In the last 18 months, over 500,000 users have generated 27 million erotica stories on Redquill, our AI writing platform. That’s 75 billion words across 40 million chapters — roughly 69,000 times the entire Harry Potter series, except considerably less wholesome.

Here’s how it works: you type in a fantasy you want to read about. Our AI generates a personalized story, one chapter at a time. After each chapter, you decide how the story continues. The story is built around exactly what you asked for.

We went through the data to find out what people actually want when no one’s judging.

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What People Actually Fantasize About

We categorized the stories and users’ prompts in a bunch of different ways. Here’s what we found.

What Drives the Fantasy?

We classified users’ prompts into four categories based on their primary “story driver” — what the main fantasy is about:

1. Kink / Act (47%) — The story is primarily driven by a specific sexual act, fetish, or physical kink. This is closest to how someone would search a porn site by category tag.
   • Example prompts: “Rough anal with dirty talk,” “Tentacle hentai,” “Gender Transformation Pill”
2. Character (27%) — Who the characters are is the main draw. The user spends most of their prompt describing archetypes, physical descriptions, or personas rather than what happens.
   • Example: “Scar is a 6’3 vampire with abs and wavy hair, personality like John Constantine…”
3. Scenario / Situation (17%) — The setup IS the fantasy. The user describes a specific circumstance or “what if” that creates the encounter.
   • Example: “Caught masturbating by my roommate,” “Truth or dare goes too far,” “Stuck in an elevator with a hot stranger”
4. Relationship / Dynamic (9%) — The tension or power dynamic between the characters is what matters most. It’s about the connection or conflict between them.
   • Example: “Enemies to lovers slow burn,” “Secret affair with my best friend’s partner,” “They’ve been married 5 years but lately he’s gone cold and distant”

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What People Are Into

The top two genres surprised us. Gay Male at 14.5% leads the entire chart — ahead of every straight category. And NonHuman/Monster/Supernatural at 12% takes second place, beating out more “expected” categories like BDSM or First Time.

Both of these make sense when you think about what text offers that video traditionally doesn’t: a lot more plot.

Gay male erotica has always had a massive presence in written form (fan fiction communities have known this for decades), but it’s historically underserved by mainstream video porn because it’s often plot-driven — slow burn fics might require better acting than a porn actor can handle.

Same with monster/supernatural — it’s really expensive to produce this genre in live-action, which is why writing might be a better medium to consume it today.

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Sexual Orientation

The most interesting slice here might be the “Other/Undetermined” at 14.1% that didn’t fit neatly into any category.

These are stories where orientation didn’t cleanly apply — a character constantly changing genders, a monster/fae scenario where human orientation categories feel irrelevant, or simply a futanari story.

It’s surprising how large that “Other” slice is, even compared to traditionally popular genres like lesbian.

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Character Archetypes

On a traditional porn site, the most popular categories are physical descriptors: blonde, brunette, redhead, ethnicity, body type.

In erotica, characters are defined by who the person is: their role (MILF, Teacher, Boss), their relationship to you (Friend, Spouse, Roommate, Ex), or their personality (Naive, Bad Boy, Good Girl, Nerd).

The closest thing to a physical descriptor in the entire top 25 is “Curvy, Thick” at #11. Users aren’t casting by appearance — they’re casting by character.

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Relationship Dynamics

The top two dynamics — Age Difference and Secret/Forbidden — share a common thread: tension that exists before anything physical happens. These are relationships with built-in stakes. Someone could get caught. Someone has more power. The fantasy isn’t just about the act — it’s about the context that makes the act feel charged.

Friends to Lovers at #3 reinforces this. It’s one of the most classic romance tropes, and it’s sitting right next to Strangers/One Night Stand at #4 — the complete opposite. Users are split between wanting slow-building tension with someone they know and wanting the thrill of someone entirely new.

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Settings

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Demographics

What Time Do People Read Erotica?

Unsurprisingly, usage peaks between 8–9 PM as people settle into bed. The curve climbs steadily through the afternoon and evening, then drops sharply after 10 PM.

There’s also a small but noticeable bump around 12–1 PM — likely people sneaking in a read during their lunch break.

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Conclusion

What surprised us most wasn’t any single data point — it was how specific people are with their fantasies.

They don’t want “a story.” They want a 6’3 vampire with a John Constantine personality in an enemies-to-lovers slow burn set in a medieval court.

The long tail is everything. No single genre cracks 15%. No single character archetype cracks 10%. The demand is wildly fragmented — which is exactly why AI-generated text is the right medium for it.

No human author and no production studio could serve 500,000 people who each want something slightly different. A blank text box can.

Try Redquill for free and generate your own story, or check out the Redquill blog for more.