Sex scenes?

DamaNegra said:

We all know I'm underage and therefore shouldn't even be here. But I figured erotica writers would be the best bunch to answer my question, so here it is:

How do you write sex scenes without shyness getting the best of you???

ETA: Mind you, I'm only trying to write a mild sex scene that is crucial to keep this story going, but it has nothing to do with erotica.

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You have to bite your tongue and push through it. I just recently sold the story I wrote to break my discomfort to an erotica house. I am definitely NOT a teenager. I will be 59 this year. Three years ago I figured I had to break that block down so I did it with the most outrageous idea I could think of.

Now, I am a married man with two daughters, one of them your age. I definitely do NOT want them reading my erotica stories. Hell, I don't even want my wife reading my erotica stories.

As to limited personal experience, you have SOME personal experience, however limited it might be--just extrapolate and if you need to interview.
I learned a lot about transgender issues talking with a friend of my wife's who was a man fifteen years ago (Her surgeons were artists by the way--she is drop-dead gorgeous.)

Regards,
Scott

DamaNegra said:

How do you write sex scenes without shyness getting the best of you???

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I don't have a problem with shyness. Sometimes I write from experience; sometimes I use my active imagination.

My real problem is trying to keep the sex scene interesting. How do I write about sex without resorting to cliche or the same old, same old? I think that's the challenge.

Use a pen name to save on blushes. (And read other mainstream fiction with sex scenes for comparrison.)

To keep the scenes interesting and not gratuitous, make them part of the story, rather than just a waypoint - something must be at stake, and the resolution must havea twist.

For example, if trust is an issue for him, and she's seducing him for a challenge: Make it very hard for her to get his clothes off; then have her smitten by his vulnerability, whilst he suddenly realises that sex is easy and - thanking her for her time - runs off to shag anything which moves.

For mainly non-erotica sex scenes, The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers by Elizabeth Benedict might help

Ok, when I was 16 or 17 I tried to do that.
First I took up a few Erotica myself (which is not difficult to find ) and read the Sex scenes to see what I like and what I think, I don't like. Just to see what works for me what doesn't, what turns me on and what turns me off, where do I stumble, what do I think is too much, which words do I think are appropriate?

Then I took an empty file, made up a woman and a man that meet and then go to a hotel, just a short story of 4 pages that I, before I wrote it of course, promised I would not show anyone, but delete after I wrote it. Knowing that it'll be deleted the moment I've written it, I just pushed through.
I've reread it and found I was way too innocent and did as promised, deleted it.

Now, I figured if I do that again, again knowing I will delete it, I will write the kinkiest thing that I could possibly imagine in my mind and put it to paper. Then delete it. Once pushed over that limit, I will be able to put down mild scenes without having to blush.

It worked. I'm just a big sad that I deleted that thing

I love writing sex scenes. Okay, that probably makes me some kind of pervert but I find it kind of fun. The more mild ones that are in my mainstream works are the ones I really struggle with...because I know that people I know will read them and I don't want them to think I'm a pervert! lol But I just keep in mind the ones I've read by mainstream romance writers, I figure as long as I'm following their leads, I should be okay.

But the ones I've written in my erotic work...well, I just create a fantasy (yes, we all have them!) and write it down. The whole time I just tell myself that no one I know will read it and if they do they won't know I wrote it! lol For me at least, erotica is not the place for beta readers!

DamaNegra,

I don't know how old you are, but I wrote my first erotic scene when I was 13. It was a novella, and it had some teenage sexuality in it. Not all the way, but pretty close, and I wrote it in detail.

I just wrote it how I imagined it would be. I never stopped to think about who would read it. Despite the fact that I had a little crowd of anxious teens waiting for my next installment, I managed to push that out of my head. (I used to read my installments out loud to my friends.)

Good luck to you. And remember, stay true to your story, and try not to think about what others will think.

<>Carisa

DamaNegra said:

(and Carisa, I'm 17, which by teenage standards means I should've had sex by now, especially since I've been dating my bf for 3 years and stuff, but I'm not into that so...)

