How Not To Write A Sex Scene...

[National Kato]

Once again, it's time for the annual Bad Sex Award from The Guardian. The shortlist is up (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/25/bad-sex-award-shortlist), here's an excerpt:


She stood in the afternoon light, as if the light was coming from her own body, from her breast and eyes and where her dress had been [...] Jim ached with her nakedness. His arms and legs were as lifeless as fallen branches. He understood that love was a power and force of a different order from anything else beneath the sky, and could demolish not merely family relations or notions of right and wrong but also what was real and what was not. Jim's world had been knocked a little out of its axis, and would not be restored.

She turned to him. Her face had taken on her nudity or rather had shed a veil it wore for the world. She said:

'Perhaps you'd like to take off your shorts.'

'Do I have to?'

'I think you do.'


Feel free to discuss your own experiences with writing about this universal experience. Or maybe think up something and add it? :D

[TurboKinny]

Is it wrong that I actually kind of like that excerpt? :D

I avoid writing sex scenes whenever possible. They always seem to turn into heaving bosoms and throbbing bratwurst.

[Voodoo]

I would participate but I fear that I'd probably be run off with torches and pitch forks.

[Lithium Flower]

Terrible, terrible. And I agree with Turbokinny, I think the only appropriate place for sex scenes in fiction is erotica. I don't want anything heaving in my regular fiction!

[PathMaster]

Terrible, terrible. And I agree with Turbokinny, I think the only appropriate place for sex scenes in fiction is erotica. I don't want anything heaving in my regular fiction!

Even someone's chest after a good run? :D

[ClannerDelta]

Is there a way to write a good one?

Implied sex is a better way of doing things. Let the readers figure it out themselves if they care to delve that far into it.

Though, I don't read the romance novels so I suppose I'm not the person written sex scenes are targeted at.

Also, the "Fapping Disgustipated" thread fits into this category...

[Ancalagon]

I do think explicit sex immediately cheapens a novel. But hinted-at sex is fine.

[Disgustipated]

He slid it into her bootie-hole. But there was another in there with him.

She screamed. Arby's had forgotten the horseradish (horsey!) sauce AGAIN.

[rinichanraar]

I think we should ask the master of sex scenes (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=68765&postcount=7) for some advice. ;)

[pomeroy]

He slid it into her bootie-hole. But there was another in there with him.

She screamed. Arby's had forgotten the horseradish (horsey!) sauce AGAIN.

Wait, what the fuck?

I lolled, but seriously...so confused.

[National Kato]

He tore open her chemise and threw her back onto the bed.

"Oh, you brute," she sighed.

The rogue smirked at her. "Mind your tongue, you Barnard whore."

She laughed. If only you knew what we Barnard girls got up to during the Regatta, she thought. His wasn't the first moustache to mix its wax with that of her ears. She watched him unzip his fly and drop his twill trousers to the floor. She hissed in anticipation.

A man in full stood before her, the buckle of his sock garters sparkling in the moonlight. "Prepare to feel the sting of Cupid's Arrow." He leapt onto the bed, and the Twenties roared.

[National Kato]

Or maybe:

For years Stephanie had been yearning for a real man to take her. To make her realize the awesome potential of her femininity. And now she was standing here naked with him, Prince Ivan Koslowski, heir apparent to the throne of Mikitia. The one. She shuddered when he touched her. She felt an electric bolt run from her thighs, up her spine to silken, pearly-white neck. She felt his hot, masculine touch and his urgent, quivering breath on every inch of her body. And the he stuck his weewee into her hoohaa.

[DiBiddilyBop]

I can't help but think of Peterotica looking at this thread...

[Lint of Death]

I think my submission (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=71453&postcount=85) to the Disgustithread is nominated for the opposite of this award, which is to say, the best.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Part of the problem with sex in fiction is that you almost never run across it in a non-idealized form. Nobody ever goes "Ow, ow! You're on my leg, scoot over!"

It's all heaving bosoms and quivering members and the like.

