Writing Graphic Sex Scenes

[mallorys_camera]

Henry and June’s First Date on the writing agenda today. It begins in a Chinese restaurant. It ends in the back seat of a cab. They have sex. Then June tells him they’re being followed. First emergence of her schizoaffective disorder.

Tricky transition.

###

Miller writes the sex scene thusly:

We got into a cab and, as it wheeled around, Mara impulsively climbed over me and straddled me. We went into a blind fuck, with the cab lurching and careening, our teeth knocking, tongue bitten, and the juice pouring from her like hot soup. As we passed an open plaza on the other side of the river, just at daybreak, I caught the astonished glance of a cop as we sped by. «It's dawn, Mara,» I said, trying gently to disengage myself. «Wait, wait», she begged, panting and clutching at me furiously, and with that she went into a prolonged orgasm in which I thought she would rub my cock off. Finally she slid off and slumped back into her corner, her dress still up over her knees. I leaned over to embrace her again and as I did so I ran my hand up her wet cunt. She clung to me like a leech, wiggling her slippery ass around in a frenzy of abandon. I felt the hot juice trickling through my fingers. I had all four fingers up her crotch, stirring up the liquid moss which was tingling with electrical spasms. She had two or three orgasms and then sank back exhausted, smiling up at me weakly like a trapped doe.

This scene is a complete turnoff for me.

I get that the brain inside the body with the phallus is dictating (or should that be dick-tating, heh, heh, heh) the description, so naturally his cock is gonna be front and center. But our teeth knocking, tongue bitten…clung to me like a leech… liquid moss… trapped doe… I mean, really, Henry? C’mon!

But it’s the existing record of the encounter, and at this point, the narrative has to follow the existing records.

It’s not good writing about sex. Maybe that’s the point? When he wrote this, Miller was at a point in his life where he was dissociating himself from his obsession with June, and I suppose the bizarre imagery is part of that dissociation process.

But all of Miller's erotic writing has that weird imagery. How did Miller ever get a reputation as a sexy writer?

###

The most erotic reading experience I ever had was at age 12 when I plucked an expurgated version of Lady Chatterly’s Lover off my mother’s bookshelf. The unexpurgated version was not yet widely available in the States.

To my mind, the single most erotic passage in that book is this one:

The keeper, squatting beside her, was also watching with an amused face the bold little bird in her hands. Suddenly he saw a tear fall on to her wrist.

And he stood up, and stood away, moving to the other coop. For suddenly he was aware of the old flame shooting and leaping up in his loins, that he had hoped was quiescent for ever. He fought against it, turning his back to her. But it leapt, and leapt downwards, circling in his knees.

He turned again to look at her. She was kneeling and holding her two hands slowly forward, blindly, so that the chicken should run in to the mother-hen again. And there was something so mute and forlorn in her, compassion flamed in his bowels for her.

Without knowing, he came quickly towards her and crouched beside her again, taking the chick from her hands, because she was afraid of the hen, and putting it back in the coop. At the back of his loins the fire suddenly darted stronger.

He glanced apprehensively at her. Her face was averted, and she was crying blindly, in all the anguish of her generation's forlornness. His heart melted suddenly, like a drop of fire, and he put out his hand and laid his fingers on her knee.

'You shouldn't cry,' he said softly.

But then she put her hands over her face and felt that really her heart was broken and nothing mattered any more.

He laid his hand on her shoulder, and softly, gently, it began to travel down the curve of her back, blindly, with a blind stroking motion, to the curve of her crouching loins. And there his hand softly, softly, stroked the curve of her flank, in the blind instinctive caress.

She had found her scrap of handkerchief and was blindly trying to dry her face.

'Shall you come to the hut?' he said, in a quiet, neutral voice.

And closing his hand softly on her upper arm, he drew her up and led her slowly to the hut, not letting go of her till she was inside. Then he cleared aside the chair and table, and took a brown, soldier's blanket from the tool chest, spreading it slowly. She glanced at his face, as she stood motionless.

His face was pale and without expression, like that of a man submitting to fate.

Here come the ellipses!

When I subsequently read the book sans ellipses, I realized it was actually sexier without the descriptive coital prose. John Thomas and Lady Jane are a comedy team, right? The adult industry's version of Mike Nicholls and Elaine May.

Not sure, exactly, why I find this particular passage so erotic.

Possibly has to do with the extreme unwillingness of both partners as they embark upon the sexual relationship. They can’t help themselves. They’re up against an archetypal power that’s bigger than they are. It’s a complete loss of agency.

