There is a reason why, every year, Literary Review hosts a "Bad Sex in Fiction" Award
; there is a lot of crappy writing when it comes to sex. What you may be surprised to see is that the list of nominees and winners frequently includes authors who are considered literary heavyweights. This is because writing sex well is incredibly complex and difficult, even for award-winning writers, who are nowhere near as likely as lemon fanfic writers to be virgins. Sex is both something deeply intimate and personal and at the same time something that society and culture has built up a lot of significance, meaning and morality around, meaning that there is a lot to balance.
Assuming you are already familiar with this basic advice that holds across all genres, hopefully you might find some of these pointers helpful.
Necessary Tropes
To start, unless you're writing a masturbation scene, you need at least two characters. The genders (and numbers of participants) of your characters are totally up to you, although your choices may cause issues; see 'Pitfalls' below for more details.You will need to devote some time into deciding how the participants came to be participating. Why do they want to have sex with each other? It's true that almost everyone has a sex drive that makes them want to bump uglies; the libido is built into all living creatures. This explains why the characters want to have sex. It does not explain why they want to have sex with each other. Most people are selective about their sex partners, applying various criteria relating to physical appearance and/or personality and only engaging sexually with those who have passed a minimum number of satisfactory qualities. Presumably, your characters did the same, and emerged with "chemistry" — in which it is shown that Alex is attracted to [trait], that Bryce has it, and that Alex responds positively upon discovering this; and then vice versa in reciprocating. The characters should desire each other, in other words, emotionally and/or physically.
And now that Alex and Bryce desire each other, how did they come to act on this desire? It's a known fact that All Love Is Unrequited; for every Bryce that Alex gets to sleep with, there was also Charlie, Dana and Evan (and maybe more) — people Alex wanted to but ultimately didn't. Why was this consummation denied? Because there's a negotiation that goes on, as both parties figure out chemistry and sort out their feelings and decide whether the other person is someone they want to sleep with. Sometimes this can be a long, drawn-out Romance Arc (for which we already have an article, So You Want To: Write A Love Story?), ending in wedding bells and a traditional consummation; on the other extreme, it may be a one-night stand or a casual hook-up. But whatever negotiation happened, it affects the tone of the resulting sex: Their First Time, Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex, Must Not Die a Virgin, one night stands... Or maybe it's two people who have been together for a while and it's an anniversary, or it's someone's birthday, or someone got a promotion. Or they're just watching TV and one of them gets horny. But in some way, our two characters, Alex and Bryce, need to be brought to the point where they not only want to do it, but they feel comfortable acting on their wants.
As a major consideration, one we've already started to consider: what does the sex mean to the two people having it? The simple fact is that most people don't have sex just to have sex, or just to have an orgasm; masturbation fulfills that function with a great deal less mess and effort. Additionally, the simple fact is that sex is fairly straightforward. How many ways are there to put a penis in a vagina? When you get down to it, only one. So the reason you want to ask what the sex means, to ask why the two people are having it, is because this is the only thing that makes the sex scene interesting to The Reader. (Obviously, it may be different if you're working in a visual medium, since you can depict the sex much more, well, graphically than you could describe it; but that's another matter.) People have sex; People Sit on Chairs too. Why does the story need to include it? If you can't answer this question from a Watsonian perspective, then the answer is, "The story doesn't need to include it," and you should consider saving everyone some time.
Finally, as Tropes Are Not Bad, you'll want to familiarise yourself with the Sex Tropes on this site, but be warned: as we'll discuss, several of them are particularly difficult to do well.
Choices, Choices
First off, do you feel comfortable writing an actual sex scene? If not, then don't force yourself to. Sexy Discretion Shot, Did You Just Have Sex?, Bedmate Reveal, and Does This Remind You of Anything? exist for a reason; readers don't need enormous flashing neon signs saying "ALEX AND BRYCE BONED" to get the picture. Additionally, if you're not comfortable writing the scene, the reader will pick up on it. This can be exploited if you want the reader to be squicked out, but you probably don't, and that means you're in trouble. So don't be afraid to just elide the whole thing if that works for your story and makes you feel more comfortable.Consider also what genre you're writing in, and how the sex fits in — if, indeed, it does. If you're pornography or erotica, then naturally your reader will understand and expect that anything goes, and anything that contains erotica or romance will have an audience that will generally expect the Official Couple to get things on at some point, or at least won't be surprised if they do. Other genres may find sex a bit more difficult to naturally include, however; if your characters are constantly on the run from the Zombie Apocalypse, for instance, then, whether they fall in love or not, they might not easily find the time or opportunity to get busy with each other. And if you shoehorn it in, readers will notice. They may not care — plenty of erotic stories have been set in zombie apocalypses, and readers' Willing Suspension of Disbelief helps to cover the weird circumstances on grounds of fanservice satiation — but they will notice.
Assuming you are comfortable writing a sex scene, then your next choice is the characters who are actually going to be having sex. This is quite important, as people have different sex depending on what they want from it. Are Alex and Bryce a pair of young lovers losing their virginity together? Are they a married couple having make-up sex after an argument? Is one of them a sex addict and the other a prostitute, hired for an hour of no-strings-attached relief? Are they of opposite genders?, because at that point you even have to start modifying the physical procedures they share. Variable Player Goals exist in sex too, so know what goal(s) your characters are going for.