[National Kato]

It's all heaving bosoms and quivering members and the like.

So true. Where's the wet spot? Where's the unintentional fart? Where's the realism. :D

[shunoshi]

Part of the problem with sex in fiction is that you almost never run across it in a non-idealized form. Nobody ever goes "Ow, ow! You're on my leg, scoot over!"

It's all heaving bosoms and quivering members and the like.

Yep, I've never read, "Ow ow, ouch, leg cramp!!!" or "Where the hell is the towel?" :D

Seriously, I prefer implied sex. No need for descriptions of perky breasts and hung members.

[Xerxes]

He exclaimed, "Get buck nekkid, and I'll get the syrup!"

The next day there was a mess of stickiness and sheets that best be discarded instead of cleaned.

[Lint of Death]

Part of the problem with sex in fiction is that you almost never run across it in a non-idealized form. Nobody ever goes "Ow, ow! You're on my leg, scoot over!"

There was a sex scene in a recent movie about a dysfunctional couple in Paris that went terribly awkward like that, it was hilarious :p

[Whunpo]

I think we should ask the master of sex scenes (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=68765&postcount=7) for some advice. ;)

Master of sex scenes. Should I be proud, or ashamed? :o :confused:

[Purple Santa]

Master of sex scenes. Should I be proud, or ashamed? :o :confused:

You should be proud...your parents...not so much ;)

[Whunpo]

You should be proud...your parents...not so much ;)

I don't know, if I was my parent, I'd be pretty proud. Hey, at least my kid isn't really bad at writing sex stories. That would be terrible.

[National Kato]

A past winner... (http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsexpreviouspassages.html)


2005 Winkler by Giles Coren (Jonathan Cape)
And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he'd ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.


Zorro!

[TheFlyingOrc]

The worst past winner I've found:

From Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (Granta) p201

"You wanna pop me?" she said. This must have been some new-fangled youth term. The verb "to pop."

"I wanna bust a nut inside you, shorty," I said. "I wanna make you sweat, boo. Let's do this thing."

I'd like to say that she stepped out of her jeans, but in truth it took a while to maneuver two large dimpled buttocks and the accompanying vaginal wedge out of the hard shell of her Miss Sixty denims. We huffed and sweated; I had her hanging off the edge of the bed while I gripped the cuffs of her jeans; I nearly pulled a groin muscle getting her naked; but through it all I stayed hard, a testament to how much I wanted her. She kept her T-shirt on throughout the initial popping, which is just how I like my sex, infused with a little mystery. I slipped my hands beneath the cotton tee and felt the smooth creamery of her breasts while saving the visuals of those brown glossy globes for later. Her vagina was all that, as they say in the urban media - a powerful ethnic muscle scented by bitter melon, the breezes of the local sea, and the sweaty needs of a tiny nation trying to breed itself into a future. Was it especially hairy? Good Lord, yes it was. Mountains of kinkiness black as the night above the Serengeti with paprika shoots at the edges - the pubic hair alone must have clocked in at half a kilo, while providing the inspiration for two discernible trails of hair, one running up to the navel, the other to the base of the spine.

Naturally, considering my size, she got on top of me. But given her impressive overall body mass and natural resilience, I could see a day when we could broach the missionary position, not that there's anything special in attacking a poor woman that way. After we had fussed with the condom, I reached for her pubes, but she slapped me away. These preliminaries did not interest her. Instead, she just plain mounted me, holding on to my tits for balance, slipping me inside with no effort, both vaginal lips working to usher me into her tightness. I find it clichéd when couples insist that they have "the perfect fit," but between the busted-up, zigzag, Broadway boogie-woogie of my maligned purple khui and the all-encompassing nature of her Caspian pizda, we reached a third way, as it were.

