of choosing your vocab. Pilates ain’t got nothing on the contortions required to find the right words to write sex scenes sexily.

Every synonym for a character’s, ahem, private parts sounds cringingly dated and soggily unerotic. Member? Manhood? Oh god, piston? The last thing you want when writing is an air of awkward apologetic-ness. We want hot, breathless sweatiness, and I’m not talking the Tuesday night Zumba class variety.

Challenges aside, as new hobbies go it’s gloriously fun. But before I explain why, I should explain exactly what erotic fiction is, because it’s still quite a blurry term.

Imagine all erotic writing as fitting on a spectrum. On the wholesome end is romance writing, a story about two people getting their happily ever after. There may or may not be sex, but there’s probably a lot of bodice-ripping and chest-rippling.

Things get hotter with erotic romance, where there are usually two characters, a plot, and definitely sex scenes. This is probably the most mainstream genre, and ranges in flavour from the more genteel Bridgerton books to the whipcracking 50 Shades.

There’s also the darker, sultrier erotica writing. You can differentiate it from erotic romance because it doesn’t really have a plot; if you took out the sex then the work disintegrates. Then finally there’s straight pornographic writing, which has all the character, plot and nuance of a written transcript from a YouPorn video.

Personally, I’m frolicking in the frothy fountain of learning to write erotic romance. And it’s all thanks to the shoulder-padded sultan of supermarket-shelf-slush, Jackie Collins.

Now look, I know Jackie Collins is an unlikely messiah for a millennial. She’s more the kind of woman that your mum’s book club discusses in reverentially hushed tones over hummus platters. Surely my sex positive generation has nothing to learn from the woman who liberated a generation from the brown-and-orange 60s, right?

Well, actually... no. My interest in erotic fiction started with Collins. Primarily because women always talked about her like she saved their lives. And that got my attention, because growing up in the internet-porn generation means I often feel like we need saving.

It’s not all bad. My generation is very au-fait with all the angles, actions and anatomical combinations possible when two (or more) people get it on. We’re very unshockable.

The downside is that the overexposure leaves you bleakly bored with sex. You grow up mentally stripping back the vast, delicious, dizzy world of desire into four-and-a-half minutes of submitting to the same five positions.

It also, despite leaving you very well-informed about what’s physically possible during sex, leaves you pretty clueless about what’s possible emotionally.

The emotional ethos of our era when it comes to sex is, do whatever. Guys are expected to be able to do anything, girls are expected to be up for anything. That’s useful in its de-stigmatisation effect.

But it’s also useless when it comes to exploring any of the shame, pain, curiosity or excitement that we all still carry about sex and relationships. Not to mention the idea that we can like, or not like something. Or to want, or not want, something.

The ‘‘do whatever’’ ethos bleaches the emotional resonance out of sex. Often it feels like

Jackie Collins is an unlikely messiah for a millennial. She’s more the kind of woman that your mum’s book club discusses in reverentially hushed tones over hummus platters.

cycles by ensuring long-term continuity of supply. That would be a game-changer for the sector.

We don’t need them today – and we believe the Government is open to a more flexible approach – but we do need to start preparing now so we avoid the bust we know will eventually come if things don’t change.

By example, after the Global Financial Crisis between 2008 and 2011, housebuilding declined by 50 per cent and the residential construction sector lost 25 per cent of its workforce. It took seven years for sector employee levels to recover, which directly contributed to the housing deficit we have today.

In contrast, Australia’s policy response included countercyclical measures, which reversed their housing slump throughout 2008-09, placing us at a competitive disadvantage.

With greater predictability and less volatility over time, central and local government and developers would be able to better plan what type of houses to build and where. This would help remedy an irrational situation, which sees fewer new builds for those with the greatest housing needs and too many new builds for the top 40 per cent of the market – a reversal of the position in 1960s New Zealand.

Taking a strategic view would constitute transformative public policy and the very essence of building back better. Transformative leadership would also need to transcend party politics. Housing policy needs to be bipartisan to endure. That is the only way we will move from reactive, catch-up, adhoc and incremental policymaking responding to market inequities to proactive leadership that can better anticipate demographic, social and economic challenges ahead.