Writing Good Sex Scenes

By Henriette Lazaridis Power

It’s time to address one of the most difficult elements of writing a novel: writing sex. And who better to address that than me? Not because I’m an expert, but because I was the last person in my Grub Street workshop to even include a swear in her manuscript, never mind a description of a sex act. My workshop persona was fairly decorous, and my novel was too. Writerly inhibitions? C’est moi.

But before I get started, here’s a list of what this post is not going to do. It is not going to mimic the shape of sex, with the bullet points arranged in some climactic order. It’s not going to include double entendres (or at least not on purpose). It’s not going to make clever jokes about, well, anything. Really. Writing sex in fiction is serious stuff. If you get it right, it’s sublime and can be a defining aspect of your work. If you get it wrong, your work will be featured on one of those Bad Sex websites, and there is no greater shame.

It seems to me that the first thing writers need to overcome is the inhibition about writing sex in the first place. And there is lots of reason for inhibition. Readers will think this is what I do in bed (or elsewhere)! My family will think this is what I do! How can I write these things down if I don’t talk about them even with my friends? Isn’t sex supposed to be private?

This was certainly some of what I felt. And even though the novel I was working on centered on the body—the protagonist is suffering some sort of hysterical paralysis that leaves her unable to feel her legs—and even though a relationship develops between the protagonist and her doctor, I couldn’t bring myself to write the sexuality that the novel required.

But then came the revelation. If writing sex seems to outlandish, so outrageous, so almost anti-social to you, remember this: as writers, we spend all day Making Stuff Up. Our neighbors and friends go off to manage people, bake cakes, teach young children, or deliver the mail. And what do we do? Sit down and imagine things. That, frankly, is pretty outrageous. Even if we’re narrating a scene in which a character takes his dog for a walk, we’re already doing something that is far more outrageous than most other people.

So, given that, it’s an easy next step to let go of the inhibition and write a sex scene. The question is: how to do it.

1. This is not a time for anatomy. No one wants to read a sex scene full of physical details. It’s a novel, not a how-to. As you revise, look back over the steps you’ve narrated and take one out. It’s the Coco Chanel approach to writing sex scenes. Don’t over-accessorize.

2. Sex scenes must be a reflection of character. If Tolstoy were writing this post, he’d say that all people not having sex are alike, but each person having sex is having sex in her or his own way. This is why you can’t resort to anatomy to write a sex scene. We may all have the same anatomy, but it’s our personalities that shape how we have sex. The same must be true for your characters, who don’t stop being who they are once the fun stuff begins. The same should be true for the un-fun stuff. Consensual or non-consensual, sex must reveal character.

3. The best sex scenes move the story forward. For me, the obvious example here is the library scene in Atonement. Of course, the novel’s plot hinges on the perceptions of this scene (and the misperceptions), but there’s more to it than that. In this one scene, McEwan captures the entire history of the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia. We never forget that they are “embarrassed before their former selves” as they cross the barrier from childhood friends to lovers. Yes, there is some procedural detail here, but McEwan weaves through it a narrative of the characters’ thoughts—which is typical of McEwan’s style, but which also turns the library scene into an illumination of character in furtherance of the plot. Sex, character, plot—all in a handful of pages.

4. It’s okay to be oblique. We tend to associate obliquity with prudishness when it comes to sex scenes in narrative. It’s sort of a 19^th-century thing to do. “Reader I married him” is really “Reader, I had wild sex with Rochester on our wedding night.” But suggestion doesn’t have to be old-fashioned. Here’s a scene from Tom Drury’s The End of Vandalism.

So he kissed her eyebrows, holding her face in his hands. They had kissed before, but not to this degree. Dan unbuttoned Louise’s nightgown. Louise put her arm out and knocked over the beer bottle.

“You’re wrecking the place,” said Dan.

“It’s my way,” said Louise.

Later, they watched the streetlight shining on the trailer window.

“Later” is an old trick, but it works here as part of Drury’s laconic style.

5. There is such a thing as too much sex. Many of us would admit that a novel becomes more interesting if there’s sex in it. We like our novels to offer love stories or affairs, and we like our love stories (and affairs) to get physical. But the sex in a novel can’t just appear out of nowhere. It has to be organic to the plot. I recently read a thoroughly fine novel that nonetheless had me wondering why there was so much sex in it. The author didn’t seem to be using sex in a thematic way, so I was left feeling that the sex was superfluous, almost random. If you’re going to write sex scenes, they need to matter.

6. Sex scenes must pass the Read-Aloud Test. Imagine yourself in a room full of readers, or standing at the microphone recording a piece for The Drum (which I happen to edit). Are you going to be comfortable talking about loins and groins? Can you say it all without laughing? If not, then don’t write it. Not only is reading aloud a surefire revision test for good prose, but these days, reading aloud is an increasingly important part of a writer’s career. If you can’t say it, don’t write it.

These are all, I think, important things to remember when writing sex scenes, but the most important is that first one. You’re a writer. You’re already doing something transgressive and uninhibited. Writing a sex scene should be a piece of cake.

I can proudly report that I now swear in workshops (not at other writers, mind you). And that one mentor-reader of another novel of mine went so far as to call it “sexy”. High praise, indeed!