Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz November 19, 2011 - 1:16pm

How important is sex in writing? Just as important as sex in life? Without it where is our story?

Anyway maybe this is just my salacious appetite begging for some sex chatter around here, and though I doubt this thread will actually go anywhere but to the bottom of the pile to be forgotten until Kirk wipes it off the face of the LitReactor earth, I wonder if anyone else likes sex.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest November 19, 2011 - 1:24pm

I like sex. It's fun, feels good and kills calories.

I like sex in writing, depending on the style/genre of the book. I read a lot of pulp/noir and normally the sex doesn't get too graphic, leaves it to the imagination. I like that better than say, a straight erotica novel where the sex is spelled out in detail. I'm not a fan of Penthouse Forum type writing either. Too detailed. Too generic. Too cliche.

I think most books need at least a little sex in it, to round out the characters. Who doesn't enjoy physical contact with another human being? We want our characters to be as real as possible, right?

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin November 19, 2011 - 1:45pm

I agree with Rian. I mean, it's not that I wouldn't write or read a book where the characters don't have sex... but I would expect the narrative to focus pretty heavily on that absence. But I still am not a big fan of super explicit shit in novels, I mean, I won't say that sort of thing doesn't have applications but in my experience those applications are, like, super-weird.

Sex is great, I'd be having sex right now if I could find a consenting partner.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading November 19, 2011 - 2:09pm

I had sex once, but then I had to stop because it was sinful.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch November 19, 2011 - 2:38pm

One of my weak areas in writing...

Hey anyone planning or considering taking the workshop on sex and death? Starts end of Nov.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest November 19, 2011 - 2:42pm

The workshop sounds dirty and morbid...

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz November 19, 2011 - 3:55pm

Lidia Yuknavitch writes and talks about sex brilliantly. She is one of my favorite sex writers. In the Chronology of Water there's this one girl on girl on girl sex scene that is fucking hot, yet brilliantly executed in a dynamic prose that has you dry humping everything in sight after you read it. So be sure to have a good moist receptacle  or priapic facsimile at the ready cuz you're gonna need a release. 

@Liana: I consider just about every Intensive, and Lidia's really has me considering the leap. She is extremely entertaining and her way with words will astound. The things that come out of her mouth at the drop of a hat will have you in tears and laughing with glee simultaneously. Not to mention she is an amazing teacher who does not shy away from anything. Anything at all. 

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest November 19, 2011 - 4:21pm

@Chester: I will check out the book. Any hot blooded male loves some girl-on-girl action.

Ben's picture
Ben from Australia is reading My Booky Wook by Russell Brand November 19, 2011 - 4:30pm

Hey anyone planning or considering taking the workshop on sex and death?

I signed up on Monday.  It's not a great time of the year, what with Christmas just around the corner, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to attend Lidia's workshop.  Plus, owing to the current economic schmozzle (exchange rates and all), I even saved $10 on the course.  In the words of Charlie Sheen: "Winning!"

I think there's only about 4 or 5 spots left, if you're considering signing up.

.'s picture
. November 19, 2011 - 5:11pm

Sex is 5 seconds of orgasm and 30 minutes of crying afterwards. Or is that just me?

I always a put a sexual reference in anything I write, it's what the readers want to see.

aliensoul77's picture
aliensoul77 from a cold distant star is reading the writing on the wall. November 19, 2011 - 6:03pm

I only write about sex if its bizarre and uncomfortable. 

aliensoul77's picture
aliensoul77 from a cold distant star is reading the writing on the wall. November 19, 2011 - 6:05pm

BTW, that picture at the beginning of the thread brings up so many questions:  where did this orgy take place?  Who photographed it?  Did they get a permit first?  Who cleaned up afterwards?  Would you really want to have sex next to that many people?  How did people sign up to be a part of it?  Was there like a petition:  wanna fuck in public?

Steve's picture
Steve from Southwestern Chicagoland, IL November 19, 2011 - 6:08pm

That's the last place I'd want to drop a contact.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest November 19, 2011 - 6:32pm

@the pic: I've tried and tried, but I can't find Waldo... Please, someone, tell me where he is...

.'s picture
. November 19, 2011 - 6:32pm

^ Or car keys.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest November 19, 2011 - 6:33pm

Or a needle

 

.'s picture
. November 19, 2011 - 6:43pm

Or a baby.

Renfield's picture
Renfield from Hell is reading 20th Century Ghosts November 19, 2011 - 6:57pm

It's the same reason I don't read/write about gambling, I don't want to read about shit I'm not good at. So I killed off all the women in my fiction. Good riddance.

(I'm jesting, I'm fairly good at playing cards.)

aliensoul77's picture
aliensoul77 from a cold distant star is reading the writing on the wall. November 19, 2011 - 8:05pm

so the penis goes in the vagina right?

Bekanator's picture
Bekanator from Kamloops, British Columbia is reading Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter November 19, 2011 - 8:32pm

Sex scenes are only hot if I like the characters.  Most generic stuff is pretty cliche.  Bonus points if the guy's kind of devious and not normally attractive.  There's got to be something sort of edgy to him.  Not the typical "bad boy" dynamic, but just that something else that makes it spark.

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz November 19, 2011 - 8:51pm

Like stray guys in laundromats?

