Thank you for this perceptive essay. Two things occurred to me. One is James Salter, who writes about sex not as something separate that his characters do--but as who they are. (I'm sure there are others, but I've always felt he is one of the best.)
The other thing I remembered was a friend (RIP Jane) who in the 1980s read the slush pile for Candlelight Ecstasy Romance books and one season (probably because of a made-for-TV movie that people watched that year used the idea) there were multiple manuscripts that used a case of hypothermia to initiate a sex scene...like someone falls in a river, is rescued by the romantic interest. He gets her to the shore, strips off her clothes. Strips of HIS OWN clothes, and then they both get into a sleeping bag, skin on skin for warmth and (as Virgil wrote when Dido lures the reluctant Aeneas into a cave in the forest after being caught in a rain storm) ". . ."
Since we've brought up references to Dido and Aeneas, the Tessa Hadley story, Dido's Lament, may be of interest if you don't already know it. There's no sex scene but there's delusion, longing, and unmet expectations. It was in the New Yorker a few years back.
This particular story is about a woman who, in the London Underground, runs into the ex-husband of her youth, who's now happily remarried. The title takes into account several attributes of the character and also refers to the Virgil and the Henry Purcell opera.
I remember reading A Sport and a Pastime on a sultry Friday afternoon and re-reading over the weekend. Solo Faces is my favorite. I’m going to go back over Last Night the short story, I forget how much is disclosed in that one.
However I wonder how Salter would go over with today’s editors and whether he was too on the nose.
Was going to mention James Salter in my own comment, but you got there first. His work was given to me by a writer who told me she really struggled to write sex scenes because when she has sex, she loses that narrator voice in her head.
Lev, I love this essay and that you had the cojones to write it! I frankly think that a lot of bad sex scenes or written (or not written at all) because the writers themselves are conflicted about the topic or have vanilla experience with the act of sex. Sex is the motor of so much that happens in the world, I mean the sex we have or don't have in our heads, our relationships, good or bad, with our own bodies, our views of ourselves as bodies in the world. I translate a writer, Mónica Lavín (México) whose writing on desire is the most convincing and artful I've ever read. I look forward to publishing a "bouquet" of her flash pieces soon and I'll reach out to you to see what you think!
You may be right. I also suspect people don't want to reveal their "secret network of wishes and fears" as one professor I know dubbed it in his psychology and lit class. The final assignment was for students to reveal the above in connection with one of the books or plays they all read.
I thought your comments about timing and perspective were discerning and thought provoking.
I recently read People Collide, which like a 5 act structure with an epilogue, and the blow out sex scene happens at the end of act three, is perfectly fitting. The first person narrator maintains their voice and perspective- maybe it’s easier in that PoV?
Your comments about beginning a novel made me think of Nevada, which stars with a well written scene about bad sex and launches the first person narrator across the country, eventually.
I agree with some of the other comments that it’s hard to do a sex scene in a short story. But would like to read more. One of the guests posts on here, Katherine E. Standefer, linked to her personal essay In Praise of Contempt, which was worth a second, or third, read.
Thanks for these insightful comments about writing sex scenes. It's very helpful to think of aiming for a portrayal that is not about the action or the body parts but is about the person(s), solidly and totally.
This helps us understand that, craft-wise, it's difficult to write a sex scene that works and also advances the story. Because of space constraints, it also seems harder to fit into a short story submitted to a litmag than a novel unless the story is primarily about the sexual event.
Thank you, Lev, for this very thoughtful essay. You reinforce that everything in a story—especially sex—should serve a purpose to either move the underlying theme forward, the story beneath the story. This was very helpful!
Such an intelligent article. Full of insights to guide the writer into actually writing sex scenes that enrich and enlighten rather than irritate and distract.
Thanks so much, Lev, for your insight. I tried a sex scene in a short story I read for a writers' group in Ludington with the late, great, George Dila a number of years ago. His only comment -- "it's hard to write a sex scene". I got the impression my scene wasn't that great!
