SEX

I can pinpoint the exact moment my mother stopped reading my second novel, because the bookmark still reposes at the end of the chapter concerned in her copy on the dining room bookshelf. It was shortly after the main characters went to bed with one another.

Nothing particularly explicit was written and the scene cut before carnality occurred but my protagonist's love interest did imply - quite strongly - exactly what she was prepared to do between the sheets. I felt as though I held back, but I guess it crossed a line for some. In the book before, I’d left a similar scene hanging as the main character’s hand rested on the bathroom doorknob behind which his inamorata was bathing, so I still don’t have a boner fide (sorry) sex scene to my name. And there’s a good reason for not having done so.

I’m not entirely sure I’d be able to write one.

Also, I think it’s one of the few examples when ‘show, don’t tell’ doesn’t work well. In the same way Jaws or Alien shied away from showcasing the monster too often (though, in both cases, this was accidental; Spielberg's mechanical shark kept breaking down and early rushes showed the Geiger-inspired alien was less than impressive in close-up, so the decision was made to hide them off-screen for as long as possible), what’s implied is often greater than what’s described. The imagination of the reader is no less powerful than that of the writer, and a sketch will do in lieu of a warts-and-all oil painting.

Compare this passage from The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

There was never any question in those days of who wanted whom - we were together in desire. Henry had his tray, sitting up against two pillows in his green woollen dressing-gown, and in the room below, on the hardwood floor, with a single cushion for support and the door ajar, we made love. When the moment came, I had to put my hand gently over her mouth to deaden that strange and angry cry of abandonment, for fear Henry should hear it overhead.

with

At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.

Now, admittedly, this is an unfair comparison. The first passage is penned by one of the the twentieth century’s literary maestros, a writer who understood exactly how much to reveal and how much to hold back, and the second is the Bad Sex Award-winning passage from Morrissey’s List of the Lost, a man awarded a book deal solely on account of his celebrity status (if you’d like some idea of just how much this sort of thing enrages me you can endure more about it here). But I juxtapose them to thrust home a point. With literary sex, less is more.

There are plenty of writers who manage to inject their prose with sex scenes that work (I’m thinking of Haruki Murakami, Nicholson Baker, Mary Gaitskill, Milan Kundera, Thomas Pynchon and… at a push, if the wind’s blowing in the right direction… Philip Roth) but most are either too prudish to go full Anais Nin, or too wise. There’s always a chance you’ll end up looking foolish, or an insufferable pervert who’s let their lustful predilections get in the way of a story. Worse, like those lazy thriller screenplay writers of the seventies who needed to show how truly despicable their antagonists were, and give their heroes a reason for bloody revenge, by throwing in a rape scene that was merely an excuse for pointing a cameraman at a pair of soft-lit breasts, sex scenes sometimes exist simply to spice up an otherwise uninteresting narrative. Done poorly, they stand out for all the wrong reasons and do the opposite of hotting things up; they dampen (and not in a sexy way) the rest of the book and drag it, soggy, down with them. I’ve read novels I’d have otherwise rated highly, but for an embarrassing sex scene that had no right to be there in the first place. Here’s looking at you, Ian McEwan.

So how does one write a sex scene?

As I say, I’m no expert, but I’d suggest that staying away from excessive description would be a good place to start. The full-blown mechanics of what goes where isn’t necessary. I’d also guess that the characters involved would need to be fully, as it were, fleshed-out and human before they jumped into the sack, lest your attempt to titillate comes across as crass or pornographic. Writerly wish-fulfilment can quickly backfire. Have some dignity, love.

Given that most literary novels either don’t contain a sex scene, or feature a token one at most, authors probably aren’t too practiced at writing them. Unlike, say, fight scenes or police procedurals or nighttime introspection. It’s different in erotica, because the deal is that you’re peeling back the book covers with an expectation of arousal, but to be hit with a dose of sexy in the middle of ‘highbrow’ is discombobulating at best and some authors perhaps fall short for that reason.

Readers know the difference between a sex scene that’s arbitrary or completely justified. If in doubt, leave it out. Tease, by all means. Hint. Suggest. But spare us your barrel-rolling breasts and bulbous salutations.

Agatha Christie has sold over two billion books and never felt the need to jazz things up with jizz.

The Bad Sex Award (set up in 1993 by Auberon Waugh, with the intention of “gently dissuading authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels”) was cancelled last year as the judges felt “the public had been subjected to too many bad things this year to justify exposing it to bad sex as well” but I leave you with Didier Decoin, the winner in 2019, with this extract from The Office of Gardens and Ponds and with which I rest my case.

Katsuro moaned as a bulge formed beneath the material of his kimono, a bulge that Miyuki seized, kneaded, massaged, squashed and crushed. With the fondling, Katsuro’s penis and testicles became one single mound that rolled around beneath the grip of her hand. Miyuki felt as though she was manipulating a small monkey that was curling up its paws.

He moaned for a third time while Miyuki, a lock of whose hair had come adrift (she grabbed it and held it between her teeth in the way that courtesans do), spread her thighs wider and impaled herself on Katsuro’s nose.

Yeah, no.