Limbless K9's picture
Limbless K9 from Oregon is reading Wraeththu November 19, 2011 - 8:54pm

I like how George RR Martin handles sex in his books. It's hard to explain, but it always fits the story. It never seems out of place. To put it simply, if the sex isn't out of place then it's handled at least half decently. Still a virgin here by the way at 19. *high five* Maybe that isn't high five worthy.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch November 19, 2011 - 10:18pm

Oh but the class is creative non-fiction! Don't know if I can deal with that aspect. I'd rather write about the orgy in Chester's picture.

aliensoul77's picture
aliensoul77 from a cold distant star is reading the writing on the wall. November 20, 2011 - 1:08am

That picture freaks me out.  I'm not a prude but public sex and mass nudity is just strange to me.  Limbless K9, it's totally cool that you are a virgin.  When people have sex too young sometimes they get cocky, especially guys.

writingasgjjensen's picture
writingasgjjensen from Don't Ask is reading A lot. I try to read as much as I can. November 20, 2011 - 1:39am

I stared at the picture to find the repeat, so I could see the Photoshop seam.  Then I got distracted by the thread comments.

I agree that sex has to be appropriate to the character, time and place.  That will determine how tasteful or graphically it can be handled.  Does every story need sex?  No.  But having it in there doesn't make it less realistic, just because, it what we think about all the time.

I'm thinking about it right now.  And not in the "that place must stink" in-that-picture-up-top way. 

What I don't care for are characters that have to fuck everyone and its vital to their survival, prowess and plot.  It's okay to be appropriate...but the Anita Blake series...that's too much sex for me.  And I like me some sex.  After that much, it's almost like reading about Wile E Coyote going for another shot down the cliff.  "Oh, mother of god, not again.  Does he never learn?"

I like to write my sex as confusing or illicit.  If it isn't wrong or complicated emotionally, then it doesn't develop my characters. Safe, expected sex can stay in romance novels and marriages. 

JonnyGibbings's picture
JonnyGibbings November 20, 2011 - 5:54am

If I were at that mass fuckathon, I'd be the guy right at the back, looking awkward... still unable to get any.

Typewriter Demigod's picture
Typewriter Demigod from London is reading "White Noise" by DeLilo, "Moby-Dick" by Hermann Mellivile and "Uylsses" by Joyce November 20, 2011 - 6:02am

Mhh sex. Tbh, I prefer groping, intimacy and kissing over sex. I feel better after groping than I do after sex, and usually I'm really pissed off at the person I was fucking, for some reason or another. Not that it's dirty, or sinful, or wrong or evil, no, it's just that I feel that all the people I've had that sort of relationship with, (one person) we were better as friends.

JonnyGibbings's picture
JonnyGibbings November 20, 2011 - 6:21am

I feel sorry for the cleaner. I can imagine them walking into an ankle deep soup of cum, marbled with streaks of blood and shit, textured with clumps of pube and tissue and glazed with vagina syrup. Whole room would look like a plasterers toolbox.

Flaminia Ferina's picture
Flaminia Ferina from Umbria is reading stuff November 20, 2011 - 10:44am

Sex is what brought me here at the Reactor, dear friends.

But stop drooling 'cause i'm speaking about sex in literature, not sex-sex like sex in real life, no. That was just a temporary enthousiasm. I swear. During real sex, I mean.

You wish.

By the way - years ago, when curiosity about sex started to manifest in me, I jumped straight from dinosaurs books to erotic literature. Anais Nin, Xaviera Hollander, Henry Miller, all stuff readily available at home. Not that my parents be a sort middle class version of Damned Madison Spencer's ones. They don't speak so much about sex openly, not to me. It was rather one of my mom's attempts at making me a civilized and literate person, the old naughty hook. Maybe. Or maybe it's just me seein' mother's traps everywhere. It's just. Not. My. Fault.

Those books were there, in the shelf, in the living room where the tv was, where all the other books were, I swear! I picked the wrong one one day and it fell on the ground, open on the hot topic. True. I closed my eyes but some obsure force pried them wide. I could not help but read.

And I'm glad.

Later on, I would pick Tropic of Cancer and give it a serious read. "Holy shit," I remember thinking, "this guy writes like God himself!" and that was not my first blasphemy as rather my first crush on narrative.

And now, many books of all kinds later, why not write good sex scenes if plot and characters suggest it? I don't want to put a limit to myself, I can write with sex, with no sex, veiled sex, dressed up sex, food-fight sex. It's not the first issue that comes to my mind when I open the blank page, but if events lead me there then I'll see. In practice, I left a lot to the reader's imagination lately when two of my characters got too close, so I don't know if I'm a graphic sex scene writer type, if I'll ever be.

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz November 20, 2011 - 10:51am

Nin.

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig November 29, 2011 - 9:30pm

I love sex. 

I love using it in my writing, and there is probably more sex than is absolutely needed in any of my longer pieces...but I write a lot about interpersonal relationships, people have sex after awhile, right?

I say that, but I will say the first time I saw Twelve Monkeys I was SO impressed that the writers didn't depend on one rushed fuck in the middle of all the craziness to cement the relationship of the two main characters. 

So...I guess not every story needs sex. And maybe someday I'll write one of those (probably not).