EVERYBODY HAS SEX

EVERYBODY HAS SEX

I have two daughters, so it is widely accepted that their parents have had sex twice.

As a novelist, I have considered inserting (poor choice of words) a sex scene or two into my work. I have not done this.

This is because I have actually, like everyone in the world over a certain age, had sex more than twice. So I have experienced enough “things” that would allow me to write a scene about intimacy. I have not done this.

I have not done this in fear that three of my readers might a) vomit after reading one of these scenes, or b) in the case of reader number three, wonder where on earth the activities in said scene originated. I know, fiction writers use their imagination, but would reader three really understand that?

My problems in writing the scene would entail (not an intentional pun)

  • Arranging the location for the scene. Would it be inside? A hotel, or maybe someone’s seedy basement? Or would it be somewhere in the glory of the outdoors, say along the banks of a pebble-strewn stream or in a bosky dell?
  • Would the participants be young and lithe, or more in my age range, complete with arthritis, cellulite, various sagging parts, etc.?
  • Would it be an affair? If so, an air of stealth and anxiety at being discovered  would have to be a part of it. The anxiety could cause erectile dysfunction, and frankly, I don’t want to go down that road.
  • What kind of sex would they have? Vanilla (I am a sort of expert in that area of carnal activity), or more kinky? I have read other writer’s sex scenes involving props. Toys. I have to admit that everything in a brown wrapper coming to me has been from Amazon. I would have to do some research into “toys.” Again, I am not sure I am ready for that.
  • And the act itself. Arms, legs, faces, buttocks. How does one write about the arrangement? Sex involves a lot of thrashing and sometimes it’s very unruly. Sweat and other liquids. One participant might be into biting. Biting what? Oh, and foreplay. Where should I have them start? In the hallway of the hotel? By the pool, very surrepticiously?
  • Who faces in what direction? Arms caressing cheeks or hands exploring inside underwear? How do they get their clothes off? And then what?  Will one of the lovers swoon, or will one pass gas? That stuff happens. The act itself–discuss or leave it up to the reader, to fill in as desired? How explicit is too explicit?
  • Do I want to sweep my readers into the scene to the point that they lose themselves and emerge at the end of the chapter sweaty and exhausted, or uplifted and deeply moved?
  • And will they reach nirvana simultaneously, as they do in just about all romance novels, or will one partner become delirious and the other resentful?

It’s something that I never have come to grips with (another innuendo I didn’t mean) as a novelist, and thus I write what many classify as “young adult” fiction.

This is a complete cop-out on my part, because who is it that is having all the sex? Yup. The young adults.

I think Colleen Hoover can handle this. I am going to end it with her.