Oversharing About Writing Sex Scenes

I wanted to chat today about writing sex scenes.

I have found that in writing suspense novels, constructing violent scenes is an easier task than writing sex scenes.

There I said it.

Sex is hard.

I wonder why violence is so much easier for me to write than sex. I mean, violence and sex are both ways that physical bodies interact. I'm writing a choreography of body parts. I'm writing thoughts and emotions that have to do with physical sensation. It really shouldn't be difficult to write a sex scene.

I have in my lifetime been acquainted with both fighting (martial arts) and violence. These are not truths for most people I've spoken with. Maybe I find violence easier to write about because it is not part of most peoples real-world experience and they won't be comparing my scenes to their personal experiences. 

Violence can be imagined. 
Sex... that needs to be imagined, too. Seriously, imagined. I mean folks are trying to escape into a book world. Sex is a wonderful escape, but sex can also be rather banal. Sometimes the act isn't about the throws of passion, sometimes it's an itch that needs to be scratched - which, yeah, is probably an idiom that's inappropriate for this discussion.

And when a writer is imagining sex for their characters, there is a lot to take into consideration. 

This stuff, for example  ↓↓↓

Yohan Castel [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]


Why am I writing about this, you ask.

I was doing some research and fell down the rabbit hole, where YouTube starts suggesting lectures you might like to listen to. I love to listen to TED talks they are truly a treasure trove of  interesting ideas and character development. So first I landed on this lecture where I learned that it's someone's job to make a pig orgasm -- seriously, if you want a laugh while you learn something: Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasms.

Then I listened to this one: 

And I thought, she's talking data points here, and she's talking about readers here because most readers are women. So she's talking about my readers here, and she's saying that they're not interested in sex.

Which I understand. 

Most moms I know are exhausted. Truly. Deeply exhausted. And while sexy time is a stress reliever, from friends I've talked to over the years, they'd rather have a hot bath, a glass of wine, and some respite from toddler demands. Or anyone's demands if I'm being frank. (small f - Being Frank just isn't my thing. Though, I'm not judging.)

It might be easier to get one's needs met while in that bath, drinking some "thank God they've finally gone to sleep!" wine. So it's a writer's job to fill that need. Romance is, after all, the number one book seller. 

There is a group of readers who want to escape from everyday life, and everyday kinds of sex.

And that's where it gets hard. (Yeah, I keep pounding that double entendre, don't I?)

Remember that each reader is on a spectrum of what they long for and what they're comfortable reading from sweet to habanero. They may want funny. They may want steamy. They may want a bit of everything like a buffet line.

Most people have a sex history. Most people understand the sensations and the choreography. And you can write it all. You can write that he left his socks on and his briefs were dangling from his right foot. You can write that he didn't want the lights on because he ate a whole cheesecake, and he felt bloated and unattractive...or whatever happens in an everyday couples' everyday kind of sexual encounter. And if you write that comically, I bet it could work.

But yeah...  for most readers I've asked about this, writing that scene has to be physically correct and stunningly poignant. And fresh. And new. And yet not too fresh or too new because 
-agh, who would do that? 
delete delete delete 
That was just weird.
Try something else...

Yup. Hard.

Once my seventeen year old kept coming in to ask me things while I was writing a scene and finally I said, "Look, I'm writing a sex scene, and every time my character is getting happy, you pop in the door and kill the mood." She said that was probably the single most disgusting thing she's ever heard. 

Yeah, it sucks.

I've asked my readers on my newsletter what they liked. They basically want me to set the stage and shut the door, letting their imaginations finish things up.

Here's an example of me writing a sex scene. This comes from my book Open Secret:

     Lost.

     She was lost in their kiss.
    Couldn’t get enough of this kiss.
    He released her hands and swept her up in his arms, he took the three steps to the bed where he laid her down.
    Yes! she thought. Now!
    But he stopped and took a step back. She could see in his eyes, he was wrestling with himself. Avery imagined that he thought he was moving too fast. When for her, it wasn’t nearly fast enough. Her gaze skimmed his body, stopping on the bulge in his jeans where his hard on pressed against his zipper.
    A flood of hormones swirled through her veins.
    Avery curled her legs under her as she came to kneeling. There was nothing coy about the look she was sending him. She had tucked her chin and looked at him smoldering eyes. She reached down and slowly, slowly unbuttoned her blouse.
    Rowan’s body tensed as he watched her. He settled his hips against the low boy.
    Slipping her silk blouse from one shoulder, then the other, her breasts rounded out of a frame of violet lace. She let the blouse fall to the side, then swept her hands under her breasts, lifting them and pressing them, stroking her thumbs along the tops, down around her hardened nipples.
    Rowan curled his fingers into the edge of the low boy and licked his lips.
    Avery reached behind her as she unbuttoned her skirt. Unzipped the zipper, and pulled it over her head. She was wearing silky panties in the same deep purple, and stockings held in place around her legs by lacey elastic.
    She glided higher in the bed, and lay back on the pillows, letting her long curls form a halo around her head. “Your turn,” she said.
    A slow smile slid across Rowan’s face. He unbuttoned one cuff, then the other.
    Avery desperately wanted to reach into her panties and bring herself some relief. Watching him slowly unbutton his shirt, seeing the strength of his pecks, the washer board ridges on his abdomen, she was drunk on desire.
    He tugged the tail of his shirt from his jeans and cast his shirt aside.
    The lights were dim, but they didn’t hide the bruises that ran up and down his side.
    He’d been in the accident.
    The bruise on his face hadn’t looked so bad, Avery hoped this wasn’t going to cause him pain. And she hoped it didn’t stop him from making love to her. Because right now she was feeling frantic to get him inside her.
    Rowan moved to the end of the bed, popping the top of his jeans, dragging down the zipper. His cock bulged out.
    Avery reached out her hands welcoming him into her arms. But he crawled onto the bed and stopped.

