most of the explicit stuff I've written falls into this too, as I just don't enjoy reading smut but sometimes find it interesting to (attempt to!) write.

*thoughtful* I enjoy reading smut for enough different reasons that I'm happy to try smut written by anyone whose writing I generally like, but most of why I enjoy writing it is because of the often-subtly different edges it brings to the characters' emotions. (My Fruits Basket fandom days left me a fan of the "people being emotionally honest with each other in bed in ways they can't be otherwise", which wasn't really something that came into play in Newsflesh fic but has opened back up with Guardian.)

So I'm always interested to hear how other people's experiences of reading (or not) vs. writing it--or reading vs. writing other things--vary, and why. ^_^