That is to say, she rode me. It was all very classy and contemporary, like a modern-art survey course at NYU. I wanted to have the slogan I RODE MISHA VAINBERG imprinted on her T-shirt. "Yeah, do me," she kept saying, after issuing a few grunts so male and assertive they startled me into a brief homosexual fear, a fear compounded by one of her sharp nails digging into my tight rectum. "Do me, daddy," she said, her eyes closed, her thighs slapping against my upper and lower stomachs, my own tits making wet noises against my frame. "Just like that," she said, stealing a brief glance at me and then turning her head to the side so that I could lick her ear and plunge into her neck. "Just ... like ... that."

"Yeah," I said, "I'm fucking you, boo," but the words did not convince me. "I'm busting my nut tonight," I sang.

"My pussy fills so tight," she sang back in perfect ghetto English.

"Ouch," I said. She was crushing my pubic bone, grinding into it. "Ouch," I repeated. "Baby doll ... ouch."

"Just a minute, pops," she said. "Just give me a minute. Do me right. Just like that."

"Move up a little," I said. "Move up. It hurts. My bone."

"Just ... like ... that," she said.

"My bone hurts," I said. "I'm losing it."

"AW," she shouted. "FUCK ME." She leaned back. I slipped out. Her thighs trembled before me, and I felt a warm, abundant liquid spreading on my own thighs, not sure which of us had issued it. My bedroom was filled with the smell of asparagus and related greenery. "Aw," she said again. "Fuck me."

If this gives you an erection please consult your doctor, something is wrong with you.

[ClannerDelta]

The worst past winner I've found:



If this gives you an erection please consult your doctor, something is wrong with you.

Oh wow, I couldn't make it much farther than "Vaginal wedge". I was just laughing to hard to see clearly.

[shunoshi]

A past winner... (http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsexpreviouspassages.html)



Zorro!

"...leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath." WTF does that even mean?!

Haha, worst run-on sentence I've seen in quite some time.

[National Kato]

"...leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath." WTF does that even mean?!

I was confused by that line, too. Maybe when you have those massage shower heads that you can disconnect? I've dropped one of them and it does spray all crazily as it dangles from the cord.

[Whunpo]

Disgutipated stood anxiously outside, palms sweaty with anticipation. The large garage door suddenly began to move, and he jumped. As it slowly rose, he could see the inside was very, very dark. As more and more light spilled into the room, I could begin to make out multiple men standing ever so still, waiting. Each one was wearing a zippered mechanics outfit, and a distant look on their face. You could feel the passion radiating from their hearts.
The largest of the men finally spoke.
“You there. Enter.”, he ordered. He was holding a large wrench. This was going to be painful.
Disgustipated looked around quickly, and entered the garage. Immediately the door began to close. As it closed, his jitters began to turn into fears. He wasn't ready for this. He wanted to leave, but somehow, he couldn't. After the door had closed, the garage was completely dark again, excluding a spotlight, which was shining perfectly onto Disgustipated. His heart jumped when a deep voice from behind him whispered:
“You're in need of a tune up.”
Disgustipated spun around as fast he could to see exactly who was there. Hardly 4 inches away from his face stood a brick wall of a man. The Mechanic was filthy. Covered in some mixture of motor oil, grease, and sweat, he simply stared, not even blinking, deeply into Disgustapated's eyes. Moments seemed like ages, and after what seemed like an eternity, Disgustipated launched himself at the other man. Bound in a grasp of love, Disgustipated could do nothing as his clothes were removed. Before he knew it, he felt the cold texture of concrete and spilled oil on his bare back, along with the warm texture of the mechanics abs on his front. Barely able to hear over the mechanics shouts of passion and his own Disgustipated heard:
“Bring me the tools!”
“Which ones?” Another mechanic asked, further back in the garage.
“Let's begin with the small ones.”, he replied.
“NO!”Disgustipated shouted between screams of passion, “Forget the small tools! I'm ready for the drills!”

Mags and Rini told me to write this on Disgustipated's facebook. I thought about it, but most of my family and friends still think I am sane, and if they saw this, it might be awkward. I decided to keep it here. Less awkward.

[MagGnome]

Whunpo, you truly have a way with words. My loins quiver in anticipation of your work.