Something I won't do for money?

[Eve]

I read a lot of books about writing. I think it is an excuse for putting off the evil moment when I face a blank screen, and all the ideas I've been having disappear. I was trawling through Amazon, another way of not writing, when I stumbled over the following Title: ' It's a Dirty Job: Writing Porn for Fun and Profit.'
The front cover said includes paying markets. Who could resist? I just love paying markets, the very though of a cheque being pushed through my letter box just makes me feel shivery and warm all over.
The author Katy Terrega seems to be an all American Mom, who just happens to write porn for a living. And, judging from her words, quite a good one.
The book is small but packed with solid good advice that you can apply to any genre of writing. She suggests that writing 'filth,' is relatively easy...we've all had the odd...sometimes very odd, outrageous sexual fantasy. Even me. Give it a bit of a plot, and you have another saleable story.
Yippee! I thought, and rushed to my word processor...then I read the list of paying markets, the titles just put me off, yuck! My life as a porn queen hit the buffers there. I couldn't do it...not even for money.
But, I have a guilty confession: I keep creeping back, and having a crafty read, and I fear I might just succumb to temptation one day. Surely just one little one couldn't hurt? Could it?

[Eve]

I tried phone sex once but the phone didn't want to commit.

[Jennie Msangi]

Your blog cracked me up. I tried phone sex once and caught an ear infection. Who knows what would happen to me if I tried this!

[Eve]

No, I'm not considering a switch, the blog entry was really just a piece of humour. I was rather intrigued by the idea of a nice respectable Mom writing that sort of stuff as a living. I bought the book as a bit of speculative research. I wondered what sort of stories you could write around a character writing and working professionally in that area while living a perfectly normal family life. I can certainly imagine humorous and embarrassing situations. i.e while cleaning her son's bedroom she finds one of the magazines she writes for, left open at one of her stories. or conversely a quite dark crime story when family life and the darker side of the porn industry collide.
The excellent writing advice was definatly a bonus.
My own writing interests include steamy romance but I have limits, quite broad ones I admit but limits all the same. I like trying to write in more than one genre and often mix them.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Writers need to get paid. Starvation is terrible for the creative process. But that doesn't mean you should sell out your sense of morality. Your near instant rejection of the "paying markets" suggests you're not entirely comfortable with the idea of signing on with porno publishers. If you get queasy thinking about any publisher, your instincts are trying to tell you something.

On the other hand, that queasiness might just be unfamiliarity. A benign dip into the smut market might quell that uncertainty.

None of this has really answered your question, though. So here it is. If I was in your position, I would stay away from smut unless you were serious about it. Even if you were using a pseudonym, you have the stigma of Eve the Smut Writer to contend with. If you find you don't like it, do you really want to carry that reputation?

If you are considering a permanent switch, though, go for it. Just don't expect to go back. As Neil Young sang, "And once you're gone you can never come back, when you're out of the blue and into the black."