The Porn-Brained Women Of Monster Smut

Beneath the glossy covers and viral TikTok reviews, the dark niche of "monster smut" is becoming mainstream. Is it rewiring female desire?

It’s been said the only reason Fifty Shades of Grey wasn’t a horror story is because the guy was hot and rich. If Christian Grey were poor and ugly, we’d have ourselves a true crime podcast instead. Oh, how the times have changed...

There’s a genre of books dominating women’s bookshelves right now. They call it "fantasy," but it's no Harry Potter. They call it "Romance," but it's no Twilight. Instead, there are creatures, demons, dungeon rituals, and women being claimed and bred by non-human creatures. These aren’t niche fantasies; they're massively successful and celebrated openly. Millions of women rave about them online, and TikTok’s awash in ecstatic "monster smut" reviews.

I'm going to put my head on the chopping block and say this isn’t just escapism. This is sexual conditioning dressed up in pretty covers and marketed as empowerment. And it's wreaking havoc on women's brains and sex lives.

When ‘Romance’ Involves Milking A Bull

You’re probably picturing a golden sunrise over a quaint farm in the midst of spring. A gorgeous heroine in a milkmaid dress milking a bull in the pasture. And nearby in a clearing, the farmer’s handsome son takes off his shirt and starts chopping wood with incredible force, working up a sweat, and stealing glances in your direction. But your literary mind pauses. “Bulls can’t be milked, only cows… omg.” Yep. That’s not the kind of milking we’re talking about.

I saw a TikTok with thousands of likes about a book called "Morning Glory Milking Farm." The cover art tells you everything you need to know.

This popular title revolves around a stressed-out, in-debt Millennial woman who takes up a job that involves milking anthropomorphic bulls'... cocks. In other words, jerking them off to collect their semen. One massive bull, complete with horns and hooves, becomes her romantic interest. With 50,000 enthusiastic reviews, it's hardly fringe.

Monsters, demons, dragons—anything but a man—are fueling female fantasies these days. And it’s not a quirky kink anymore; it's mainstream female desire in 2025. To be crystal clear: this is about non-human, beastly eroticism, celebrated as love stories. Can we not “normalize” this?

Men’s Porn vs. Women’s Porn

Imagine a hashtag with billions of views of men on TikTok being like, “Here are my ten favorite Pornhub videos that you MUST watch this summer. In this first video, we have a man who chokes a woman until she passes out and then has sex with her... it’s so spicy!” That man would be chased off the internet and off a cliff in an instant (rightfully so). But women are literally bragging about the beastiality porn they’re reading. And if you dare say anything about it, they lose their minds and shame you for being judgmental.

A girl saying she loves reading literature when she means smut is like a man saying he loves cinema when he means watching porn.

Here’s the kicker: most porn consumed by men tends to reflect straightforward emotional and physical desires. Men fantasize about being wanted, initiated, or chosen. A hot woman in an everyday setting (doctor’s office, the gym, school, spa) immediately finds them attractive and comes onto them, wanting sex. The reason this is such a fantasy is because most men in their lives will never experience this. At a basic level, porn for men is women finding them desirable. Even taboo categories like "seduced by my hot step-mom" hint at warped emotional vulnerabilities like "mommy issues."

Women's monster smut, on the other hand, is rooted deeply in domination, submission, breeding, and non-consensual violence. The protagonist isn’t desired; she's claimed, conquered, and subdued. It’s about powerlessness, humiliation, and erotic submission to monstrous beings.

The Velvet-Covered Gateway Drug: ACOTAR & Faerie Smut

The most popular entry point? Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series. With 9 million copies sold and billions of views on TikTok, these books aren't niche. They're a phenomenon, sold everywhere from bookstores to Target.

But let’s unpack the "romance": immortal Faerie warriors with wings, claws, magical mating bonds, and erotic rituals involving submission and violence. Women aren’t just enjoying these stories, they’re calling them healing and therapeutic. If your sexual healing requires an immortal Faerie dominating you through magical bonds, perhaps men aren’t the problem. Maybe you’ve trained yourself to desire only what's utterly unreal.

