Sex: A Rant
22/5/06 11:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsI'm generally in favor of sex, but writing about sex is hard for me. Part of my difficulty likely derives from the shreds of childhood taboos about writing dirty. Part of it is as likely my sense of humor--real world sex in and of itself would be comical to anyone not directly involved in the process: "you want to put that where? Wait! What about my arm? Ow! Oops. That tickles." Hollywood has gotten very slick at choreographing sex scenes so that they give the impression of seamless intensity--you can bet that Shakespeare and Viola de Lessups didn't worry about an arm going to sleep. Film sex scenes are usually intense and Romantic with a capital R; however, they're rarely fun. And, contrarian that I am, I find the odd cinematic coupling that suggests fun is more erotic than most of the luminously sensual onces.
This is probably at the root of why I stopped writing romances at about the time when the trend was for more on-stage sex. I found very little stirring or erotic about a lot of the stuff I read at that time--lots of plumbing (with wildly goofy euphemism and imagery) with very little of what made sex with that person an emotionally climactic experience. I felt like I was often told that the couple were in love, but as often didn't believe it, because more care was being lavished on pebbled nipples (ow!) and leaping manhoods (!!) than on the relationship itself.
I also have a real problem with the sex-without-consequence thing, particularly in an historical context. If you were a peasant, sure, whatever the church said, there was a good deal of unchurched sex going on all the time. But if you were of a class where your virginity had a dollar value (so to speak) you weren't just swept off your feet by the first cute guy who came around. You might have principled objections to marriage (though you'd have to be a fairly extraordinary woman, and probably one with a personal fortune or a way of making a living to make that work) or be too giddy and stupid to believe in the consequences (I've always thought that Lydia Bennett had an impulsivity disorder). It's possible that, if you were of the right social status, once you were married things could be different--anyone who knows the history of the Devonshires in the late 1700s knows that some aristocratic families went their own ways once an heir was secured. But if you weren't of that rarified stratum, or, like Caro Lamb, you married into a family with a different value set than your own--sex outside of marriage was a tense and secretive affair, so to speak.
I recently read a book where sex--more than money or power or fear or faith or concern for another person--seemed to be the sole motivator for all the characters. All of them. There was lots of sex in the book--most of it brutal and technically descriptive. The author kept telling me what each character got out of all this coarse swiving, none of it registered to me as anything other than plumbing, and unpleasant plumbing at that. Maybe this was meant to reinforce the idea of the historical period: Oh, look, we're in a coarse, brutal age when sex was nasty. In fact, the only relationship in the book that read as both sexual and loving was between two men. Not a problem, except that the relationship between the hero and heroine (whose love is supposed to define their lives) ought to have been at least as compelling, and it wasn't.
And why I am concerned with all this? A week or so ago I was talking to someone about the current Planned Project. In the midst of discussing the background she asked cheerily, "Will there be lots of sex in it?" My first thought was: is there ever a lot of sex in one of my books? Of course the Sarah Tolerance books have sexual content: the heroine lives behind a brothel, it's kind of unavoidable. The heroine has had two lovers in her time. But as for the mechanics--not so much, and never in connection with Miss T herself. Because part of her character is to be reticent, and I suppose that reticence carried over to me. On the other hand, I've used sex as set dressing, because I wanted to make it clear that, for the world she moves in, she's an anomaly.
Writing sex scenes is, to me, like writing fight scenes or car crashes. The author may need to know the specific choreography so that no one loses an arm or suddenly has three breasts or something (unless you're writing alien sex, in which case, go for it). But during sex you are (or at least I am) often focussed on small things in passing: the texture of skin under your fingers, the scene of whatever-dinner-was on the beloved's breath, the ticking of a clock that either distracts from or enhances the moment. If I'm reading about a car crash and really want to believe it, I'm less interested in the angle at which that oncoming semi hits the bumper than about what Our Hero is thinking or noticing as the car spins around. "Just like a merry-go-round," Smedly thought. "Am I going to die?" It's like making a collage, not a technical manual.
So, yes. There will be sex in the new book. But probably not too much plumbing.
This is probably at the root of why I stopped writing romances at about the time when the trend was for more on-stage sex. I found very little stirring or erotic about a lot of the stuff I read at that time--lots of plumbing (with wildly goofy euphemism and imagery) with very little of what made sex with that person an emotionally climactic experience. I felt like I was often told that the couple were in love, but as often didn't believe it, because more care was being lavished on pebbled nipples (ow!) and leaping manhoods (!!) than on the relationship itself.
I also have a real problem with the sex-without-consequence thing, particularly in an historical context. If you were a peasant, sure, whatever the church said, there was a good deal of unchurched sex going on all the time. But if you were of a class where your virginity had a dollar value (so to speak) you weren't just swept off your feet by the first cute guy who came around. You might have principled objections to marriage (though you'd have to be a fairly extraordinary woman, and probably one with a personal fortune or a way of making a living to make that work) or be too giddy and stupid to believe in the consequences (I've always thought that Lydia Bennett had an impulsivity disorder). It's possible that, if you were of the right social status, once you were married things could be different--anyone who knows the history of the Devonshires in the late 1700s knows that some aristocratic families went their own ways once an heir was secured. But if you weren't of that rarified stratum, or, like Caro Lamb, you married into a family with a different value set than your own--sex outside of marriage was a tense and secretive affair, so to speak.
I recently read a book where sex--more than money or power or fear or faith or concern for another person--seemed to be the sole motivator for all the characters. All of them. There was lots of sex in the book--most of it brutal and technically descriptive. The author kept telling me what each character got out of all this coarse swiving, none of it registered to me as anything other than plumbing, and unpleasant plumbing at that. Maybe this was meant to reinforce the idea of the historical period: Oh, look, we're in a coarse, brutal age when sex was nasty. In fact, the only relationship in the book that read as both sexual and loving was between two men. Not a problem, except that the relationship between the hero and heroine (whose love is supposed to define their lives) ought to have been at least as compelling, and it wasn't.
And why I am concerned with all this? A week or so ago I was talking to someone about the current Planned Project. In the midst of discussing the background she asked cheerily, "Will there be lots of sex in it?" My first thought was: is there ever a lot of sex in one of my books? Of course the Sarah Tolerance books have sexual content: the heroine lives behind a brothel, it's kind of unavoidable. The heroine has had two lovers in her time. But as for the mechanics--not so much, and never in connection with Miss T herself. Because part of her character is to be reticent, and I suppose that reticence carried over to me. On the other hand, I've used sex as set dressing, because I wanted to make it clear that, for the world she moves in, she's an anomaly.
Writing sex scenes is, to me, like writing fight scenes or car crashes. The author may need to know the specific choreography so that no one loses an arm or suddenly has three breasts or something (unless you're writing alien sex, in which case, go for it). But during sex you are (or at least I am) often focussed on small things in passing: the texture of skin under your fingers, the scene of whatever-dinner-was on the beloved's breath, the ticking of a clock that either distracts from or enhances the moment. If I'm reading about a car crash and really want to believe it, I'm less interested in the angle at which that oncoming semi hits the bumper than about what Our Hero is thinking or noticing as the car spins around. "Just like a merry-go-round," Smedly thought. "Am I going to die?" It's like making a collage, not a technical manual.
So, yes. There will be sex in the new book. But probably not too much plumbing.