I was brought in to give a Jewish perspective. And there was a lovely couple I stayed with once or twice but I can't recall their names. I put Ludington in my mystery series: it's where the hero and spouse have a condo after selling their cabin up north.
Great post, as usual, Lev! I have yet to write a sex scene in a short story (I need more room!) except for a funny ending where the PI who was trying to catch a woman cheating on her husband put his own body on the line (or the mattress), and complained that his partner barged in with the camera too soon. And to top it all, the partner (a woman) burst out laughing. I think that said something about the characters :)
Thanks! I enjoyed that. I used to write a lot of sex scenes from protagonist POV. Half of my readers were engaged. The other half were deeply uncomfortable. Thinking of writing more stories with sex in it to see how they fly with lit mags.
I love this discussion. Sex is in the head but it seems authors' first intuition is to be more graphic. It's very possible that by trying to be brave and adhering to 'show don't tell,' writers persistently forget the rules of point of view.
Nice piece, Lev. I wonder how much the "show, don't tell" admonition overly influences writers in sex scenes. Or that writers "raised by workshop" were never encouraged to or felt too constrained to take such scenes for a spin, so to speak. I agree with others who have commented here that longer works of fiction seem like a better place. Love those bad examples! Please tell me you've got a whole file of them collected over the years. (There used to be a lit mag called "Burlap Sheets" that only took such things, but they've disappeared.)
I think they can work in a short story. There are scenes in The Alibi, a novel by Joseph Kanon, that are deeply evocative and revealing and only a paragraph or so long. What's a graf in a story? Even two or three if they reveal something in an important way?
Yes, I started collecting examples when I was reviewing at the Detroit Free Press. And over the years have taught sex writing workshops at two conferences in Michigan, will be doing that again next spring. :-)
And I don't remember anyone in my MFA program doing sex scenes.
Sign me up! An Expert in the Field, then. You're right of course, in that anything can work if done well. My own past as a writer of stories in men's magazines with a required page to page and a half of explicit sex probably influences my thinking of these scenes as pulling significant and sometimes too much attention to themselves.
I was about 13 when Portnoy's Complaint came out, and if I'm remembering right it helped open up highbrow/literary/hi-falutin fiction to such things. It was about the same time that previously banned books from the likes of Terry Southern, William Burroughs and Henry Miller started to become readily available, even to grateful adolescents. Of course, then came the 80s, and Reagan, the so-called Moral Majority and Ed Meese's Commission on Pornography as new influences in the other direction.
There's a scene in a Burroughs biography where he and Southern are sorting through a bunch of pharmaceutical samples they got from some doctor(s), to see what they can use to get high. At one point Burroughs says something like, "Pain, look for the word pain, my dear" and Southern goes, "Let pain be our watchword!" Which for some reason has stayed with me.
Thank you for this perceptive essay. Two things occurred to me. One is James Salter, who writes about sex not as something separate that his characters do--but as who they are. (I'm sure there are others, but I've always felt he is one of the best.)
The other thing I remembered was a friend (RIP Jane) who in the 1980s read the slush pile for Candlelight Ecstasy Romance books and one season (probably because of a made-for-TV movie that people watched that year used the idea) there were multiple manuscripts that used a case of hypothermia to initiate a sex scene...like someone falls in a river, is rescued by the romantic interest. He gets her to the shore, strips off her clothes. Strips of HIS OWN clothes, and then they both get into a sleeping bag, skin on skin for warmth and (as Virgil wrote when Dido lures the reluctant Aeneas into a cave in the forest after being caught in a rain storm) ". . ."
Thanks for reading and commenting. Isn't it funny how often in thrillers, screen and book, couples being chased or threatened have time for sex?
You don't hear people mention Salter much these days. I loved A Sport and a Pastime.
