Sex, Bad Sex, and More Bad Sex
Since I'm not getting any, I may as well write about it. For most guys, any sex is good sex. But to write a sex scene is difficult, sometimes embaracing, and even the best writers struggle to get it right.
The literary world actually has a Worst Sex Scene Award. Author(s) P.J. Parrish have hilarious blog posts about sex , bad sex , and the written word. Check out an exerpt:
"Did you know there are actual awards for bad sex scenes? For nine years now, the Literary Review has been handing out its Bad Sex award to 'draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.' "
My favorite is the 2004 winner,Tom Wolfe's throbbing passage from I am Charlotte Simmons:
"Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth ... Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns ... "
What the? Otorhinolaryngological. That sent me to Webster's Dictionary which said, "a medical specialty concerned especially with the ear, nose, and throat."
Oh my. . . slither, slither, were in hell did the tongue go. I think that only leaves a couple orifices . . . none of which a woman would want described as cavernous - I think. Tom sure is a cunning linguist.
I'm not sure about the heat of a sex scene that sends one to a dictionary. I think a good sex scene should advance the story line, reveal something about the characters in the scene, and produce some type of viseral response from the reader - the response the writer was trying to elicit; laughter, tears, excitement, revulsion........and I think good sex should be, well, good. I wish I could find some and not just read or write about it...
The literary world actually has a Worst Sex Scene Award. Author(s) P.J. Parrish have hilarious blog posts about sex , bad sex , and the written word. Check out an exerpt:
"Did you know there are actual awards for bad sex scenes? For nine years now, the Literary Review has been handing out its Bad Sex award to 'draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.' "
My favorite is the 2004 winner,Tom Wolfe's throbbing passage from I am Charlotte Simmons:
"Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth ... Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns ... "
What the? Otorhinolaryngological. That sent me to Webster's Dictionary which said, "a medical specialty concerned especially with the ear, nose, and throat."
Oh my. . . slither, slither, were in hell did the tongue go. I think that only leaves a couple orifices . . . none of which a woman would want described as cavernous - I think. Tom sure is a cunning linguist.
I'm not sure about the heat of a sex scene that sends one to a dictionary. I think a good sex scene should advance the story line, reveal something about the characters in the scene, and produce some type of viseral response from the reader - the response the writer was trying to elicit; laughter, tears, excitement, revulsion........and I think good sex should be, well, good. I wish I could find some and not just read or write about it...
