I'm also not sure how to deal with writing about intimacy between married couples. I guess the baseline is "nothing gratuitous", but great sex between a married couple is a beautiful thing and we should be encouraged by it, not ashamed of it. We should be encouraging our married readers that great sex is a wonderful thing, not a shameful thing that can't even be written about. But on the other hand, I agree that it shouldn't turn into graphic erotica. Some would point to the Song of Solomon as a "happy medium" but what would be a modern version of that?
Personally, I hesitate to use the Bible as a baseline for what's "gratuitous" (at least the Old Testament
). There's no shortage of rape, prostitution, torture, and murder there. Try reading the story of Judah's daughter-in-law with your mom - there's a thought to make you shudder!
I dunno. What do you guys think? I really appreciate this group and your insights.
But the Bible doesn't describe what goes on play by play like a Hollywood movie. In fact, I seem to recall passages that summed up intercourse in about one line. It wasn't about getting the reader all lusty and turned on.
I compare this scenario with the act of people using the bathroom. God made us that way, and therefore we can gather that using the bathroom is a good, wholesome and proper thing to do. We ought all of us to do so. But nobody needs to be reading about it. It has happened that I have mentioned characters going INTO the bathroom... but I didn't need to tell the reader play by play what they did there, and how they did it. Some things, however good and wholesome they are in themselves, and though they were invented by and approved (in some cases) of by God, are things that are meant to be private, not on public display.
We should not have graphic intercourse in books for the same reason we do not allow people to make love in public parks or in shopping malls. Some things are decent in private, but not in public. In the bathtub one has nothing on. But one wears clothes in public for a reason. Our bodies are not sinful, but nudism is. Apparently God meant for certain things to be done in secret, however approved of and wholesome they are to Him. There's a reason for this which reason itself will quickly tell us. Some thoughts are sinful. There is little difference between seeing something in person, and imagining it. Christ tells us if a man fantasizes about committing adultery in his heart, he is guilty of the sin as if he'd done it physically. Just as it would be sinful to sit and watch someone in their room having intercourse, it would be sinful for any reader to sit and imagine it.
This stuff should be pretty common-sense stuff to everybody here. But of course the allure of writing and reading and thinking about something like intercourse is totally different from talking about someone going to the bathroom... which is where the "confusion" comes from. Nobody wants so badly to write about people going to the bathroom, because it doesn't turn normal people on the way thinking (whether reading or writing) intercourse would. This is a sinful temptation that every writer more or less is going to face. Common sense tells us that if we wouldn't watch it in person, we shouldn't 'watch' it in a book or on television. It's just as sinful in our heads as it is in person. (Says Christ in the Bible speaking of the adulterous thoughts.)
I'll leave you with this. I'm not writing anything whitewashed myself. I'm writing modern, non-christian Characters in a couple stories. In one of them, the main character's mother is a prostitute. Christian taste in writing means, a reader who is jaded enough to know about that sort of thing, and who is able minded enough to put two and two together, can gather by this and that fact or indication that this guys mother is, in fact, a prostitute. We never see it on page. And if you're not on the ball, you will probably assume she is simply seeing this other character. But the information is in there, and it's obvious enough that people who are reasonably paying attention, should realize this fact before the end of the story. But we don't need to see this woman doing what she does, play by play in the bedroom. The point is gotten across in such a way that it does not lead the reader into sin. We can know what this woman does, without going all through it on page. It's clear, if you catch the cue, stop and give it any thought, and know what that profession is. But
if you're underage, and don't know, you can easily pass over it and keep your innocence. It does not harm the story at all.
I also am dealing with a few extraordinarily perverse characters, whose actions I have to watch especially. They are sick in the head, and their lives are sick, and their actions are in some cases quite so. And if I just threw the information about what they do out there in the raw, I don't doubt I'd end up with an extraordinarily offensive, tasteless and sinful novel. I'm dealing with very sinful characters. Sometimes, their sick actions are relevant to the characters or story. But the way in which I tell about those actions or lives will make all the difference in the world as to whether or not it's sinful and tasteless, or whether the reader can get the idea, be effected by the information, and NOT have to sin to do so.
The reader will know this woman is a prostitute if they know what a prostitute is. The effect of that information is not lost upon the reader because I found other (in fact better and more effective) ways of getting the point across, than to show what she does. It's all a matter of what is said... and in some cases, what is NOT said. But some things, even pleasing and made by God, were meant to be private, and are sinful otherwise. Even if we're reading about them. (Let alone to be writing about them.)
We have a responsibility to make sure that sane, rational, normal people reading our books are not led into sin by them. We will have to answer for that responsibility to the One Who gave us the gift of writing, and expected us to use it responsibly and not sinfully to corrupt others or lead others into sin. The writer who writes play by play how to effectively murder someone and basically get away with it, may think they aren't responsible for what they wrote and may not care. But if someone goes and kills someone else because of information they got in that book, who wouldn't have known how or felt confident enough to do so otherwise... that writer is at least partly responsible for his or her tasteless and sinfully irresponsible writing.