Finally, you may want decide how glamorous you decide to make things. There have been many discussions about the unrealistic nature of Idealized Sex, Common Hollywood Sex Traits and Anatomically Impossible Sex, but they still sell well despite being unrealistic — or rather, because they are unrealistic. It may be hard to believe, dear tropers, but a fairly large percentage of human beings are in long-term sexual relationships, meaning they can get laid without too much effort. Yet such people still go to porn — in droves! — despite it being wildly unrealistic and having nothing to do with what they get in bed at home. Why do they still consume porn? Because it's not what they get in bed at home; because it offers them something they want but can't get. (And not just kinky stuff either, though that does make up a fair bit of it.) The appeal of porn is its idealized, unrealistic nature. And it's one of the most financially successful markets in the world, so they must be doing something right. In other words, you can romanticize it, if that's your inclination. It is possible to go over the top, but there's a happy medium to be found... and, frankly, it's where the money lies.
Pitfalls
Once again, we cannot stress enough — only start writing a sex scene if you feel comfortable doing so. Writing offers the reader an insight into the author's psyche whether it's intended or not, and when it comes to sex you may find that it touches on some issues and aspects of your life that are deeply personal. If you're not bothered by the possibility of your friends and family reading your work and gaining an insight into what you think about sex, go for it. If that sort of thing fills you with dread, it's going to come across. If you don't feel comfortable doing so, there's no shame in cutting to black before the lovers get intimate, and there's less risk of embarrassing yourself in the long run.Sexuality can be especially hard to write without having experienced it. This is not to say that you absolutely can't write a good sex scene if you're still a virgin, but it can be a lot more difficult. If you haven't had sex, then you should at least do your research, but be warned — not everything about sex can be found within the pages of a book.
Doing the research can be tricky without access to 1) non-virgins 2) who are willing to answer your questions frankly and honestly, and 3) whom you feel comfortable asking those awkward questions to. It can be kind of all-or-nothing: the people who dislike talking about their sex lives won't let any details out, but the ones who are fine with it will share (and overshare) like no one's business. Fortunately, the Internet is there to help: most people are okay with talking about sex but not with being seen to talk about it, and anonymity can help. So ask your questions, and go from there. For the rest, Idealized Sex is here to help! Read enough of it, particularly on NSFW sites, and you can get a very good idea of what people want to happen in "the perfect sex scene." You can then parrot it out at will. It won't necessarily be the hottest, most sizzling stuff ever produced, but it'll be serviceable. (Of course, this goes back to the whole, Be comfortable writing it thing, but that's another matter.)
And finally, please remember that, statistically speaking, the larger majority of people who consume your erotic scene are no longer virgins. They know what they're talking about. More importantly, they know what you're talking about. This makes it harder to sneak research failures past them.
Pornography
Porn seems like a really good place to look for examples of sex, but you should take it with a grain of salt. Despite the fact that involves real people being filmed having real sex, porn is not a documentary; in fact, it should really more be thought of as an advertisement — a trailer, if you will. And, As You Know, you should Never Trust a Trailer.Of course, the flip side is this: if pornography is an advertisement, what is it advertising? And the answer is pretty obvious: Real Life sex. (Which it is, From a Certain Point of View. If we're honest, what porn really advertises is orgasm — particularly male orgasm. But that's splitting hairs.) And the problem with real life sex is that none of us fully control whether we can get it. As a result, many of us trust trailers — not because we aren't aware that it's advertising, but because, to extend the metaphor, we've never been allowed to see an actual movie. All we ever see is trailers. And, as such, we assume the trailer is representative of the movie — you know, the way advertisers are counting on. This is the very reason trailers lie in the first place, the very reason "Never Trust A Trailer" is even a trope at all: because, when we lack the context necessary to make an informed judgment, we tend to just trust what we see. And — to go back to the other side of the metaphor — if you've never had real sex, you don't have the context necessary to make an informed judgment on porn. (And sometimes even then. "I've seen [whatever] in porn, but it doesn't happen in my real life; is this something I need to be concerned about?" It's surprising, and frankly a little depressing, how often this question gets asked.)
Can you use porn as a source of truth or fact? If it's all you've got, and if you apply a massive grain of salt to it, yes, you can. But if you lack that skepticism, well, you can produce some real howlers.
Censorship and Social Mores
Most societies have built up a body of attitudes around sex, since it is one of the truly universal parts of the human condition. Appropriately, many societies have built up the same attitudes about sex. They can be broken down into two parts:- Sex Is Evil: This is the most traditional attitude towards sex and is typically seen (in levels that vary from downplayed to exaggerated) in many religions. Typically, sex — due to its role in the perpetuation of the species — is seen as a necessary evil, one which people are begrudgingly allowed to indulge in under certain very specific circumstances (specifically, a lawful marriage). The anthropological perspective on this attitude is that it too was a necessary evil: sex can encourage people to make poor decisions, resulting in unwanted children belonging to Struggling Single Mothers whom the community has to support; and that's before we consider STDs. Restrictions on sex were therefore a way to force individual to consider The Needs of the Many. It may be an overcorrection, but — especially in comparatively small communities, which is what the human species lived in for the vast majority of its existence — it's still better than the alternative.