Not sure whether this is a female thing or a particular kink in my own sexual psychology.

A book I found amazingly hot as an adult was Susanna Moore’s In the Cut. A creative writing teacher witnesses a murder in a seedy NYC bar. Begins an affair with the investigating police detective who’s brilliant, mad as a hatter, and waaaaaaaay kinky. Her sexual obsession is fixated on one hand gesture that he has, a way of cocking his finger. Presumably this is the same gesture he uses when he goes spelunking for her g-spot.

Now, the g-spot is the Pegasus of female sexuality, a great mythical beast. Does it exist? Does it not exist? If it exists, does stimulating it produce orgasm or something closer to grande mal seizure?

The heroine in In the Cut goes around quoting from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse a lot, which I confess, I found nearly as sexy as the come hither crook of the detective's finger. (That one's definitely a personal kink!) Moore’s tricks with syntax and language in this book are really interesting because they don't paint a portrait so much as cast a shadow on a wall of a protagonist who's desperately searching for something that she doesn't consciously understand is missing.

I know! Maybe I can put off writing my scene for two more weeks by embarking upon an utterly fruitless search for a copy of In the Cut in the Hudson Valley library system since my own copy – helas! – got lost in the diaspora, and clearly I need to reread it.

###

So. Writing sex scenes convincingly from the female point of view. Difficult.

But even more difficult: Writing schizoaffective meltdowns!

So far, my June is a character who’s in control, who prides herself on her control, in fact, so writing this state change convincingly will require some finesse. There’s gotta be some kind of trigger. No idea what that trigger might be.

###

In other news, it was back-to-back action on the tax preparer front yesterday, and I decided to be a bitch about the broken printer since being nice about it didn’t seem to be motivating anyone to fix the damn thing. Being a bitch about it certainly did. Now the printer works!

And I’m not sure what to do about the Current Crush situation. I’m certainly fixated on his transversus abdominis. He is a pretty man. But a terrible writer, and I’m a complete snob about writing. Plus, honestly, crushes seem like a lot of work. Really, I want to marry someone and embark upon a six-month exploration of the old Silk Road on our honeymoon. And that's not gonna happen with him.

Comments

[immemor.livejournal.com]

He lost me at “the juice pouring from her like hot soup.” Far from being an expert on writing sex scenes, I think the secret is to write about the character. If people think it’s sexy, so be it. Also, I’d probably make at least one joke about Henry’s imagery in this passage – something for the graduate student of the future – but that’s probably not right for you. Maybe something about how Henry is talking foul when she’s trying to have a different kind of experience. There are animalistic lovers and sensual lovers and cerebral lovers and various combinations of each. Henry strikes me as animalistic lover. What is June? Sensual/cerebral?

I don’t get the other passages either. The word “loins” makes me roll my eyes. And “bowels” reminds me too much of nursing school. I’m left thinking, “Where’s the stoma?”

Sex scenes are difficult for me. They have almost no place in satire since getting laid isn’t funny. Almost getting laid, however, is hysterical.

Bad writer crush – if you could Frankenstein us together we’d probably be perfect just okay for you.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Something I thought of just now. What's the history of the "men as sexual predators/ women as sexual prey" metaphor? I get the impression June deosn't feel like prey. What are her feelings on that? Does she think the metaphor is stupid, is she "ahead of her times." Does she feel like the predator or does she have an entirely different world view? Does she understand that Henry is processing the experience in the cab entirely differently? I would think she does.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, that's it. I suspect she's actually the aggressor, and that he's actually a rather shy and tentative lover -- I'm talking about the characters, of course, not about the real life personages (into whose heads I have not been granted telepathic entry!) That's what I'm toying around with this morning.

And, yes, she has to sense somehow that when he writes about it, he's gonna change the dynamic. And that has to piss her off. But not because she wants to write about it herself, unlike Scott and Zelda who were always battling over who owned the rights to her life. I don't think June has the slightest interest in being a writer.

Plus, on top of this, we have to segue into the mini-moment of madness.

So, a lot to pack into 1,000 words.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of their sex scenes never being the way Henry describes them. So what pisses her off about it? Does he make it more "manly" and devoid of emotion? Something like: "When he scribbles about tonight’s interlude in his notebook, he'll neglect to mention his own vulnerability or the way he trembled. He shall appear as a conquering hero in his little stories. Never will he describe the longing in his own eyes.”

Moment of madness: in the back of a cab, I'd get the feeling people were watching me, too.

1,000 words - you can do it!

