Writing sex: a confession

[fictional]

It may come as a surprise to those of you who read IHNIIHBT, which is sort of a pornographic epic, but I greatly dislike writing sex.

No, really.

I hate it a lot. Which is funny because lately, we've been doing a lot of it.

Don't get me wrong. I love that our story is so filthy and x-rated. In fact, sometimes I even think it could stand to be filthier. I like reading sex. Oh man, do I. Porn, for me, is a primarily written-word driven thing, and it was that way long before I discovered fandom and its box of erotic delights. Think reading bodice-rippers and skimming my way through Tess of the D'Urbervilles at seven, desperately (and unsuccessfully, fuck you, Thomas Hardy) searching for the dirty bits...! Flipping through the Mists of Avalon for the threesome scene, etc. etc.

But writing it? A resounding "feh!"

For one thing, it's really hard [no pun intended]. Sex is repetitive. We have a finite number of moving parts, we have a finite number of slots for those parts to fit into. We tweak, we stroke, we push, we pull, we slap, we tickle; we get wet, we get hard. It feels great, except when it doesn't. And if you add in too many adverbs and adjectives -- you run the risk of sounding like a romance novel, a bad romance novel.

I don't know about you, but I have sex in my head. If my brain isn't getting off, I can spasm all I want, but I haven't come. It's no good to me without the brainfuck. There's an internal narrative always going on -- which mirrors to varying degrees what's actually happening in the physical, corporeal world. Sometimes, the degree is zero. Things I would never do "for real", things I would find actively offensive or disturbing if I weren't in bed, and believing that the things people imagine or play at in order to find pleasure are all perfectly okay.¹

Thing is, when you're writing, the characters can't have internal narratives, unrelated to what's around them, because they're already in a narrative! Hell, they are the narrative. And of what interest to the reader -- who's using your story to furnish their own fantasy about say, Jack and Ianto -- is an internal, unrelated narrative that the character might possibly be having, if they were real? My feeling is, generally speaking, probably not much. Because that's like being OOC on purpose, and no one wants to see that, right?

So there's ways around it. Hence: dirty talk, d/s, drag, s & m, 3somes -- all games that are all about the stories you tell yourself. Narratives embraced and imposed.

But. I have to wonder, what are the fantasies of fantasies? What are the stories that stories whisper to themselves in the dark, or the ones they hold tightly to themselves, too ashamed even to say out loud?

Because that? That might be hot.


¹That's what I tell myself anyway. Rationalizations: more important than sex. Think about it. Ever made it through a day without a rationalization? Yeah..

Comments

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I find writing about the character's fantasies, and the fulfillment thereof (or not, as the case may be) to be hot, but also can be beyond that to intensely loving when we're talking about one character using their body/mind/spirit to fulfill the fantasy of a loved one—a fantasy that was confessed in the first place because of the trust that the two characters have in each other. Even better if you can tie the fantasy to some kind of psychological aspect of at least the character doing the asking, and you can demonstrate that the giving character understands that to some degree. And then you have (1) hot kinky sex (2) that expresses the love and trust two characters have for each other (3) and explores psychological aspects of one or both characters. Everybody wins!

I admit, it's even gotten to the point where I'll suggest something that the characters are doing, have them talk about some scenario, but not actually write that out. It's like, conceptual sex. Very modern.

Compared to that, first times? First times are kind of boring; where are the layers?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

It's like, conceptual sex. Very modern.

Best sentence ever. And also, hot!

But yeah, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that if it's not a story about stories, in some way, if it doesn't have, as you say, "layers" -- why bother??

When I'm writing kink, it's about the kink and what that says about the people, psychological complexity, meta-narrative, etc etc. And love and trust of course. Or lack thereof. But it's funny because the actual *sex* part of it? Tab a, slot b? That often just feels like a slog to write though not necessarily to read. And that's what I find peculiar; that I like to read it, (if done well clearly) but not the act of writing it (though I hope it's still done well, of course.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You know, when people ask me if writing sex scenes turns me on, I always reply no, it's hard work! But thinking them up definitely does, or at least it should, or it won't be hot on the page.

There's this moment in one of the Little House books—I think The Long Winter—where Laura is cleaning and comes upon a book of Tennyson poems. She opens it without thinking and reads a line of "The Lotos-Eaters" before it occurs to her that it may well be her Christmas present, whereupon she slams it shut and puts it back in its hiding place. But the first line of the poem gets stuck in her head and grows stale with her thinking about it.

I think it's the same with sex scenes. They spring into your mind, immediate and hot, but getting on the page what was in your head is just as much hard work for a sex scene as it is for anything else. When you read someone else's sex scene, though, it's fresh and clean; you haven't been thinking about it for a week trying to work out how to choreograph it, or wrestled its commas, or kicked the cheesy adverbs out.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I think it's actually These Happy Golden Years because when she finally reads it, she's all lonely and sad 'cause everyone's gone sleigh riding without her? Which adds to her disappointment? And I think Ma & Pa bought the book in Iowa when they took Mary to College.

But yes, your point about staleness is well taken. But even with sex scenes that I've written, I enjoy reading them after they're on the page. But the writing is a slog, because I always feel sort of stymied in getting the idea?