- Sex Is Good: This is the second most-traditional attitude towards sex. It is a (pseudo) counter-cultural reaction to the oppressive attitudes of the "Sex Is Evil" crowd, declaring that sex is the answer to all your problems, and people who have it are awesome. This attitude tends to Idealize Sex, glossing over its bumpy parts, playing up Common Hollywood Sex Traits, and often stripping it of consequences (STD Immunity, nobody ever gets unintentionally pregnant, etc). The anthropological perspective on this attitude is that (most) people can get real sex — awkward, repetitive, unglamorous — with relative ease; the product will sell better if it offers something the consumer doesn't have easy access to.
The reason you need to know this is because this is the minefield you're stepping into. Each of these philosophies claim that they are the true and accurate depiction of sex; the truth is, neither of them are. People can — and do — have sex out of wedlock, especially today with the rise of reliable contraception. And people don't — and, often, can't — have the kind of guassian-glow sex portrayed by other, more "sex-positive" works. And yet almost every work that concerns sex will fall into one of these two categories. As a result, 99% of all sex-related media is biased in one way or another.
And that means that, no matter how you choose to depict sex in your work, someone is going to be offended. If you portray it as something positive and enjoyable, the Moral Guardians get on your case. If you don't portray it as something positive and enjoyable, the Soapbox Sadies get on your case. And if you Take a Third Option and tell the truth — that sex is enjoyable but not idealized, consequential but not a guaranteed way of crossing the Moral Event Horizon? Then both sides attack you! If a writer's first duty is to the truth — and that is indeed a writer's first duty — then sex is a very dangerous ground for any writer to play in, because the mere act of telling the truth is going to be treated as transgressive and destructive.
Legal Matters
Sex scenes have to deal with law in a way that most other fiction doesn't. Specifically, there are laws governing the depiction of sexual congress. The quick rule of thumb is that the folks in the fiction need to be above the "age of consent" for Real Life, non-fiction folks — i.e. they are legally permitted to consent to sexual activity and are no longer subject to the Jail Bait Wait. And that's where it starts getting complicated, because basically every government on the planet has set its own limit on the wait. All 50 states in America have set them individually; most have set it at 16, but a few have also chosen 17 and 18. The place that sets it the highest, Bahrain, put it at 21;note Nigeria set it at 18. And here's the thing: if your story is to be legally consumable in any given place, it needs to comply with that place's laws. So, while your story might take place in, say, Washington State, where the general age of consent is 16, it can't be legally consumed in California, where it's 18, unless it would be legal if it were taking place in California. (This is actually one of the justifications for Hollywood Provincialism when it comes to explicit content.) The question you'll get sued over is not, "Is it legal for your characters to do it;" the question is, "Is it legal for your consumers to imitate it."
If you're just writing fanfic or publishing for the Internet, this still matters. For Internet publication, the website is considered to physically "reside" at the location of its servers, and the laws for that city, region and country hold sway over your story. If you don't want to comply with them, you'll need to find a different website to distribute through. If you intend to get published in treeware format, you basically need to comply with everything in the language you're writing in, so you better know what those laws are. (You'll probably have an editor to help you, at least.)
The very obvious answer is to simply not write about characters who are of nebulous legal status. Despite what the Competence Zone would have you believe, people who are 20, or 35, or 60, or even 75 can (and do) have good sex that would be fun to read about. The counter-argument is that the Coming of Age Story is often linked to sexual maturity... and we all know that teenagers can get pretty horny. Plus, who else needs role models more? So if you decide to plunge into this quagmire, be careful. By the time an American is 18 years old and has passed even the most stringent forms of the Jail Bait Wait, there is a 60% chance (according to a recent study) that they are already a non-virgin.note Crazy though it sounds, you can get in legal trouble for depicting fictional Americans doing something that more than half of non-fictional, Real Life Americans do. Reality Is Unrealistic when it comes to fictional depictions of sex... and, as always where that trope rears its ugly head, having facts on your side will not protect you.
Wordsmithing
Avoid, avoid, avoid both Purple Prose and Beige Prose. "Throbbing manhoods plunging into velvet folds" and the like are an instant way of taking the reader out of your work and making you look ridiculous. At the same time, "he inserted his penis into her vagina" is a bit... clinical. Both Mills and Boon Prose and IKEA Erotica are strongly discouraged; you're presumably not writing a 'just-the-facts' sex manual, but at the same time even Mills & Boon and Harlequin are starting to move away from the overwrought, florid and metaphor-abusing purple prose that previously characterized their works. Purple prose will make people laugh. Beige prose will make them yawn. There is some sort of middle ground to be found — "puce prose", maybe? — and you should aim for it.Be aware of the setting of your story, the place-and-time it's set in. Throughout the ages, there have been a vast vocabulary of slang terminology concerning sex; throughout the ages, people have used various terms to describe man-parts, lady-parts and the act of sticking 'em together. Make sure you're using the right terms. Having a knight and his lady suddenly pepper Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe with modern (or modern-sounding) vernacular will break Willing Suspension of Disbelief — not to mention, provide you a one-way ticket to the Bad Sex In Fiction awards.note Reality Is Unrealistic here too; even terms that were in use at the time can cause a double-take. Just ask any A Song of Ice and Fire reader how they reacted the first time a Knight in Shining Armor dropped a Precision F-Strike — even though, empirically speaking, it is actually possible that this happened in Real Life history.note
Of course, hunting down the right terms can be difficult, because the slang wasn't necessarily documented. At that point, it's kind of up to you. In the Earth's Children series, Jean Auel just talks around it — there's one euphemism, "manhood", but that's it, and that's impressive considering the series is basically Stone Age erotica. George R. R. Martin, writing A Song of Ice and Fire, traced the etymologies of several terms, discovered they descended from Middle English, and said, "Screw it: it might be an Anachronism Stew, but at least they're from the same era." Metonymy, the business of using part of a thing to stand for the whole of the thing, can be useful; even today, some men refer to women as the C-word, and most of us would in turn refer to those men as pricks. The closer to today you get, the more freedom you have... at least in English-speaking languages. Let's not even talk about what things were called in Sanskrit, or Farsi, or Latin. You get caught between a rock and a hard place: if you use the wrong terms, audiences will yell, and if you use nothing at all, audiences will yell. Good luck!
