Let's talk about SEX!

I don't usually make it particularly sexy, but that's because it usually doesn't serve too much of a purpose. I mean, obviously it is there for a reason or I wouldn't write it in the first place, but I think how many words and how "sexy" you get depends on how big of a role in plays in the plot.

Since I seem to use TV and movies as examples instead of books, think about the difference in sex between Oz and almost any other HBO show. Oz is explicit because it matters to the story for the prison to come across as harsh as it can, while other shows seem to have explicit content just because they can.

Emotions surrounding the sex.

I hate writing sex scenes, so I'll fade to black whenever I can.

I make it whatever is necessary for the scene.

Sometimes that means erotic, and sometimes that means awkward, and something that means horrifying.

I like the challenge of writing them with as much eroticism as possible, yet still maintaining a fade to black feel. In other words, I like leaving the reader with a sense that they just ‘witnessed’ the characters having sex from start to finish but can’t quite nail it down word-wise (vocabulary).

I think you can make literary sex scenes super-sexy if it is within the goals of the book. Some of the hottest sex scenes I have read were in books shelved as literary. In fact it is a genre with a tradition for pushing this boundary.

... some even got banned. Lady Chatterly's Lover by what's-his-name. Etc. (For the sex.)

Ken said:

... some even got banned. Lady Chatterly's Lover by what's-his-name. Etc. (For the sex.)

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D.H. Lawrence

And also Ulysses, by James Joyce. Although it is more of an example of unsexy sex.

With the way US obscenity laws are, literary authors can and do get far more outrageous than erotic authors can without straying into the illegal.

veinglory said:

I think you can make literary sex scenes super-sexy if it is within the goals of the book. Some of the hottest sex scenes I have read were in books shelved as literary. In fact it is a genre with a tradition for pushing this boundary.

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So true. Some of these works are where I read, studied, learned, (felt really 'warm' from), and aspired to equal to.

veinglory said:

With the way US obscenity laws are, literary authors can and do get far more outrageous than erotic authors can without straying into the illegal.

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That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that, but you are right. Easier to defend as art.

JHFC said:

D.H. Lawrence

And also Ulysses, by James Joyce. Although it is more of an example of unsexy sex.

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Thnx ^

Ulysses. The novel I know I should read but never will. Too difficile :-(

veinglory said:

With the way US obscenity laws are, literary authors can and do get far more outrageous than erotic authors can without straying into the illegal.

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And one day I plan to take full advantage of this...

I love writing sex scenes into my novel and I have no doubt my novel will be banned by someone.

Oh, no doubt. There are so many crazy people in the world even the most innocuous book can get banned over some perceived problem. So if you are really swinging for the fences it shouldn't be difficult at all

Sex is the main factor in my MC's gradual self-destruction as he starts out a naieve, happily married, Christian kid in a prudish environment who has only ever slept with his wife until she starts putting ideas into his fuzzy head. Of course, "suggestive" writing won't do.

Now, I don't like those flowery descriptions of how each finger...., or worse, "exploding into a rainbow of love juices" - those things curl my toenails and make my teeth rot. I just outline the essential and go into how the character feels about it, and with each time, he becomes a bit more of a self-hating prick. I don't want to go into how they lick each "glistening pearl of sweet honey" off of each-others sweaty chest. I prefer to leave the reader with the gist of it and let them fill in the blanks with their own imagination.

I really want to incorporate both those phrases into something now.

I like the curling toe nails and rotting teeth part. A bit dramatic much? Haha.

Wow, this thread filled up fast!

Barbara Kingsolver - I consider her literary, but... approached this issue in Prodigal Summer. She wrote in an interview:
the action turns when one character notices a cellophane crackle in the other's shirt pocket and declares that if he has a condom in there, this is her lucky day. The scene then proceeds, in its entirety: He did. It was. (Space break!)

She decided to write a more explicit novel. It begins as Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist on the far side of 40, is patrolling the woods on Zebulon Mountain, a wild patch of southern Appalachia where she works as a ranger. ''Here and now,'' Kingsolver writes, ''spring heaved in its randy moment. Everywhere you looked, something was fighting for time, for light, the kiss of pollen, a connection of sperm and egg and another chance.''

The book was pretty much a failure. (If it was anything like that purple prose, no surprise.) Of course that was before the "grey" phenomenon.

I'm with those who said, do what your novel seems to demand, based on the characters and style. But don't shy away from it. The real challenge is to make it interesting and believable. I mean sex is so common as to be banal, is it not?

JHFC said:

I really want to incorporate both those phrases into something now.

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Please don't.

NaeimGiladisLegacy said:

Please don't.

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But how else will readers know that my characters are having sticky icky goodness?

GRRM already owns the copyright on putting a single drop of perfume on genitals. I need my own trademark.

JHFC said:

But how else will readers know that my characters are having sticky icky goodness?

GRRM already owns the copyright on putting a single drop of perfume on genitals. I need my own trademark.

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Effing the pain away is mine. You can have the love juices, just warn me so I know what book not to buy

kuwisdelu said:

I make it whatever is necessary for the scene.

Sometimes that means erotic, and sometimes that means awkward, and something that means horrifying.

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^This. Each story has its own flavor, if you will, and therefore requires that the subject matter, be it sex, cursing, car chase scenes, whatever, be presented in the flavor of the story. Nothing is more jarring to me as a reader than when a scene is presented out of the character of the rest of the story.

NaeimGiladisLegacy said:

Effing the pain away is mine.

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Now I want peaches.