When Women Can Only Submit to Beasts

Why monsters? It’s simple psychology. Our culture teaches women to distrust masculinity, turning real male dominance into something to fear. But many women still crave surrender. So, they create a safe loophole: if the dominator is a monster, the risk is gone. There’s no real vulnerability with a Faerie king or demon lord because they aren't real. This fantasy becomes a "safe" coping mechanism for women unwilling to trust real men. But here's the thing: it's not safe.

Erotic Conditioning And What You Climax To Matters

Your brain on orgasms isn’t neutral; dopamine released during climax is a powerful conditioning agent. What you repeatedly fantasize about becomes necessary for arousal. If your erotic imagination centers around abuse, monstrous violence, and submission to non-human entities, your brain is reprogramming itself to crave just that. It’s not empowerment, it's neuroplasticity at its darkest.

Shame Plays An Important (And Healthy) Role In Our Lives

No doubt this will get skewered by "fantasy" literature enthusiasts (lol) and dismissed as shaming. Should we "shame" people for things that are wrong, immoral, or harmful? In my line of work, I've been told many times that shame has no place in sex. But if I use my brain for two seconds it's clear that line of thinking is nonsense (incest should be shamed, beastiality should be shamed, pedophilia should be shamed). I'm not equating monster smut with these things, but there are fifty shades of gray, so to speak, along the spectrum of harmful. Conditioning your brain and body to associate pleasure with monsters, slavery, or sexual violence is not healthy.

We Mock Men for Porn, But We Gush Over Monster Sex

Scientists, psychologists, and the general public often state that men are visual and women are emotional. When it comes to sex, men can be turned on instantly by a sexual image despite their mood, and women need to be turned on emotionally to “get in the mood.”

So it stands to reason that porn for men is visual, and porn for women is in the mind (as in, imagined while reading books). I’m not equating porn to smut novels, because one is a video of two people actually having real sex, and the other is, well, just words on paper. I am, however, talking about the effect on the consumer. We know watching porn is bad for the brain. That’s been proven, and only rejected by gooners who don’t want to give it up. But is reading smut bad? You might say, “uh, duh. That’s the whole point!” Ok, fair enough. So let me rephrase. Is reading smut harmful?

I don’t think all smut is harmful. I write about sex, study sex, and am devoting my entire professional career to the topic as a therapist. As a married woman, I think reading articles or romance novels that get you excited to make love to your husband is healthy, good, and fun. I don’t pearl clutch about reading romance novels with sex scenes, no more than I object to watching movies that have sex scenes. But I will say this: Reading dark smut is rotting brains. Women are conditioning their brains and bodies to find objectively harmful and dangerous things sexually arousing. Women shame men for consuming porn (because it creates unrealistic expectations about sex and how women should "perform" in the bedroom) while proudly and publicly gushing over warped fantasies of magical beings with claws and twelve-inch dicks.

Horror Story or Sexual Fantasy?

I can't help but notice how some women talk about The Handmaid's Tale. They describe it with such breathless intensity, you'd think they're narrating their own private erotica. "Oh no, you're going to strip me of my rights, dress me in this shapeless red gown, and assign me to an intimidating, powerful commander who will sexually dominate me in this deeply oppressive hierarchy? You're forcing me to attend ritualistic ceremonies where my sole duty is submission and breeding? And I can only secretly rebel until I'm inevitably reclaimed by my handsome, emotionally complicated master?" Honestly, when I hear this, I have to wonder: "Girl, are you terrified or turned on?"

Only one thing can be true: Either women, by and large, find submission to a masculine force terrifying in real life and repulsive in fantasy.

Or: They say submission is terrifying in real life, but secretly, deeply, they find it to be the ultimate turn-on… the thing that arouses them most when the shame melts away and their subconscious is allowed to speak.

Perhaps this explains why traditionally minded, so-called “conservative” women are statistically happier, more sexually fulfilled, and suffer fewer mental health issues. Because they’ve accepted what modern progressive women can’t: A woman’s nature is receptive.

They don’t fight it. They lean into it. They build healthy, deeply romantic relationships with men who love them, protect them, and yes… sexually dominate them.