Physiology
You should have a working knowledge of anatomy. Anatomically Impossible Sex is another good way of making yourself look ridiculous or like you don't know what you're talking about. There are some good tips on that page, as well as on "Common Hollywood Sex Traits," but it's only a start. Even worse, the research you need to do probably cannot be done on TV Tropes. Fortunately, there's a whole Internet out there, most of which is for porn. And there's always actual advice columnists, like Dan Savage, Laci Green and Dr. Lindsay Doe's Sexplanations, to help out.
One bit of research you can do is stepping back and taking a realism pass. If you have a partner, this can be one of the best parts. Something that is surprisingly hard to do while in the throes of typing one-handed is remembering which way your tossing-and-turning lovers are facing, and how many arms they have. Try to visualize it a little. If you cut off for the night, make sure you give the scene a quick read-through to remind yourself. Physically-impossible or physically-improbable moves are a quick way to break Willing Suspension of Disbelief ("How is he kissing her face and her down-there simultaneously?" "How did she pin him against the wall if they're lying on the bed?" "You can't touch that!!"), so eliminate them whenever possible. Or Throw It In!. ("Jon! Be one person again!")
Old Wives' Tales
Because many cultures prefer not to provide concrete, scientific information about sex, a lot of rumors and superstitions can emerge around the topic.- "Self-Abuse: masturbation, particularly male masturbation, has harmful physical side effects." No, it doesn't. It does not result in hair growing on the palms, blindness, shortness of stature, or being turned into a pillar of salt. In fact, it may have positive benefits in lowering the odds of testicular cancer. (The one exception isn't covered by the trope.note )
- "Really Gets Around: a woman's private area becomes worn out from overuse, particularly if with a wide variety of partners." In reality, there's not much that impacts a vagina: even childbirth is not guaranteed to have long-term side effects. The vagina, like any muscle, is intended to be elastic and to stretch and shrink at high speed.note
- "The Grand Unified Theory of Sex, Gender and Orientation: A person's gender identity, sexual orientation and assigned sex are all one giant single trope." A man is defined as the following: Someone who is overtly masculine in gender presentation; someone who has sex with women; someone who takes on the dominant role during sexual activity; and someone who was born with a penis. All of these are the same personality trait and it is impossible to mix-and-match.
- "In Touch with His Feminine Side: the person who penetrates is inherently masculine; the person who receives is actively feminine. Even if they are doing these things with each other." This is why some people with Testosterone Poisoning will refuse to allow their partners to take charge. It's hard to communicate the loudness of an eye-roll through a wiki, but no: this is what some people actually believe. Completely aside from the Insane Troll Logic, this raises the possibility — nay, the requirement — that, since the uke is made gay by the act of being the receiver, the seme is made straight by virtue of being the driver.
- "There is no difference between being gay and being transsexual." After all, if you're a gay man, it must mean that you want to be the submissive partner during sex. Obviously, this correlates with wanting to be a woman. ("'Straight Gay'? 'Hard Gay'? How come those are tropes. They should be part of the Permanent Red Link Club because they cannot exist.")
- "Bigger Is Better in Bed." Nope. Check out Big Prick, Big Problems for the inverse, which is just as likely — especially since people may also fall prey to the other belief about the Biggus Dickus, which is that penile stimulation of the vagina, not clitoral stimulation, is the primary source of female sexual pleasure, and thus fail to do the necessary preparations.note
Tone
You should try to avoid making your sex scene too gratuitous. Sex Sells, but it's quite easy to tell if a creator has just thrown a sex scene into the story out of nowhere just for the purposes of titillation, or to cynically get people interested in their work. The sex scene should arise (ha-ha) from the events of the story as a whole — it should make sense that these people are choosing to have sex at this particular moment without it feeling like the author is forcing them to purely for sales.Try also to avoid including too much Author Appeal. Sex, of course, is heavily tied up with fetishes and kinks, and authors are no different than anyone else in that they have certain tastes and fancies as well; it can be easy and helpful to throw in a little bit of what appeals to you personally. After all, if something turns you on, then you're going to be able to write it convincingly; just don't assume everyone else is going to be as enthusiastic about it as you are. However, be careful. If there's a sense that you're providing Too Much Information about what personally turns you on, or were writing the sex scene with one hand while the other was... occupied, shall we say, then this can make things a bit creepy and uncomfortable for your reader. If the sex scene is too prurient, it can be off-putting to the reader. If you must include Author Appeal, however, then try to avoid justifying it with I Just Write the Thing — yet again, no one's going to be convinced. If you're going to include your kinks, stand by them.
Similarly, be wary of the Audience-Alienating Premise. If you have kinks that tend to occupy something of a niche, then spending a lot of time focusing on them is a good way of making your reader uncomfortable. It's a simple fact of life: some fetishes, for better or worse, are socially frowned on. Unfair? Possibly, but there it is. You might think doing that sort of thing with chickens is just a harmless bit of fun, but there's a good chance that, except for a relative few, most of your readers are going to strongly disagree, and you’re not going to force them to change their minds by including your kinks in graphic detail in your story.
