As a Sex Educator, What I Wish Every Author Knew about Writing Sex in Scenes
I hear you think it’s the hardest thing to write.
Sex. S-E-X. Sex.
I’m pretty sure a file cabinet in your head popped open and everything you don’t want to come out did. That’s because we lock down our ideas and notions about sex. In the US, this is understandable. Shame and embarrassment rear its head. It’s how we’ve been raised to think, act, and experience ourselves sexually.
Mostly we’ve learned sex is negative, a topic not to be discussed, and is dismissed in our everyday world. But every day you could make a choice to do something different. Maybe today, you’ll choose to learn an alternative way to consider sex in scenes.
Writing sex in scenes could grow you as a fiction writer and a person. That can happen with an information paradigm shift. Here are five areas to help you shift your thinking.
Perspective
Language is important in sex, on a macro and micro level.
At the macro level, I use the phrase sex in scenes versus sex scenes. This takes away the heteronormative slant of penis-vagina intercourse. It opens the stage for diversity. In people, in choices, in activities. It takes sex out of one box and helps you have more choices in your character development. Sex is not a one-size-fits-all. It’s nuanced and person-specific and complex like the character you’re building.
I hear authors say sex language in the scene, the micro level, trips “them” up. You are the architect creating and constructing a character, their language of sex is based on who they are not who you are.
Sex History
If you are creating a world and a detailed understanding of your characters, I’d like you to get your character bible out. Now go to the place where you have sex history for your characters. Did you find it? One page. One sentence. One word.
This is important because just like a characters’ personality, motivations, desires are housed in a character bible their history with sex is defining and would aid you there. Use sex as a part of the character you’ve not used before. This makes them truly a holistic…
