Hot, sweaty, panting? Sweetly suggested after The Kiss? One of the problems that always comes up for authors is how to portray sex in their novel.
Even if the book isn’t a ‘romance’ per se, there will be interactions between two human beings (or not so human – there’s an entire, um, genre that explores sex with aliens, or even monsters). Is it important to the story to give readers all the intimate details of a sexual encounter, or would it be gratuitous?
That was the question I had to ask myself when I was writing my novels. It would have been strange to write three sequential novels where no one had sex – that’s not the way life works. But did I need to open the doors to the bedroom, to portray all the nitty gritty?
I’ve read a lot of books in my main genre – urban fantasy – and they tend to lean one way or the opposite. Quite a few have had explicit sex scenes. Sometimes it was very well done, very erotic. Other times it was a bit of a letdown: big build-up of sexual tension between the characters, but when they finally got together it fell flat.
If a writer is going for eroticism, it’s not easy to get it right. Some writers have veered into outright smut, which I guess is what floated their boat. Still others have just kinda missed the mark. It really depends on the main storyline and what’s appropriate within it.
Sex in novels is loosely categorized as ‘open-door’, which follows the participants right into the bedroom (or other location) and invites the reader to live it with them, or ‘closed-door’, which stops more-or-less at the bedroom door, maybe offering a glimpse or two but not describing every heaving moment.
Explicit sex isn’t always intended to be enjoyable for the reader – it may have another purpose entirely, such as characters with ulterior motives, or even non-consent/violence – but when it is meant to be erotic, it’s all about the characters. It’s a fantasy played out on the page, or the screen. In the first season of Bridgerton on television there was a lot of sex going on, but viewers really zoomed in on the ‘fake romance’ storyline between the handsome, haughty Duke of Hastings and the lovely, feisty Daphne Bridgerton, who inevitably fell in love, got married and consummated their union quite passionately.
In an article in LitHub magazine featuring famous authors’ comments about how to write sex scenes, I think romance doyen Diana Gabaldon probably had the best take on how to write sex:
“First, a good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not body fluids. In other words, what’s going on physically is not really important. It’s what’s going on emotionally that’s important. You use the physical attributes or setting, only as a means of anchoring the reader in the moment, but it’s about what’s going on between these two people.
And that leads to the second principle, which is that a good sex scene can only happen between two unique and specific people. If you took one of say, Jamie and Claire’s sex scenes, and substituted the names Ana and Christian for theirs, it would not work. They are very specific, to each kind. And so, if you have a scene that could only be done by these two people, then it’s probably a good scene.” How to Write a Good Sex Scene, Literary Hub online magazine.
Often, less is more. Our imaginations are powerful tools in understanding what a writer or film director is getting at. Some of the sexiest scenes I’ve ever seen in movies are like visual foreplay, the suspense of will-they/won’t-they. The end result is clear, but the details are left up to our mind’s eye. In the 1966 romantic comedy Walk Don’t Run, set during the Tokyo Olympics when there’s a shortage of housing for visitors and athletes, suave older Cary Grant, a visiting businessman, talks a young woman, Christine (the pretty Samantha Eggar), into letting him crash in her apartment, then invites good-looking male athlete Steve (Jim Hutton) into the mix. Chaos and romance ensue during the forced proximity, but Christine is engaged to a stuffy British fellow. She fights her growing attraction to Steve, while Cary Grant’s character does his best at matchmaking and throwing the two younger people together. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but it satisfies the plot in a unique and charming way without going too far.
Harlequin, the grande dame of the romance genre, publishes several different subcategories, each with its own motif and submission guidelines. The Afterglow Books must include sexy romantic arcs with strong chemistry and explicit sex scenes that “bring the reader into the character’s thoughts, feelings, experiences and sensations using everyday language without euphemisms”. The Heartwarming collection, by contrast, needs to feature “Clean, sweet, feel-good stories that readers can share with friends and family of all ages”. (Source: Write for Harlequin)
Authors need to write what’s authentic for their story. I chose to write “closed-door sex”. What’s important about my heroine’s journey is her fight to understand the supernatural world she’s been dragged into and all the clandestine things going on in the world. Penning the details of her bed romps wouldn’t have added anything significant to my readers’ understanding of her character or motivations.
There’s something out there for everybody’s tastes. Readers will choose what they like, and it’s our jobs as writers to satisfy them.