On the flipside, however, morality changes. Certain 'lifestyle choices' that were frowned on even a couple of decades ago are now increasingly accepted. With this in mind, however, be wary of how you're depicting sex and sexuality, especially alternative and 'non-mainstream' sexualities and even more especially if you are not a member of these groups yourself. Suggesting or depicting that Sex Is Evil is in and of itself riddled with Unfortunate Implications and potential Double Standards, particularly if you are depicting certain groups or sexualities as evil in the process. Just as the kinky authors above aren't going to magically convert people into accepting their kinks just through including them in their work, if you think ‘that sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed’ you’re not going to turn the clock back by force just by writing it in your story. An Author Tract is an Author Tract, and the fact that this one is about sex won't gain you any points.
On the whole, sexuality can be a minefield, especially with regards to creative writing. While attitudes towards alternative sexualities are gradually shifting and liberalising, we’ve still got a long way to go and, deeply unfair though it may seem, for the most part mainstream publishers, producers and audiences still tend to favour the (for want of a better word) 'typical' pairing of a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman. This does not mean to suggest that depicting (or, of course, possessing) sexuality outside of the so-called "norm" is inherently wrong or bad in and of itself; it is, however, generally a bit harder to break into the mainstream by depicting it, and if you’re going to attempt to do so this is something you should keep in mind.
Finally, a word on Idealized Sex itself, specifically the kind seen in "art erotica" pornography. Because sexuality is still a taboo subject in many places, pornography can end up being many people's first exposure to sexuality as it is actually expressed by real live people. This is not necessarily a bad thing; there's something not only audacious but reassuring about seeing people who are not ashamed to have sex, and indeed who celebrate it. The problem lies in the fact that pornography is a business. It exists to make money... and the way it does that is by selling Idealized Sex. Additionally, it's Idealized Sex for men — the vast majority of pornography is made to be consumed by people with testicles. As such, it tends to be written, acted, and shot in ways that make men feel desired, powerful and skilled at bedroom arts. This is true even of pornography that (claims it) is intended to titillate women. Be sure to do research around the subject, because there are a lot of things, particularly concerning the female half of the couple and her pleasure, that pornography will typically elide or even ignore.
Characterization
In The Bible, the term "to know" is used as a euphemism for getting it on. It seems archaic today, but it's worth pondering. After all, when you have sex with someone, you certainly do learn things about them: any blemishes they might be hiding under their clothes, whether they have secret piercings or tattoos, what their actual hair color is when it isn't dyed; how they react when erotically stimulated, how they like to be erotically stimulated, what they like to do after the act is completed; so on and so forth. This can be used as a sort of subverted Sexy Discretion Shot — it allows you to skirt around specific technical details in favor of things that, while very revealing, at least involve body parts that are safe for work.Additionally, sex can be used for Character Development, and should be. Not everybody likes the same things, and what a person likes tends to derive from their personality. Someone with a rosy disposition will probably want soft, intimate encounters — "making love", to use the somewhat hackneyed phrase — while a thrill-seeker probably prefers something more aggressive, possibly more animalistic. However, here you also have ripe space for subversion. One of the reasons sex is daunting is because you are not only physically naked, but emotionally naked as well, and things you might not care to admit about yourself have a chance of being revealed.
It has a bit more bearing on discussions of homosexuality (and is covered in some detail on that article), but one of things modern society still gets confused are "sexual preference" and "gender roles." It is assumed that a man is typically dominant and in control, while a woman is submissive and compliant. In short, men give and women receive. And, because modern society hasn't learned to differentiate yet, the two are believed to be inextricably linked: if you own a penis, you want to be in charge and you must want to be in charge, always; and vice versa if you happen to have a vagina. (And God help you if you have both or neither.)
Guess what: this ain't true. But admitting it can be tricky. In general, when a person doesn't conform to what society expects them to be, they harbor insecurities about this non-conformity; a tiny little part of them suspects they might be defective. And revealing it to another person can be harrowing, because that other person might judge you for it. The obvious example is a gay man, who (at least, according to Common Knowledge, which is never wrong) is gay because he wants to take the role of a woman during sex, but what about straight men who don't mind being on bottom, or straight women who like to take charge? What about men who like to cuddle, and women who like aggressive, animalistic sex?
And here's where things really get fun: your characters, the ones who are getting it on. (...You do have genuine Rounded Characters here, right?) What are the stereotypes that you have led your readers to assume about them? And how can you subvert, zig-zag or even avert them? A woman CEO is presumably dominant in bed, so the obvious subversion is for her to be submissive and tender; what kind of third option can you take? A man who is brash and arrogant would presumably be concerned solely with his own pleasure, so the logical counter-tack is for him to be tender and selfless; what's the subversion? And let's also drag culture into it, since it is germane to the topic: in Latin American countries, men are expected to show bravado and aggressiveness, but also to be passionate, sensitive lovers; this is different north of the equator. Context matters when it comes to behavior, so always be aware of what the people around your character expects of them, and question whether you're pegging those expectations correctly. Even in America today, sexual mores are changing, and what was true yesterday might be false, or at least deprecated, today.
(And finally, note the repetition of what has been said already: None of this requires you to actually write a sex scene. A Sexy Discretion Shot would work just fine.)