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Another L.J. friend of mine posted this. It's from a soon-to-be-published poet. It's clever and shows what I think you may be trying to show.

http://shereenb.livejournal.com/979981.html

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yeah, "hot soup" was pretty gross. I remember thinking Henry Miller was a sexy writer, but then I read them when I was relatively young, so just the existence of sex in the pages made it "sexy," I suppose.

**I think the secret is to write about the character.**

Yeah, without character it's just a bunch of fucking. Which I'm not opposed to, but you need something to make the sex unique to those particular people and to serve the greater story, not just tacked on for no reason.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Men: It was a hot soup of sex!!!
Women: Eh, it was more like a gazpacho.

but you need something to make the sex unique to those particular people and to serve the greater story, not just tacked on for no reason. And yet it's still really difficult to write. I don't think I've ever written a sex scene worth reading.

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

Ha ha...gazpacho. ;o)

Oh, for sure that's difficult to write. Writing is hard! Good writing, anyway. I can see how sex could be necessary to a story to show the development of a relationship or explain someone's motivation (like, their emotional reaction to the person they had sex with, if they'd be fiercely loyal or be like, "Throw him to the dogs!" because things ended badly). I think usually the suggestion of sex works fine (references to staying the night, sharing breakfast and the woman's makeup is all smeary, etc.). I reckon sex scenes are necessary in a story about Henry and June, anyway.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Sex scenes are totally necessary to a novel about Henry Miller's muse.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I’ve mentioned this before: but the language of sex scenes puts writers at a disadvantage, in my opinion. Penis/vagina sound clinical. Euphemisms sound a tad bit purple if not cliché (is his garden snake in the flower bed of her Georgia O’Keeffe, again?). And cock/cunt come across as too vulgar for most readers. Of course, with June Miller as a subject matter, your audience will probably be comfortable with some vulgarity. But then again that is Henry's voice and not necessarily June's.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What I really hate is when writers use the word "sex" for genitals. I seem to remember Philip Roth doing this -- (just one of the many reasons I loathe him!) And Anais Nin, whom I also loathe. And will shortly get to crucify since she's a minor character in the current scribbles.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't like that either but prefer it over using "shame" for genitals. "Cover your shame!"

I don't remember Roth doing that. But he probably did at some point. I still like Roth. He understood that people only love you when you're rich and/or pretty and he wasn't afraid to show the comedy in that.

I haven't read enough Nin to have an opinion. Although, I do think marring someone without mentioning that you're already married is a bit selfish.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

There's a really, really awful "pee soup" joke waiting to be made there, but I'll leave it to Amy Schumer.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

"Pees" porridge in a pot NINE! DAYS! OLD! ewwwww.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

without character it's just a bunch of fucking

And that's why porn never turns me on. I don't care about those people, I think. And pouring baby oil on their genitals doesn't make me care about them!.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Yes. The baby oil only proves that it's not their first time.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

THAT is THE passage from LCL. It's quite recognized and lauded, both as a literary door opener and a psychological achievement in way of creating character. I believe it's flawless. I'm so thrilled that it has stayed in your memory all these years!

Miller...is so limited. It's all physical. For Lawrence it was that desire to press bone to bone, get past the flesh...and connect. Very Forester.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's amazing writing; as you say flawless. (Although note that our mutual pal immemor was thrown out by the use of the word "loins.")

In fact, I think Lady Chatterly is probably Lawrence's strongest long fiction (although its phallo-centricism became waaaaay unfashionable after the invention of clitoral orgasms. :-) ) just in terms of how well he tells that particular story. Whether or not, you'd hire him as a sex therapist. (Interestingly, Lawrence -- well advanced in the TB that would ultimately kill him -- was probably completely impotent when he wrote the book.)

But I'm more interested in why that particular scene is so powerfully erotic. I mean, yeah, sure -- he's writing about a sexual encounter. But what bells does it ring in particular?

Miller was a really important writer to me in my younger years. Recently, I came to the conclusion that he was second-rate if that. But when I started writing the current fictive project, I made myself reread Sexus... and it's not as bad as I'd dismissed it as being. In fact, it's got a kind of manic, demonic energy that's quite intoxicating -- although I found that I couldn't read it line by line. It was much better if I scanned it quickly. Like a certain kind of scenery that looks most beautiful when you're passing it on a train.

Lawrence was on the outer reaches of the Bloomsbury Circle, so, of course, he knew E.M. Forster. Can't remember whether he liked him or not.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I have no issue at all with loins! I applaud Lawrence's desire to be frank and to write sex without nudgenudgewinkwink euphemisms. He made a Difference.

