Sally is 42, has four kids and has been with her husband for 24 years.
She reads erotic literature for pleasure every day. Before that, she says her sex life was a little slow.
"It's very hard for me — and I think a lot of women — to want to get intimate … when you're exhausted and you don't feel sexy in any way."
A romance junkie, Sally says she initially started reading to switch off her brain.
As she progressed to more erotic stories, something started to shift.
"It didn't happen instantly [but] my sex drive went from being almost zero … to the sex drive that I had in my early 20s," she says.
Almost 70 per cent of Aussie women aged 40 to 65 experience low libido. But it doesn't discriminate — stress, fatigue, hormonal fluctuations, relationship issues, body image and illness can all contribute to reduced libido at any age.
And erotica is helping younger women get in the mood too — like 32-year-old Isabella*, who got into it during her 20s after a recommendation from a friend.
She uses it to masturbate and prefers it over porn because it gives her more power over the narrative.
"You don't have to be attracted to a specific actor on a screen; you can superimpose a person or type of person you're attracted to into a character.
"It can also be a little less corny."
Unlike romance books — think Mills and Boon — erotica is a little hotter.
It's about an individual's journey of sexual self-discovery and it doesn't necessarily have a cliched happily-ever-after ending.
The best example of mainstream erotica is the 50 Shades of Grey series.
Kate Cuthbert is program manager at Writers Victoria. She dismisses the stigma that erotica is "mummy porn", saying that diminishes the genre and patronises its audience.
She says erotica reflects our sexuality in a positive way, unlike in mainstream society where a lot of it can be repressed.
"Sex is life-affirming, and I think erotica can really help with that."
ABC podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk spoke to Sally about how erotica changed her sex life, and erotica experts on why it's so popular with women.
How Sally flipped the switch
Sally admits it sounds hard to believe reading erotica could take her from rarely feeling like sex to counting the minutes until her husband came home.
"It took me to that level and I was shocked. I wouldn't even get that watching porn," she says.
When reading erotica, Sally says she can feel herself heating up; she experiences an increased heart rate and "tingles", for example.
A key part of getting to where she is now was finding what worked for her.
"I found what I like to read. I made a promise to myself: everything was on the table.
"There's a lot of areas of erotica that can be quite taboo. And I dived headfirst into all of them.
"And so I found what it was that enticed me, what titillated me, what got every physical reaction out of me."
Ms Cuthbert says erotic romance provides a safe space for people to explore sexual fantasy.
"It almost gives you permission to go ahead and try out what it is that you're interested in," she says.
Who else is enjoying erotica — and what for?
Gina Gutierrez is the CEO of an audio erotica company.
She says about half of their audience is listening for pleasure — either warming themselves up to self-pleasure or touching themselves while listening.
The other half are exploring the edges of their sexuality — getting to know what they do and don't like.
"They're listening for language that they might use in their own lives. So pleasure might be a part of that experience, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
"Then there is a portion of those people who are listening to either warm up with partners, or listening to switch off their work brain and change their mood."
Ms Cuthbert says erotica is increasingly representing diversity, including the queer and kink communities, which is appealing to new audiences.
"We're seeing a lot more spectrum of what can be considered erotic than we may have seen in the past," she says.
What Sally's sex life looks like now
Sally and her husband would have "dry spells" of up to three months before erotica came into her life.
Now they have sex once a week.
She says erotica unlocked a confidence in her she didn't have before.
"It made me feel more courageous when it came to asking for things in the bedroom.
"[My husband] was very excited, all of a sudden buying me books."
It also inspired her to be more sexually adventurous.
"I wanted to try new things. I wanted to experience different positions and experience different tools."
Finally, it allowed her to embrace and love her body. She says she realised it didn't matter that her body "looked different" or "made different sounds".
"It took me out of my head, took me away from thinking about that and put me into the act."
*Names have been changed for privacy.
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