Less Is More / Bigger Is Not Better
You may be better served by avoiding too much technical detail on what is going on, paradoxical as that may seem. David Gerrold once wrote that sex in fiction is often more about the characters having the sex than the actual sex they're having; you should try and use the sex scene to deliver some kind of Character Development on their thoughts and emotions, rather than the instruction-manual litany of what's being done where.Someone who probably listened to Gerrold is Stephen King. In his Dark Tower novel The Drawing of the Three, there's a Their First Time that is all of one sentence long:
The depiction focuses not on what they're doing, but rather how they're feeling about they're doing. It's the culmination of two people falling head-over-heels for each other, and confirms that there is something very genuine between Eddie and Odetta. We know what it means to them. Even better, it goes the opposite of IKEA Erotica by turning the whole session into a Noodle Incident. What makes sex "so sweet, so full" for you? Whatever it is, your brain just supplied it. King doesn't bother convincing you that Eddie and Odetta had the hottest sex ever: he lets you convince yourself, simply by letting you fill in your own details. Show, Don't Tell is a good rule, but King, like many writers, knows when to turn it around for the occasions when Telling is even better than Showing.
Additionally, focusing on emotional details gives you a leg up because all you really need for them is your imagination. What would a person feel, emotionally, when having sex? Well, it's basically the same things you'd feel. (That was easy!) You'd probably excited; you'd probably be sexually aroused; and you might feel nervous or even scared. Consider the myth of the Vagina Dentata, the womanly-parts equipped with teeth that will snip off any offending penis, clean as you please. It's a sort of exaggeration, but it encapsulates a fundamental fear: men are always a little bit scared that, when they share this private and sensitive part of themselves, they won't get it back the way it was loaned out, that it'll come back damaged. There isn't really a gender-flipped version of the trope, but women do share that fear; if anything, it's probably worse, since the parts they share are internal and more delicate. This particular emotional impulse — and more — is something anyone can empathize with, whether or not they have any real-world sexual experience. And since emotions are the more interesting part of the sex act anyway, at least on page, it never hurts to focus on them.
There are, however, exceptions. The big one is when you're actually writing porn. Under those circumstances, you do want lots of nitty-gritty details: all five senses, and some varied sentence structure to keep from getting repetitive. Sex is a celebration of physicality, so there should be emphasis on the things that are physically happening. The Content Policy being what it is, that's all we'll say on the matter; the rest will require you to do your own research. But doing it should be easy, because The Internet Is for Porn. (Seriously, if you can't find some examples of porn for yourself, you have much larger problems than your current lack of sex-writing skills. Even better, almost any NSFW-story site worth its salt will have its own "So You Want To" section where you can get very detailed and specific advice.)
Less Is Still More / Bigger Is Still Not Better
Here's another wacky thing that not everybody realizes. Remember that whole "Victory Is Boring" trope we have? Not to mention "True Love Is Boring"? Well, here's another secret: sex is boring.No, seriously. It's enjoyable, and provides important functions on psychological, emotional, physiological and reproductive levels; but by and large, it's boring, because it involves doing the same thing over and over again for a while. Let's be honest: a lot of human beings masturbate, and if you are reading this article, you're probably one of them. Ask yourself, right now (silently), what physical motions are best at bringing you to orgasm. Guess what: it's probably just a few things that you do repeatedly. Well, it's the same for most people. And when you are with a partner, that doesn't magically change. You still need those few things, repeatedly, to achieve climax, and so do they.
Repetitive Strain Injury is bad enough when you experience it; now imagine being forced to read about it. And the fact that it's being done to somebody's Big Red Button doesn't automatically make it interesting.
Additionally, something needs to be mentioned about the purpose of sex within a committed love relationship (which, to most cultures, is the ideal context for it). You personally, dear troper, probably have a list of things you either think or know you'd like to do with partners — things you know, either from self-knowledge or past experience, satisfy you in bed. Well, most people are the same. Put two people's lists of sexual preferences together and you have... a Venn diagram. Well, that, and a sex life, but that sex life will probably consist, most of the time, of the activities in the "in common" area of the Venn diagram. When those two people have sex, they are fairly likely to do the same thing(s) over and over again, because they both like it. This is not a bug; it's a feature. Sex frequently acts as a touchstone or a baseline, a way for the people in the relationship to re-connect and re-establish bonds of intimacy that have become eroded by stress, familial responsibilities, jobs, etc. It probably won't be explosive or experimental; it will, in fact, probably be mundane (in the sense of "sticking to the things in the middle of the Venn diagram"). It'll probably be... boring. And that isn't very fun to read.
There are writers (particularly pornographic ones) who are able to make each sexual encounter unique, distinct and not-boring. Most of us aren't that talented. So, in the event that you are writing sex scenes, one of the best things you can do is minimize the number of them, and vary the tone, approach, activities and location your characters get up to. How and why are they having sex? If the answer is different every time, things are less likely to get stale. But also consider how unlikely that is in any real relationship.
Potential Subversions
The obvious subversion that comes to mind is two characters who are about to get it on, only to be interrupted by something (or someone) that kills the mood.Another is after two people have already been getting it on for some time. Remember the Venn diagram and how most couples stick to the things that are in the middle area of it? Once this pattern is established... Well, O.O.C. Is Serious Business, right? One or both partners can try to shake things up and you can go from there. Why is that partner shaking it up? How will the other respond? Conveniently Common Kink gets played far too often here, because it's part and parcel of Idealized Sex, so what if you went for drama instead and had one partner want [whatever] and the other not want it? And, of course, it continues to play into the stuff about characterization we have discussed.
