Dissecting bad sex in literature.
Note: In this blog post I primarily focus on sex scenes in standard creative literature, where the goal is the story, as opposed to erotica, where the goal is to excite.
Part 1: Bad Sex in Writing
Apparently, many writers feel at a loss when having to write a sex scene in their stories and certainly from the many bad examples, we appear to be clumsier in writing sex in literature than performing the act itself. Literary Review has even created and award for bad sex in fiction to highlight the abysmal attempts at conveying these physical, supposedly sensual interactions.
When I teach business communications to college students, they often struggle to write well. They can, however, identify bad writing, though they do not always understand what makes it bad. By taking the time to analyse what makes bad writing and naming traits that make better writing, their own student writing improves dramatically. Creative writers can use this same practice of critique and analysis to improve aspects of their own writing.
If we take a look at some of the nominees and winners for Bad Sex in Fiction Award, there are clear pitfalls to avoid. Likewise, each of these errors has a counterpoint that we can all remember when trying to tackle sticky sex scenes. In the following examples, there are multiple problems, but I focus on one major problem per excerpt.
Inaccurate (and Irrelevant): The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
“Margaret only slipped the shaft into her gym lock and didn’t twist the dial afterward. They were in shower stalls side by side now, and Beth could see Margaret’s sizable breasts, like solid cones. Beth’s chest was still like a boy’s and her pubic hair had just started coming in. Margaret ignored Beth and hummed while she soaped herself.”
This particular excerpt is not a sex-scene, but it serves no purpose within The Queen’s Gambit except to titillate the reader. The description of Margaret’s breasts as cone-shaped and solidly cone-shaped, makes it sound like Walter Tevis has never seen a woman’s naked body and is describing the appearance based on the firmly structured bras of the 50s rather than a young woman’s breasts. As well, the sex scenes in The Queen’s Gambit (or rape scene in one case) are not just inaccurate, but arbitrary to the characters and plot.
Confusing: The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin
“She continued crawling over him. It was the turn of her breasts to brush against Katsuro’s face. They were small, round, full and supple; they skipped over the obstacles of the fisherman’s chin, his nose and the arch of his eyebrows, exposing small furrows in his hair, like the tracks of hare through millet fields. Then it was her slightly rough bush that rasped against his chest, and her open-lipped genitals that slid over the man’s face, immersing it in warm balms, sticky and musky.”
Decoin’s 2019 winning description is longer than the excerpt here, but this paragraph is sufficient to demonstrate how confusing descriptions can destroy what could be a hot scene. It took me several reads to figure out what was going on. Often, when we are writing something that makes us uncomfortable, we have a tendency to use language to obscure rather than clarify and truly describe.
Multiple Analogies: Elizabeth Gilbert
“Then I felt it. There was a sensation occurring here that I didn’t even know could occur. I took the sharpest inhale of my life, and I’m not sure I let my breath out for another ten minutes. I do feel that I lost the ability to see and hear for a while, and that something might have short-circuited in my brain – something that has probably never been fully fixed since. My whole being was astonished. I could hear myself making noises like an animal, and my legs were shaking uncontrollably (not that I was trying to control them), and my hands were gripping down so hard over my face that I left fingernail divots in my own skull.
Then I screamed as though I were being run over by a train, and that long arm of his was reaching up again to palm my mouth, and I bit into his hand the way a wounded soldier bites on a bullet.”
This error of excessive analogies/comparisons is fairly prevalent among Bad Sex in Literature nominees. In this example, there are animals, short-circuits, train accidents, soldiers and bullets. It’s a confusing mess of images that make it challenging to understand the real feeling/sensation. Writers use analogies to strengthen the readers’ understanding of something. Trying to find something to compare sex to is actually weird because sex and pleasure is more universal and comprehensible than something like being hit by a train.
Use of clinical words: The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen
"She covers her breasts with her swimsuit. The rest of her remains so delectably exposed. The skin along her arms and shoulders are different shades of tan like water stains in a bathtub. Her face and vagina are competing for my attention, so I glance down at the billiard rack of my penis and testicles."
Clinical words for body parts are great because they allow us to discuss sex without the awkwardness of sensuality. This is really important because we need to be able to talk to our health care practitioners and our children without suggestive slang. These clinical words, however, do not evoke sexiness and can really put the reader into an instructional mood rather than a sensuous one. Also, if a writer is going to use clinical words, I recommend at the very least consulting an anatomy textbook (psst—the vagina is on the inside).
Unflattering: See Above
Unless the storyline is about the protagonist hate-fucking people because they have a bitter hate in them, then describing someone’s skin like stains in the bathtub is not very nice. Most sexual encounters begin with some kind of attraction, even if it is minimal and fleeting.
Over-the-top: Killing Commendatore Haruki Murakami
“My ejaculation was violent, and repeated. Again and again, semen poured from me, overflowing her vagina, turning the sheets sticky. There was nothing I could do to make it stop. If it continued, I worried, I would be completely emptied out.”
This scene wouldn’t necessarily be bad in a work of erotica where the goal is to excite the reader by writing the sensuous details almost to the point of excess, but in the case of standard literature, it is extreme. Do we really need to know that the sheets were sticky or that the protagonist is exceptionally manly and his sperm production proves it? Unless the fine details of sex further the story in some fashion, they aren’t necessary and are more likely to reveal the real grossness of sex rather than the fun of it.
Update: A friend recently told me that Murakami writes Magical Realism, so this might shift the general critique of the sex scene. However, the point remains the same for most writers.
Part 2: Toward Better Sex in Writing
Bad sex scenes (like any bad writing) takes the reader out of the story where they end up contemplating the poor writing style rather than the story and characters. Why, though, are we particularly bad at writing sex scenes? I would suggest that we are bad at writing sex scenes for a few reasons: we are still hesitant about describing sex because it remains a little taboo; although sex can be sensational, it is still fundamentally funny, awkward and gross; we all have different ideas of what is sensuous; and, it is damn hard to describe certain feelings and sensation in words. At the end of the day, we are writers and our job is to convey the intangible using words.
So, I would propose that we consider the following when writing our next sex scenes:
Accuracy:
Figure out what body parts look and feel like, and their actual location on/within the body.
Consistency: The character in sex should be consistent with the person they are outside of sex. They should not suddenly have a weakness or a power that does not exists beyond the sex scene—unless that behaviour/change in behaviour influences their development, in which case the trait will continue throughout the story.
Relevancy:
If the sex scene (or the details) does not improve the reader’s understanding of the story or the characters, then don’t include it.
Single imagery:
If you are going to compare the feeling of sex or the dynamic between the participants to something else, use a single image. Multiple images are confusing, forcing the reader to constantly adapt and reimagine the experience rather then settling in to the feeling.
No thesaurus:
Don't be afraid of repetition. People don’t use multiple words to describe things during sex. If they are calling a penis a cock, chances are they will call it by that name the entire time and not start calling it a love spear or hot meat thermometer (if that was the case, I would probably start laughing). Find a word, maybe two, to describe a body part and leave the thesaurus out of the bedroom.
Ultimately, the best way to write better sex scenes—or to write better at all—is to look at what you like and mimic the style (Literary Hub has a short list here). Alternatively, look at the bad sex scenes—the ones that make you cringe—and avoid the mistakes their writers make.
Quotes were drawn from the original work or from these articles:
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