Have you ever stumbled on an idea so delicious, you couldn’t stop thinking about it? That’s how Lust Through the Ages was born. My new podcast exploring historical erotica through the lens of curiosity and storytelling.
My best friend Suzy tossed it out casually one afternoon—“Why not read erotica with a historical twist?”—and my mind exploded with possibilities.
How Lust Through the Ages Began
As a novelist and lifelong researcher, I’m fascinated by how people once spoke—and whispered—about love, power, and pleasure. I wanted to find a way to bridge those old stories with our modern hunger for connection. What began as a joke over coffee turned into something bigger: a living conversation between the past and present, between the words we write and the desires we rarely say aloud.
Not Smut, But Stories That Shaped Us
I love writing romance and spice. And many say I write a pretty good love scene. (But that’s another tale for when my novel gets published.) For me, magic exists in balance: titillate the senses just enough, then let the listener’s imagination do the rest. That’s exactly what this new podcast will offer. Not smut for smut’s sake (the kind that exists only to shock or arouse), but stories that once provoked laughter, outrage, and change. Stories that challenged how people saw themselves, their partners, and their place in the world.
Because this isn’t about provocation for its own sake. My intent isn’t to shock you or be brazen or callous. It’s to understand. To ask why these tales of desire—so feared, censored, or laughed at in their time—still stir something in us now. I’m not chasing scandal. I seek connection. Like a scientist studying patterns or a psychologist tracing the shape of longing, I explore how human sexuality and relationships have evolved, how we’ve loved, hidden, confessed, and rebelled through the ages.
That curiosity is what fuels this project. In Lust Through the Ages, I’ll read a chapter each week from classic works of forbidden literature and then we’ll slip behind the curtain together to talk about the world that produced them. What was real? Imagined? And why did people try so hard to keep these stories hidden?
Because here’s the truth: Storytelling was an oral art long before podcasts or paperbacks. In Renaissance Italy, stories were spoken (performed, confided, teased into being). Not simply read, but shared. That’s what I want this podcast to feel like: an echo of those old storytelling nights, where art and appetite met by firelight.
From Renaissance Italy to Beyond
For our first collection, I (of course) begin in Italy. A land of courtesans, intrigue, and scandalous laughter. I start with Pietro Aretino’s Dialogues, written in Renaissance Venice and banned almost as soon as it was printed. Imagine witty courtesans teaching their trade, wives swapping complaints, and even nuns who couldn’t quite keep temptation out of the convent walls.
Think of Lust Through the Ages as a salon for the curious—part storytelling, part literary history, and just enough mischief to make you blush. Together, we’ll uncover the books that once shocked polite society—and maybe discover a little truth about our own.
Step Beyond the Audio and Explore the Allure of the Past
The trailer and first episode are already live. And that’s only the beginning. If you’re new here, this post is your invitation to step beyond the audio and explore the allure of the past with me.
You can listen to Lust Through the Ages wherever you get your podcasts, starting with our journey into Renaissance Italy. In our opening reading, we begin not with scandal in the streets but with Aretino’s “The Life of Nuns”—a witty, irreverent glimpse behind convent walls where temptation meets theology.
Until then, pour a glass, light a candle, and join me. History has never been this much fun.
In every age, someone tried to silence these stories, but they survived because people kept whispering them. What stories do you think we still whisper today? Share below. Let’s make our own little rebellion in the comments.
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