I think....there's a lot going on in that scene. But when it's stripped down to the barest elements it comes back to what Lawrence was espousing - John Thomas and Lady Jane. Cock and Vagina. But not the physiological joining, rather the ways in which sexual union is a door through which we enter and the outside world stops for those moments while we are inside of that coupling. I think there is a recognizable lustful eroticism in the vulnerability of the woman who at her most intimate core longs for life and the man who, at his most intimate core, wants to give her what she is soulfully yearning towards. Life.

I love how weighted and complicated it is for all its simplicity.

Have you read Women In Love? It's a more mature work and the suck-breath passages are more about the meaning of life than the meaning of sex but trademark Lawrence and his ability to write the deepest fleeting thought as a stone set in cement. Intellectually gorgeous.

Miller was important. Not sure if he still is, but he definitely was.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've read just about everything Lawrence has written. Except the Australian novels and The Plumed Serpent. Do not want to hear Lawrence on the subject of the decline of the white race. :-)

Women in Love... No, I'm not a big fan. Found the language a bit too Old Testament -- in the sense that Lawrence seemed to be doing that Old Testament thing of emphasis through repetition. Got bored with the repetition.

Plus... I have a tendency to read biographies of writers almost more than I read their actual fiction, so I knew the degree to which the events of Women in Love were inspired by Lawrence's real life relationships. Gudrun is a portrait of the New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield. And I think he gave her rather short shrift, considering that she was very protective of him!

(Can't remember whether that scene where Gudrun goes to the table and snatches that letter of Rupert's away from the person who was reading it aloud and making fun of it takes place in The Rainbow or Women in Love, but it was based on a real incident.)

But as unsympathetic as I have become to Paul Morel -- the horribly self-centered Lawrence introject -- I still think Sons and Lovers is a masterpiece.

These days, I'm more inclined to like Lawrence's poetry...

The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.

So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.

Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.

They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.

Note, that in keeping with my rather catholic tastes in poetry, it rhymes! :-)

[immemor.livejournal.com]

In interest of full disclosure, part of my problem with the word “loins” could be a reaction to a Latin America History Professor who, whenever something sexual was mentioned, would rotate his hips and say, “Ya gotta gird your loins!”

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

It's a perfectly respectable word! Even if no one quite knows where it is on a human. :-)

[immemor.livejournal.com]

According to the internet, "gird your loins" originally meant to tie up the lower parts of your toga around your waist to free up your legs. Thus, making one more prepared for violence. My professor never used it in that context.

[signorinakatina.livejournal.com]

I was also surprised at the choice of "leech"--?? yuck.

I never did read Lady Chatterly's Lover. I started it but didn't get very far. Maybe I should give it another try!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I don't think you'd like Lady Chatterly at all.

Do you like reading fiction? A book I think you might like -- if for no other reason than that it's a book about Boomer carelessness, and I know that issue is on your mind occasionally -- is Sue Miller's The Good Mother.

[signorinakatina.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love reading fiction! I miss it these days--I'm v-e-r-y slowly making it through a short story collection (3-5 pages a night before I fall asleep) at the moment. but I plan to return to fiction full force when school is over. Thanks for the recommendation!

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

Now I want to read "In The Cut." A cool lady I used to work with gave me a copy, but I never got around to it. Think I still have it but it's probably in storage. If not I'm sure I can scare up a cheap copy somewhere.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

It's always dangerous to tell people, "You'll love this book!" but for some reason, I think In the Cut might be right up your alley! Gone Girl didn't exactly remind me of it, but there's some area of overlap between the two novels.

[chihana11.livejournal.com]

Hi Mallory.
This was a great post. I saw it on the main LJ page yesterday. You made me laugh out loud at my desk. The crazy gross hot soup metaphor? Was Miller hungry? Did he go without lunch?

I liked "In The Cut" but the ending was really difficult to read.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you! How did my obscure little LJ get on the front page, I wonder?

Yeah, ya gotta wonder about Miller: What was going on in that man's mind? :-)

I read In the Cut so long ago that I can't really remember much about it except that I thought it was hot, and that during the denouncement murder attempt, the heroine starts quoting long passages of To the Lighthouse to herself. (Me, I'd be flashforwarding through back episodes of CSI. :-) )

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

I can't wrap my mind around the idea that you don't know whether the g-spot exists. A woman of your age and experience must know for sure. What you know might be wrong, but I can't imagine your not being sure of it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

There's a great deal of controversy over the existence or nonexistence of the g-spot, and that is what I'm specifically referring to here.

My own personal experiences are irrelevant to the existence of that controversy.