Writers' Lounge
Suggested Themes and Aesops
This depends on the overall mood of the work and the scene, but since sex is — in a lot of cultures — tied in with intimacy, romance and love, you'll probably find yourself tapping into those impulses. This doesn't mean it has to be happy, of course; two people who have fallen in love and are having sex for the first time may be, but someone who is having an affair may give rise to completely different themes and moods.Potential Motifs
In keeping with the above, typical signifiers of love — flowers, etc. — are common, but since these can easily lead to the Purple Prose problem mentioned above it's best not to get too carried away.Sex is often tied in with mood and feeling; two people who are intensely attracted to each other should generate a lot of heat, while two people who aren't may be quite cold, etc.
Suggested Plots
Any. All. Sex is something most humans do, and which they do in a lot of circumstances. The Romance Arc can be stitched into almost any other plot or genre, and sex is one of the (relatively) natural outcomes of the romance arc, and therefore can be wedged in as well. This can even be true in situations of true calamity and destruction, like After the End or Zombie Apocalypse or whatever; Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex and all that.note Again, we've already talked about the tricky elements of making it seem logical or sensible that your characters would stop what they're doing and get it on, but they'll probably want to.If you've decided to simply write erotic fiction and you need a plot structure that lends itself to Explicit Content, the absolute best place to start is the Coming of Age Story. "Adulthood" and "sexual maturity" are intertwined almost by definition. (As mentioned previously, there are some legal pitfalls with taking this approach, but you can always just have your character be a late bloomer.) Another good candidate is the Peggy Sue plot. It needs to be used differently — your character gets flung back in time at the beginning of the story instead of the end — but it's easy to get the girl if you already know how the story ends. (These stories tend to lean heavily towards escapism, but there's absolutely room for that in the erotic-fiction genre; in fact, it's arguably the purpose of the genre.) Other good setups include "Character is a New Transfer Student", "Character is Walking the Earth", and, of course, the good old Romance Novel.
Departments
Set Designer / Location Scout
People can and do have sex everywhere. And we do mean everywhere. In general, though, given cultural mores around sex (not to mention public decency laws), unless they're particularly overcome with lust or have an adventurous or exhibitionist kick, people tend to prefer having sex in the privacy of their own homes, or at least somewhere relatively secluded and closed-off from prying eyes; the bedroom is the obvious place, although more adventurous couples might take it to the bath, the shower or further. In a similar vein, two people on the move (or two illicit lovers) might choose a hotel or motel room; two workmates might have have sex in an office or similar workplace location (after hours if they're trying to keep it secret; during work hours if they like the risk), and so on.Wherever you go for, however, the location should fit the mood and the characters. Again, the mood you're trying to set will probably affect the choice of location; for example, if you're trying to set a romantic, intimate and gentle mood, then your characters having a quickie in a nightclub bathroom is unlikely to be a good fit. However, the same location could fit if your characters are in a right-here-right-now kind of mood. Of course, depending on how you frame it, you could turn a nightclub bathroom encounter into a somewhere unexpectedly romantic and intimate. Remember, the critical part of the sex is not what occurs, but what it means. It's really up to you.
Props Department
In Real Life, there's lots of props available for the adventurous lovers who like to spice things up; keeping in mind the above about the sex being more about your character than the sex itself, however, this will depend on who your characters are, the type of story you're writing and the sex they're having. (There is also some stigma to the use of toys, due to sometimes-shortsighted attitudes towards sex; it's believed that a man shouldn't need them because he always has partners at hand, and a woman shouldn't need them because she doesn't like sex. So if you involve them, expect some knee-jerk denouncements of your characters as vile degenerates.)Costume Designer
Often, full nudity, although this does depend on the characters and the situation. There are entire companies that do nothing but sell skimpy scraps of cloth that a woman will wear for five minutes before being divested of it by her partner, who is now presumably inflamed with desire. Plus, in a right-here-right-now kind of mood in the bathroom of the nightclub, ditching all your clothing is not very smart: you may have to re-garb rapidly if discovered. Besides, some people find it arousing when someone is so into you that they don't even bother taking off all their clothes.Casting Director
Anyone who has an interest in sex — in other words, most human beings, though there are exceptions. We're a bit superficial as a species, however, so in general your characters should meet certain standards of beauty and attractiveness, unless you're really determined to challenge dominant cultural mores about sexuality and beauty (or, alternatively, you really want to gross people out).One thing beginning lemon authors often get wrong is going for too much detail. They want a character's sexual attractiveness to be beyond question, and so they go into long-winded, sometimes tedious description: the exact shade of her golden hair, the precise shape of her clear blue eyes, the levels of her tan as measured in paint swatches from Sherwin-Williams, her specific measurements to the centimeter — 70.4-double-D, obviously, because of the Buxom Beauty Standard. Sounds good... except to those readers who prefer Raven Hair, Ivory Skin and Petite Pride. (And, considering how much people seem to love the Asian Hooker Stereotype, there may be quite a lot of them.) "But then what do I do?" the Beginning Lemon Author laments. "I can't have someone with both blonde and dark hair!, or with one big boob and one small one! How do I play this game if I can't win?"