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Ah, if that's the case, figure out your comfort level and write accordingly. If the sex scene is making you squeamish, you can allude to it without too much details.

Forget about teenage standards. When you're ready, you're ready. Until then, there is no rush at all.

The first time I wrote a sex scene I felt embarassed too...but it's completely natural. As far as I can see, you came to the right place..

Go ahead and write it if you want.

I'm still embaressed to think my mom might read my sex scenes....make the realistic, I don't use terms like penis or boobs or whatever in mine and they get pretty graphic. I use things terms like "Himself in me or whatever. I think Laurell K Hamilton writes the best sex scenes around. Graphic, but her lack of using graphic words makes them more tolerable, that may help with the embaressment factor too, check it out.

I think the main trick is to treat sex like any other action--imagine it, describe it. The level of explicitness with depend on the mark. genre fantasy and romance let you go all the way, something like mainstream or saga requires that you avoid certain nouns.

It doesn't need to be explicit to be hot. I tend to be, cause that's my style, but I've read lots of things that turned me on, that were not detailed.

And I wish I'd waited until I was 17 (or longer) to start having sex. It didn't do me any favors starting early.

I hate to admit this, but I'm underaged (14, turn 15 in October), and there are sex scenes in my WIP. It's actually kind of a dark fantasy. It's in no way graphic or explicit, and quite frankly I've read much worse sex scenes. I describe everything that leads up to the sex, but I barely even talk about the sex itself. So I don't think mine is that big of a deal.

I agree with Veinglory. Like everything else in fiction, you add as much or as little detail as needed by your story. If there's no need for graphic details of the sex, then skip it/summarize it. If the sex itself is vital to plot, character, or theme, then explore it. You're the writer. Don't let inhibition affect your creativity. Just because you write about sex doesn't mean you're a pervert or something -- one MUST separate the author with the story. Just because I write about murder doesn't mean I have committed or am going to commit murder. Imagination and research happen to be valid tools in the writer's toolbox.

http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/storytelling/archives/sex_scenes/

Start at the bottom, with August 3. Some good points all around. Read, get comfortable,go for it.

ETA: Oh yeah, and HapiSofi's post from the UJ thread.

Dama, you need to leave now... all that talk about nipples and hardness! Shame on you.

p.s. I agree with HapiSofi. There's a brief sex scene in my novel which has an emotional significance in the plot. I tried to use the plainest language I could but write it in a primal, erotic way. I think it worked.

If it's any consolation, I was 30 when I wrote my first sex scene, and I was *still* terribly embarrassed.

I happened to have a copy of the unexpurgated version of "Fanny Hill" so I went and read that to study how Cleland handled stuff. His language is far too purple for today's readers, but it's still a good lesson in how to make even very explicit scenes read rather better than "insert tab A in slot B". Reading *good* erotica can help both as a lesson in how to do it and in getting less embarrassed at having Those Words on your screen, but if you're underage there is the problem of getting hold of good stuff. Yes, I know there's always fanfiction.net, but that's more an object lesson in how *not* to write. :^)

(Oh god I feel old now when I think how long I've been writing, and I started at thirty...)

Dama,

I wish I had something new and fresh to add, but you've gotten some great advice already. I would second the advice about knowing what market you are writing to - even in mainstream fiction, if you're writing for a young adult audience, then your sex scenes are going to look very different. Pick up something in the genre you're writing in and give it a read. You may not have to go as far as you think you do.

YA has sex scenes now? Gosh, do I feel old... If only they had sex scenes in the Hardy Boys...

...I'm sure there's some fanfiction out there somewhere

veinglory said:

...I'm sure there's some [Hardy Boys] fanfiction out there somewhere

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I've only tried to write one sex scene, and the biggest problem I had was knowing what to call stuff. I didn't want to use cheesy analogies like 'he slipped his banana into her fruit salad', but I also didn't want clinical medical terms (penis etc.), or slang (cock, and so on). In the end I scrapped the scene and just showed the before and after.

That was quite a few years ago, and I don't think I'd be any better at it now. There's obviously a knack to writing erotica, and I haven't got it.