examiner.com:
Today’s Philadelphia Literature Examiner column has advice for authors who want to write about sex. Don’t Do It.
This is good advice and you really should take it. Not because sex is a bad thing (it isn’t). Not because the Philly Lit Examiner is a prude, or thinks his readers are prudes, or thinks there should be more prudery in American letters specifically or in American culture generally (he isn’t, they aren’t, he doesn’t and doesn’t).
You should take this advice because the written word is singularly well adapted to making the act of love ridiculous and so making you look ridiculous as a consequence.
This advice applies to descriptions of the physical deed only. The emotional states of your characters during sex – arousal or attraction or doubt or embarrassment or worry or gratitude or relief or vanity or self-satisfaction, what have you – all these are fine, as long as when you get to the actual sex part you elide the subject with a “while making love” and keep right going, eyes fixed forward.
We’re adults. We can fill in the rest with our own particular experiences, if we like, or not if we don’t, and you can get to the post-coital insights or dramatic realization that the lovers are first cousins or whatever it is your story is actually about.
This advice will also save you a great deal of embarrassment among your family, friends, and social acquaintances, who don’t want to imagine any part of your sex life, but will be utterly helpless to stop themselves from imagining it because of what you’ve written.
Any urban dweller awake on warm nights knows how this works. You have the windows open for a little air; you’re minding your own business; and then suddenly you realize that noise, which sounds like a dying buffalo, is really the beefy fire chief who lives next door having intercourse.
Suddenly, you can see him, face red, jowls wagging, climax legging it out against apoplexy to see which reaches the finish line first, and all ability to exchange casual words with him on the street the next day goes away. God forbid he invites you to dinner and you have to sit across the table from him and his wife, eating pot roast and making polite conversation while trying not to imagine them in bed. If they attend your church, and sit within view on a Sunday, ask the All Mighty to send you straight to hell because the alternate prospect is clearly worse.
So you can see why this is good advice. Still not deterred? Then at least follow these 7 rules.
1. Don’t include excessive amounts of costumes, props, sex toys, food used for other than nutritive purposes, interior decoration, or participants. If you can’t make the basics – two people, naked, bed, a little Barry White – compelling, then all this other stuff isn’t going to save you and just highlights your desperation.
2. Don’t include dialogue or phonetic transcriptions of love noises. This one is obvious and is an absolute prohibition, unless you’re playing the scene for comedy, in which case, pile on. Authors should avoid “Oh. Oh! Oooohh!”s for the same reason they avoid “Ha, ha, ha!”s. The effect of these words on the reader is the exact opposite of their meaning.
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3. Don’t create orgy scenes in mansions where everyone is wearing masks. What the heck is up with this? Maybe it’s Arthur Schnitzler’s fault, or Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s, or Anne Declos’, but whoever’s responsible, it’s far past time for the whole business to STOP. Anything would be better. People wearing Cheeseheads having sex in a basement rec room during a Packers game would be better.
4. Don’t drag it out. Quickies are definitely best. A few well chosen words beat long paragraphs every time. If you write too much, you’ll fall into cliché or you’ll start using complicated metaphors that will earn you a nomination for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
5. Don’t give cute names to body parts. In the French lesbian erotic classic, Therese and Isabelle, the two young girls call each other’s clitorises “pearls”. This is pretty good once, but they keep doing it, and soon the repetition is so cloying it makes you want to shoot yourself (if the overly earnest tone of the novel doesn’t push you over the edge first).
6. Don’t write sex scenes if you’re an old man. This rule is important. Older male writers seem to write horny books, and the older they get, the hornier the books get. You suspect old men write these books to compensate for impotence. A little restraint will make readers believe you’re still in your vigorous prime. I’m not going to name a lot of names here, but Philip Roth should think about it.
7. Don’t make it the greatest sex ever. Why is it that everyone in books always has mind-blowing sex? People do have transcendental sex on occasion, sure, but in between they have lots of okay sex. Or sex that isn’t working too well because they’re distracted by the strange noise the dishwasher is making. Or sex that plain just doesn’t work at all. (I understand this happens based on television commercials.) Want to make a real impression on your readers? Write about mediocre sex.
