Here's the thing, there are sex scenes to write. But how to do it? Delicately? Without bodice ripping? Without euphemisms? Getting across the point without making the point too obvious. Or making it so obvious it makes you squirm? To titillate or not? I'm not telling who has sex and who makes love, but there's a difference surely. Or at least the aftermath is different. You don't groan and stand up and go wash off and run away. You stay, you stay put and admire the other person, you admit that you want them, and still want them after you're done.
I can write a decent sex scene, but the best I've ever read is in Sue Miller's book Lost in the Forest. When any other writer would have pulled back, she kept going honestly, efficiently, relentlessly. Amazing. Creepy and amazing considering it was an older man with a teenage girl and he was basically molesting her . . . almost molesting her because there was such a thin line. The line between dangerous and safe, the line between I want this, and I really don't.
Yesterday I thought to myself how do I begin, today I wonder how do I continue. Sex is a pastime. Sex is a release. Sex is an obsession. Sex is part of life. Sex is natural. Sex is perverse. Sex is whatever it is for you personally and why does the world have to know. Sex sells. God does sex sell.
Rest assured there's sex in this novel, gay and straight. Let's leave it at that. But when I write I do think back to an assignment I flubbed long ago, writing some of those "true-life" Penthouse letters. The pay was good, my writing inadequate to the task.
In my novel, one of the two young girls tells the other, "sex is the easy part."
Is she right? I wonder.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I've only written one sex scene and I avoided details. My book is comic and the technical details of the act weren't part of the story and just didn't fit the mood. (or maybe I wanted to give my charcters some privacy) it just seemed like the right thing to do. But I think it depends on the nature of the scene - I mean what is it doing in the book - maybe you want to make the reader squirm or maybe you don't.
ReplyDeleteI guess the reader's response will have a lot to do with how they feel about sex scenes. Like them? Love them? Hate them? Actually I think every book I write has a sex scene in it, at least one, usually more than one. Which gives something about me away I guess.
ReplyDeleteDetailed sex scenes make me as a reader feel like a voyeur. Better to respect the characters' privacy.
ReplyDeleteBeginning is easier than continuing. Finishing is toughest of all. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThank god this part is over, that's what I've got to say today. Interesting, people do feel very differently about this . . .
ReplyDeleteI think I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to reading graphic sex scenes- I squirm, but I guess I find it exciting too. I just finished the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer as my daughter was heavily into these books, and reading them has made for a lot of interesting conversations between us. When the main characters have sex in the last book, Breaking Dawn, I found myself relieved that there were not graphic details. It does leave more to the imagination that way...
ReplyDeleteI agree, the trick is finding just enough . . .and I have to say I can't take the movie Twilight. What's with the casting of that male lead? Maybe I'm just too old.
ReplyDelete