The answer is, "Don't play." You aren't going to appeal to everyone, and nobody gives a hoot nor understands what a 32B bra on a 28-25-30 and 5'7" and 77kg woman means or even looks like. Don't try to create a character who is physically attractive to all human beings ever; that's impossible, even if you try to cover your bases by having a petite pale redhead waif, a big black 6-footer with large tits and short hair, and so on. We've covered a bit of it above, and we can also start getting into Values Dissonance; standards of beauty are relative to place and time. Your better strategy is to create a character who is emotionally attractive, a likeable protagonist that The Reader can root for. This kind of Character Development is a fair bit easier than creating the perfectly attractive woman; and even if not, Character Development is a skill it never hurts to put a few levels into. Once you have this character that your readers like and are rooting for, then they will be happy if she succeeds at getting her heart's desire (and/or loins' desire), regardless of what she looks like. So don't make your characters attractive. Make them lovable. (Proof of concept: Ugly Betty, though of course one can make arguments about Hollywood Homely.) Or, to put it another way, the Helen of Troy you're looking for is not the World's Most Beautiful Woman but rather the Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
As to the character's physical description, Noodle Incident is once more your best friend. Provide just a few details: hair like burnished bronze, piercing eyes, the trim figure of a dancer. Your reader's imagination will fill in the blanks for you, providing details like facial structure, amount of arm hair, eyebrow style, exhibited musculature, nose shape — gender — that you, as a writer, could never hope to match. The character that results will be more The Reader's creation than yours, but that's okay: between you and The Reader, which of the two of you is better at creating a physical appearance that The Reader finds attractive? Besides, you're controlling the personality, which is the real heart of the character.
Stunt Department
Again, sex can get ... adventurous. But. as previously mentioned, a lot of people don't get adventurous; they find a routine and stick with it. There's a small core of sexual interactions that are branded "vanilla sex" (link to The Other Wiki), a derogatory reference to how boring vanilla ice cream is (perceived to be). But it should be pointed out that vanilla is, and almost always has been, the most popular ice cream flavor in the world, outselling the second-place flavor (chocolate) by five to two. Conversely, while we don't have exact data on sales of Smoked Paprika & Chili-Beef flavored ice cream, we feel confident asserting that for most people it is, at best, an acquired taste. Variety may be the spice of life, but consistency is its meat and potatoes.
But, assuming you are going to spice it up (and a bit of spice now and again is never a bad thing), keep in mind common sense and basic anatomy; people are only so flexible. Configurations that seem easy and obvious might not actually be as practical as it sounds; someone has to know where to put things, and it often has to be done blind (since most human beings cannot get both their eyeballs and their partner's genitals near their own genitals at the same time). Actions that seem easy in theory might actually be difficult in practice; the Wall Bang Her position always looks simple on the screen, but what happens if there's a significant height difference between partners (and/or their junk)? — which there often is? This is why people sometimes don't experiment: if it doesn't work, the mood is down the drain, often in dramatic fashion; and even if it does work it still might not turn out to be enjoyable.
Plus, people are only so willing to risk their lives while getting it on. For example, a bit of mild bondage in the form of being tied to the bedpost by your lover with a silk scarf is something that, even if it's not necessarily something the reader has fantasized about or experienced previously, they can imagine being something that people do in bed. Your characters having sex while being suspended by a wire over an active volcano from a helicopter, on the other hand, is likely to be met with skepticism unless you can really sell it.
And for those who are about to ask the obvious question, all of this is the answer: this is how you meld realism with Idealized Sex. To re-iterate, when you put two people's sexual preferences together, you get a Venn diagram. And what's a common element of Venn diagrams? There are things that are in one circle but not the other; there are tastes or predilections that don't get satisfied as frequently — or, in worst case, at all. Sometimes it's all about feasibility. A Huge Guy, Tiny Girl combo might find it smart to have the girl on top most of the time so that she doesn't get, you know, squished; but as a result, the guy might long for the chance to take control and really go to town. Likewise, there's a sex move where the guy picks up the girl, she puts her legs around his waist, and blablablah. Tiny Guy, Huge Girl — think that's an option for them? But it might also be about preference: "I can do [whatever], I just don't want to." There are men who refuse to perform cunnilingus on women because they think it's disgusting. (Hell, there are women who won't let it be done on them because they think it's disgusting!) Oral sex is typically perceived to be part of the "vanilla sex" umbrella, but it still isn't a part of everybody's sex life. And hence, for the people who don't get oral/handjobs/certain positions/certain kinks/whatever as often as they want, sex that contains it is Idealized Sex.
(Oh, and, Auto Erotica is best engaged in when the car isn't moving. This seems like common sense, but if it were, the term "road head" wouldn't exist.)
Extra Credit
You may find Kylie Scott's list of what to do (or not to do) helpful.
And, as always, do your own research. Sex is very personal and we can scarcely tell you what you will or will not like. (Some will try, but you can safely ignore them.)
The Greats
THIS SECTION DELIBERATELY LEFT BLANK OUT OF RESPECT FOR The Content Policy.The Epic Fails
Aside from the Bad Sex In Fiction awards, which are typically a master class in Funny Moments, there are also fan-driven blogs and communities that focus on the same thing. A good place to start is "weepingcock", a LiveJournal community dedicated to celebrating the best howlers from fan fiction. There's also "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books", a site compiling snarky reviews of romance novels. Occasionally they branch out into more generalized fare, such as this article: "Ten Things I Hate About Sex Scenes."