Okay, you get where this is going. 

Tina Glasneck is my writing partner on a humorous series:

In the "If You See Kay"(read that part fast) books, we took a PG13 approach for this tongue-in-cheek series about a 22-year-old badge bunny (that's a girl who likes to "do" boys in blue) named BJ. 

Our female character, who is comfortable with sex, pisses some people off (even if there's no sex on a single page) . 

We've been told that BJ is a slut. 

Sigh. 

Here's an example from BANG to show a different take on the ye olde sexy-time:

    Someone was banging on my door.
    My hands were posted on Seymore’s bare shoulders. He’d banged on my door a half-hour ago—my preferred wakeup call—a hot cop with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a breakfast sandwich in the other. I was showing him a little well-deserved appreciation for revving my morning engines in such a happy way. Banging seemed to be the verb of the day, at least I’d had high hopes that it would be.
    Seymour’s head rested on my pillow. I looked down, reading disappointment in his eyes. “Yeah, me too.” I sighed out. “Maybe it’s a neighbor, and I can get rid of them fast.”
    The look on his face told me he wasn’t holding out much hope.
    “Coming,” I yelled.
    “If only,” he said. Putting his hands on my hips, he helped me off my bed.
    I dropped an apology kiss on his lips as I reached for my robe and phone.

... fast forward a bit

    Reaching out for the coffee Kay was wriggling in my direction, I took a sip and burned my tongue. I set the cup down and reached for the one Seymour had brought me twenty minutes earlier. Ah, just right. I glugged it down, all of it, in one big swallow.
    Kay raised an eyebrow. “Better now?”
   “I can feel the effects starting to spread,” I said, turning to see Seymore coming out of my bedroom, tucking his shirt into his pants, and adjusting his duty belt.
    I sent him a frown.
    “I feel the same, BJ,” he said. “But you’ve got company.” He lifted his chin toward Kay. “Hey there.” He then turned back to me. “And I have to clock in at the station. I’ll text you later. Maybe we can find some time to pick up where we left off?” He leaned down and gave me a very nice kiss, the kind that made me all warm and yearn-y.
    I released a breath of disappointment as I watched him walk out the door, shutting it softly behind him.
    “He’s new,” Kay said as I moved over to fill Twinkles’s bowl with kibble. “I thought you were seeing Captain Lewis.”
    “The good captain started dating, and I have my badge bunny scruples to uphold. I don’t play with other girls’ toys, especially when it comes to their boys.”
    “Ah, you made a rhyme. That coffee must have been high test.”
    “Yeah, Seymore was on his lunch break, and he knows I’m not very energetic when I first get up. I’m surprised he didn’t choose rocket fuel instead of a cup of Joe.”
     “Seymore?”
     “Seymore Wang.”
    Her brow pulled together. “That’s an improbable name.”
    I shrugged. “His mother’s British.”
    “Just keeping the roster straight. Lewis is out, and Wang is in.”
    “Could have been, but you stopped by about fifteen minutes before I would have liked.”
    “Sorry.” She climbed onto a kitchen stool and helped herself to a bite of the breakfast sandwich.      “Now that Captain Lewis is out of the picture, here’s another question: Why did you nickname him Captain Hook? ’Cause of a pirating past?” She winked. “Was he looking for booty?”
    I lifted my hand and curled my pointer finger. “He hooked left.”
    “Huh, that’s a new sensation.”
    “I didn’t mind. Seymore’s straight as an arrow.”
    “Noted,” Kay said. “Hey, how did the Captain become a boxing champion so fast?”
I took a bite of the egg sandwich she had handed me, giving her a sideways glance.
    “Nobody was ready for his left hook.”

Two different examples from two different styles.

All of that's to say, you can't please everyone when it comes to sex. So you have to please yourself.

I hope that as you're creating your scenes, things come easy for you.

Happy writing,

Fiona