Why neurodivergent women can’t stop reading smut and romantasy | Sorry, I Missed This

About this episode

This episode explores why neurodivergent women with ADHD are drawn to explicit fiction and how it affects their focus and emotional processing.

Did you know that women with ADHD consume explicit fiction at dramatically higher rates than neurotypical women — and there’s a neurological reason? Dr. Erika Miley is a licensed mental health counselor, certified sex therapist, and author of the only dissertation published on ADHD and women’s sexuality. After surveying over 2,000 participants, one thing kept surfacing: smut. Romantasy, explicit romance, audio erotica — all of it. In this episode, she explains why the ADHD brain is uniquely drawn to literary erotica, how smut raises the arousal threshold enough to sustain focus, and why neurodivergent women are using it for everything from processing emotional vulnerability to getting through household chores.

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Erika Miley

Topics covered

• ADHD
• women's sexuality
• explicit fiction
• neurodivergent women
• literary erotica
• emotional vulnerability
• focus

Keywords

• ADHD
• neurodivergent
• smut
• romantasy
• erotica
• women's health
• mental health

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Understood.org

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