Do you know Brodsky's poem about Dido and Aeneas? I quote it a lot. https://ruverses.com/joseph-brodsky/dido-and-aeneas/4007/
Lev! I did NOT know Brodsky's poem. The palpable longing; the knowing despair. THANK YOU.
You're welcome. He's one of my favorite contemporary poets along with W.S. Merwin.
Since we've brought up references to Dido and Aeneas, the Tessa Hadley story, Dido's Lament, may be of interest if you don't already know it. There's no sex scene but there's delusion, longing, and unmet expectations. It was in the New Yorker a few years back.
I don't know her work, will look her up.
This particular story is about a woman who, in the London Underground, runs into the ex-husband of her youth, who's now happily remarried. The title takes into account several attributes of the character and also refers to the Virgil and the Henry Purcell opera.
I love that opera. And you hear the music of Dido's Lament all over in movies and TV series. Dark ones, of course.
I remember reading A Sport and a Pastime on a sultry Friday afternoon and re-reading over the weekend. Solo Faces is my favorite. I’m going to go back over Last Night the short story, I forget how much is disclosed in that one.
However I wonder how Salter would go over with today’s editors and whether he was too on the nose.
His name brings back happy reading days of people like him, Spackman, Alice Adams, Laurie Colwin and Updike's Bech books.
Was going to mention James Salter in my own comment, but you got there first. His work was given to me by a writer who told me she really struggled to write sex scenes because when she has sex, she loses that narrator voice in her head.
Lev, I love this essay and that you had the cojones to write it! I frankly think that a lot of bad sex scenes or written (or not written at all) because the writers themselves are conflicted about the topic or have vanilla experience with the act of sex. Sex is the motor of so much that happens in the world, I mean the sex we have or don't have in our heads, our relationships, good or bad, with our own bodies, our views of ourselves as bodies in the world. I translate a writer, Mónica Lavín (México) whose writing on desire is the most convincing and artful I've ever read. I look forward to publishing a "bouquet" of her flash pieces soon and I'll reach out to you to see what you think!
You may be right. I also suspect people don't want to reveal their "secret network of wishes and fears" as one professor I know dubbed it in his psychology and lit class. The final assignment was for students to reveal the above in connection with one of the books or plays they all read.
Mónica Lavín sounds fascinating.
PS: Nice word play.
Lev, great essay!
I thought your comments about timing and perspective were discerning and thought provoking.
I recently read People Collide, which like a 5 act structure with an epilogue, and the blow out sex scene happens at the end of act three, is perfectly fitting. The first person narrator maintains their voice and perspective- maybe it’s easier in that PoV?
Your comments about beginning a novel made me think of Nevada, which stars with a well written scene about bad sex and launches the first person narrator across the country, eventually.
I agree with some of the other comments that it’s hard to do a sex scene in a short story. But would like to read more. One of the guests posts on here, Katherine E. Standefer, linked to her personal essay In Praise of Contempt, which was worth a second, or third, read.
Thanks for these insightful comments about writing sex scenes. It's very helpful to think of aiming for a portrayal that is not about the action or the body parts but is about the person(s), solidly and totally.
My first book editor helped me see this.
I'm glad it was helpful.
This helps us understand that, craft-wise, it's difficult to write a sex scene that works and also advances the story. Because of space constraints, it also seems harder to fit into a short story submitted to a litmag than a novel unless the story is primarily about the sexual event.
I guess it would depend on the characters and the story, no? I
Thank you, Lev, for this very thoughtful essay. You reinforce that everything in a story—especially sex—should serve a purpose to either move the underlying theme forward, the story beneath the story. This was very helpful!
Joe
That's a great way of seeing it: the story beneath the story.
Such an intelligent article. Full of insights to guide the writer into actually writing sex scenes that enrich and enlighten rather than irritate and distract.
I'm glad you found it helpful!