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Today’s Philadelphia Literature Examiner column has advice for authors who want to write about sex. Don’t Do It.This is good advice and you really should take it. Not because sex is a bad thing (it isn’t). Not because the Philly Lit Examiner is a prude, or thinks his readers are prudes, or thinks there should be more prudery in American letters specifically or in American culture generally (he isn’t, they aren’t, he doesn’t and doesn’t).
You should take this advice because the written word is singularly well adapted to making the act of love ridiculous and so making you look ridiculous as a consequence.
This advice applies to descriptions of the physical deed only. The emotional states of your characters during sex – arousal or attraction or doubt or embarrassment or worry or gratitude or relief or vanity or self-satisfaction, what have you – all these are fine, as long as when you get to the actual sex part you elide the subject with a “while making love” and keep right going, eyes fixed forward.
We’re adults. We can fill in the rest with our own particular experiences, if we like, or not if we don’t, and you can get to the post-coital insights or dramatic realization that the lovers are first cousins or whatever it is your story is actually about.
This advice will also save you a great deal of embarrassment among your family, friends, and social acquaintances, who don’t want to imagine any part of your sex life, but will be utterly helpless to stop themselves from imagining it because of what you’ve written.
Any urban dweller awake on warm nights knows how this works. You have the windows open for a little air; you’re minding your own business; and then suddenly you realize that noise, which sounds like a dying buffalo, is really the beefy fire chief who lives next door having intercourse.
Suddenly, you can see him, face red, jowls wagging, climax legging it out against apoplexy to see which reaches the finish line first, and all ability to exchange casual words with him on the street the next day goes away. God forbid he invites you to dinner and you have to sit across the table from him and his wife, eating pot roast and making polite conversation while trying not to imagine them in bed. If they attend your church, and sit within view on a Sunday, ask the All Mighty to send you straight to hell because the alternate prospect is clearly worse.
So you can see why this is good advice. Still not deterred? Then at least follow these 7 rules.
1. Don’t include excessive amounts of costumes, props, sex toys, food used for other than nutritive purposes, interior decoration, or participants. If you can’t make the basics – two people, naked, bed, a little Barry White – compelling, then all this other stuff isn’t going to save you and just highlights your desperation.
2. Don’t include dialogue or phonetic transcriptions of love noises. This one is obvious and is an absolute prohibition, unless you’re playing the scene for comedy, in which case, pile on. Authors should avoid “Oh. Oh! Oooohh!”s for the same reason they avoid “Ha, ha, ha!”s. The effect of these words on the reader is the exact opposite of their meaning.
3. Don’t create orgy scenes in mansions where everyone is wearing masks. What the heck is up with this? Maybe it’s Arthur Schnitzler’s fault, or Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s, or Anne Declos’, but whoever’s responsible, it’s far past time for the whole business to STOP. Anything would be better. People wearing Cheeseheads having sex in a basement rec room during a Packers game would be better.4. Don’t drag it out. Quickies are definitely best. A few well chosen words beat long paragraphs every time. If you write too much, you’ll fall into cliché or you’ll start using complicated metaphors that will earn you a nomination for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
5. Don’t give cute names to body parts. In the French lesbian erotic classic, Therese and Isabelle, the two young girls call each other’s clitorises “pearls”. This is pretty good once, but they keep doing it, and soon the repetition is so cloying it makes you want to shoot yourself (if the overly earnest tone of the novel doesn’t push you over the edge first).
6. Don’t write sex scenes if you’re an old man. This rule is important. Older male writers seem to write horny books, and the older they get, the hornier the books get. You suspect old men write these books to compensate for impotence. A little restraint will make readers believe you’re still in your vigorous prime. I’m not going to name a lot of names here, but Philip Roth should think about it.
7. Don’t make it the greatest sex ever. Why is it that everyone in books always has mind-blowing sex? People do have transcendental sex on occasion, sure, but in between they have lots of okay sex. Or sex that isn’t working too well because they’re distracted by the strange noise the dishwasher is making. Or sex that plain just doesn’t work at all. (I understand this happens based on television commercials.) Want to make a real impression on your readers? Write about mediocre sex.
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