Niki Davis
@nikidavisf
Bushwick now has a woman-powered digital space for real-life sex stories. The site is called Aurore and the founder, Carly Pifer, describes it as “feminist, queer, kinky, honest, and relatable.” We are often bombarded with negative, male-centric stories about sex, so it is refreshing to have a space to read and learn about arousing sexy encounters from the female and queer perspective.
Pifer told Bushwick Daily that she began forming the idea for Aurore when she Tindered her way through Europe, going on dates and interviewing people about sex and relationships in their culture—inevitably, after these intimate conversations, she ended up sleeping with her interview subjects.
“As I was writing and transcribing these interviews, I realized that the sex part of the story was so important, that the culmination of our conversation led to us having sex, and I wanted to share that part,” Pifer said. “As I was writing it all up, I couldn’t think of anywhere to pitch it, and everything clicked in this weird way, and I decided to start Aurore.”
As she started putting out calls to her close friends for story pitches, Pifer was disheartened to find that many of her female friends did not have any positive sexual experiences to share. This speaks to how even in 2019 in Bushwick, knowing how to experience positive sexual experiences and talking about them as a woman is difficult. How have people only recently began to talk about the clitoris?
Pifer believes we need an erotic online space that feels good and is well-curated, “The idea is that the stories are written by your peers, so it’s super relatable and you can find something that really resonates with you.”
For those folks that aren’t having positive sexual encounters, reading stories by other women who experience intense pleasure will encourage and empower them to seek out pleasure of their own. She describes the writing as a cross between “relationship confessional” and “pure erotica.”
The problem with a lot of pornography out there is that it is male centric and shows sex in a way that is not realistic or relatable to women. Women are less visually aroused than men and the power of the written word is that the reader can create the scene and put the faces on the characters in a way that women find particularly arousing.
Aurore understands and advocates for women appreciating the uniqueness of their own bodies and seeks to be body-positive, inclusive, and diverse. “Lately I’ve been asking women to write about masturbation, where they’re literally looking in the mirror, and reflecting on their body, and loving their body. If we lack proper imagery we can create those images in the writing,” Pifer said.
Pifer believes reading about someone’s appreciation of the unique details of their own body can highlight parts of yours you may not have thought about paying attention to. “I have this very specific memory of being with an ex, and him kissing my underboob,” Pifer shared. “It felt so ridiculously good, because it was this piece of skin that had never felt love before, and it was just this moment where I was amazed that he was so into loving my body, he was showing me new pleasure zones.”
Erotic writing can also be healing, according to Pifer: “One writer is doing a story for each of her past lovers and sharing [the stories] with them, having conversations around the stories. Her stories are all bittersweet, they’re sexy, but there’s pain and realness to them. She’s healing herself. That’s such an opportunity, you can change the narrative, yes, it’s supposed to be based-on-a-true-story, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come out on top in the rewrite.”
Another writer reached out to Pifer saying that after she wrote the piece for Aurore she performed in front of a live audience for the first time and it was an amazing life altering experience for her.
I started reading a number of Aurore stories at a Bushwick cafe and they were very well written and I’m not going to lie, pretty damn arousing. Also, it was really fun to read steamy stories that mention Bushwick cornerstones such as Happy Fun Hideaway and Maria Hernandez Park.
Aurore is currently accepting stories, and although the space was conceptualized specifically for women and queer folk, Pifer is open to accepting pitches from folks of all identities. Check out their website, Instagram or send your pitches to [email protected]. Carly believes sex can and should be good, and is promoting that message through Aurore.
Cover image courtesy of Aurore.
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