Smut appears very often on the internet in the 2010s. Some examples of its use are on Tumblr, fanfiction.net, goodreads.com. Most uses of smut are used to describe literary works. A search on reddit reveals that smut is used to specifically describe the explicit parts of a romance book. Here are some example posts that illustrate it being used in a positive and negative light.
r/Wattpad
Title: To smut, or not to smut?
Hello fellow Wattpaders!!!
I have seen a lot of discussions everywhere about smut and this question has been in my mind for a few weeks now. I personally love smut, I love to write it and I love to read it (realistic and not like Fifty Shades, or just plain smut with no plot). What about you? Do you like smut? Do you read it? Do you write it? Why do you not? Or why do you do? Let me know![1]
r/PetPeeves
Title: You're not a bookworm, you just love smut
Purely talking about those people who literally skim a book for smut, but somehow brag about how much they love reading. No shame to anyone who likes smut, no shame to anyone who skims for smut. But if you're literally skipping ALL plot developments and descriptions that don't directly tie to the romance, you're not really reading the book, and you probably don't actually like reading all that much.[2]
As mentioned above, smut is largely spread around fanfiction and book reading communities (e.g., “Booktok”). On the popular fanfiction site Archive of Our Own, the tag smut is attached to 853,171 submissions as of Feb 24th, 2025. In the essay “Is Smut Erotica or Just Pornography, and How Do You Write It Without Bursting Into Flames?” by Narida Law in 2000,[3] she describes her relationship with smut. Originally, she “heard [...] that people in the fanfic community at one time had problems with the word, that it conveyed a sense of pornography,” but how its meaning has “become harmless—now nothing but a innocuous expression that conveys fondness for the genre.”
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Wattpad/comments/1j55yv5/to_smut_or_not_to_smut/.