Thanks so much, Lev, for your insight. I tried a sex scene in a short story I read for a writers' group in Ludington with the late, great, George Dila a number of years ago. His only comment -- "it's hard to write a sex scene". I got the impression my scene wasn't that great!
Were you at that conference in Ludington where I did a workshop and presentation?
Glad to hear this essay is helpful.
Yes, actually I was. It was a pleasure learning from you!
Thanks. I loved my times in Ludington. For a few years I was invited to do sermons at the UU church, thanks to George.
That's funny -- I've been a member of UU for a number of years.
I was brought in to give a Jewish perspective. And there was a lovely couple I stayed with once or twice but I can't recall their names. I put Ludington in my mystery series: it's where the hero and spouse have a condo after selling their cabin up north.
Wonderful essay with excellent examples to help illustrate your points to us.
Glad to hear it!
Great post, as usual, Lev! I have yet to write a sex scene in a short story (I need more room!) except for a funny ending where the PI who was trying to catch a woman cheating on her husband put his own body on the line (or the mattress), and complained that his partner barged in with the camera too soon. And to top it all, the partner (a woman) burst out laughing. I think that said something about the characters :)
What a great scene, and thanks for reading and commenting.
Thanks! I enjoyed that. I used to write a lot of sex scenes from protagonist POV. Half of my readers were engaged. The other half were deeply uncomfortable. Thinking of writing more stories with sex in it to see how they fly with lit mags.
Have fun, and good luck! How about trying a different POV as an experiment?
Hi Lev, thanks for an interesting and informative column. I'm not sure that I'm up to writing sex scenes though, hehehe.
You're welcome! Love the pun.
I love this discussion. Sex is in the head but it seems authors' first intuition is to be more graphic. It's very possible that by trying to be brave and adhering to 'show don't tell,' writers persistently forget the rules of point of view.
Yes! They seem to lose all sense of POV trying to manage the mechanics.
Nice piece, Lev. I wonder how much the "show, don't tell" admonition overly influences writers in sex scenes. Or that writers "raised by workshop" were never encouraged to or felt too constrained to take such scenes for a spin, so to speak. I agree with others who have commented here that longer works of fiction seem like a better place. Love those bad examples! Please tell me you've got a whole file of them collected over the years. (There used to be a lit mag called "Burlap Sheets" that only took such things, but they've disappeared.)
I think they can work in a short story. There are scenes in The Alibi, a novel by Joseph Kanon, that are deeply evocative and revealing and only a paragraph or so long. What's a graf in a story? Even two or three if they reveal something in an important way?
Yes, I started collecting examples when I was reviewing at the Detroit Free Press. And over the years have taught sex writing workshops at two conferences in Michigan, will be doing that again next spring. :-)
And I don't remember anyone in my MFA program doing sex scenes.
Sign me up! An Expert in the Field, then. You're right of course, in that anything can work if done well. My own past as a writer of stories in men's magazines with a required page to page and a half of explicit sex probably influences my thinking of these scenes as pulling significant and sometimes too much attention to themselves.
I was about 13 when Portnoy's Complaint came out, and if I'm remembering right it helped open up highbrow/literary/hi-falutin fiction to such things. It was about the same time that previously banned books from the likes of Terry Southern, William Burroughs and Henry Miller started to become readily available, even to grateful adolescents. Of course, then came the 80s, and Reagan, the so-called Moral Majority and Ed Meese's Commission on Pornography as new influences in the other direction.
Such a weird coincidence--yesterday I was wondering whatever happened to Terry Southern....
There's a scene in a Burroughs biography where he and Southern are sorting through a bunch of pharmaceutical samples they got from some doctor(s), to see what they can use to get high. At one point Burroughs says something like, "Pain, look for the word pain, my dear" and Southern goes, "Let pain be our watchword!" Which for some reason has stayed with me.
It's a great line, funny and dark.
I hate to think of that fish collapsing on top of that guy.
LOL