The Challenges of Writing Sex Scenes

Ever since the phenomenal publishing and commercial success of the book "50 Shades of Grey" the world has been set ablaze with many others who have hoped to repeat the process of writing good and saleable erotica.

Lets face it, most mature adults enjoy the prospect of a romantic roll in the hay and also appreciate, in varying degrees, having their imagination stimulated by other external sources which lead to the same end. Many have offered wisdom on the matter , but it was perhaps most succinctly captured by the recently departed Hugh Heffner, who suggested that sex sells. I'm quite certain he was right, because there certainly appears to be no shortage of demand for the product.

Our cultural history is also full of evidence confirming this. Right from the ancient Sanskrit book of Kama Sutra through to the bodice ripping yarns of the modern era. More recently we have a huge body of pornography and other sex related material residing on our internet. An interesting point to make about that is the pornography industry has not only captured a large market on the net, but it is also one of the leading investors and developers of new e-technologies which further confirms the sex sells analogy.

Many authors use romantic encounters or the suggestion of anticipation as a tool to spice up their work, realising that such offerings spice up their work and hopefully capture the readers attention. From my own experiences, it's actually a difficult and challenging thing to write material of an erotic nature. You need to consider and keep in mind all sorts of competing things.. not least which is your audience. Creating a good balance between tension and pleasure is no easy feat and offerings can go from the seriously profane to the outright ridiculous.

Rather than dwell on the ins and outs of this matter any further, I thought i'd just share the two attempts I made at the "compulsory sex scene" in a book I wrote a few years back.

Short Prelude to Scene 1 - involves an encounter during the innocence of youth and I've included a couple of paragraphs which set the scene:

"Further unexpected delights began to germinate in the lives of Tamas Papp and Andras Molnar as the lazy, hazy days of 1949’s summer rolled begrudgingly towards autumn and the imminent beginning of a brand new decade. Perhaps the most enjoyable, yet unforeseeable, of these experiences was the fact that both men were to discover the intoxicating pull of romance amongst the strains and hardships of their new existence.

The objects of their desires were conveniently located within an easy arm’s reach of their newly refurbished dwelling. They also came to them unexpectedly via the Kovács household.

As they progressively succumbed to the magical spell of womanly charms, Tamas and his grandson both found it almost impossible to stop themselves from behaving in the same way two little puppies might roll head over heels down a soft grassy slope."

THE SCENE:

"When it was their turn to leave the warmth of the fire side, Andras accompanied his grandfather to his bedroom which was a little further along the corridor from the room he’d been allocated on the first floor. After bidding Tamas good night, Andras made his way back to his own room and was soon luxuriating in the soft bed of his tiny but comfortable bedroom. As he lay with his arms propped behind his head and staring blankly at the ceiling, Andras tried to remember a time when he’d ever felt so content and at peace with everything. His pleasing thoughts had almost led him to the verge of sleep when he heard the gentle creak of his bedroom door opening. It was Krisztina.....

Andras only barely heard her say “shush” as she softly closed the door behind her. Once she was in the room she moved quietly and assuredly through the darkness towards where he was lying in bed. Having reached her target, Krisztina leaned down and gently kiss Andras on the cheek. Andras was stunned by the warmth of her lips and the feel of her flushed cheek against his. He was also immediately intoxicated by Krisztina’s sweet scent so close to him and reached out to try and hold her. Sadly he had to settle for disappointment as his girlfriend had playfully straightened herself up and stepped back and away from his clutching arms. Peering with concentrated effort into the darkness Andras could only barely make out Krisztina’s shape as she stood motionless by his bedside table for several moments. Although he couldn’t see her features, he knew she was smiling at him and he could sense her breathing soft and deeply.

As Andras continued staring into the darkness, his peripheral vision gradually began to improve. It soon enabled him to see the dazzling sight of Krisztina as she began cavorting around the room in a slow and sensual dance. There was no music anywhere in the big house, but Andras could still hear the sound of a thousand imaginary violins ringing a loud waltz in his ears. The graceful and intentionally provocative steps of her mesmerising dance led Krisztina further from his bedside, ultimately to a point where she was dancing directly in front of the moonlit window. Andras could clearly see her voluptuous female form arching and swaying in silhouette like an erotic shadow puppet. He watched in awe and fascination as his first and most powerful love continued to sashay in rhythmic beauty. His heart almost came out through his mouth as he saw her arms float slowly above her head; and in a swift sweep she pulled her nightdress up and over her head in one deliciously dextrous movement. Although Andras was both shocked and exhilarated by the sight of his loved one’s naked outline pirouetting against the frosty window, he still made no effort to communicate with Krisztina. Both of them knew there was nothing that really needed to be said. The electric language of lust had by then already filled the small bedroom.

Youthful urges had often driven Andras almost crazy with desire during the many times he’d been with Krisztina prior to this night. Up until this point in their relationship, however, they’d somehow managed to restrain themselves, remaining generally cautious and restrained in their physical affections. Never before had they ever had the chance to experiment with what seemed to be presenting itself in the privacy of this remote and unfamiliar bedroom.

After dancing provocatively and fully unveiled for at least a minute, or perhaps it seemed like a lifetime to Andras, Krisztina confidently skipped gracefully back across to the bed, gliding beneath the bedclothes and embracing her lover like a tigress. Andras had no idea such exquisite pleasures had existed in the world, or perhaps even in the universe. That night as the young couple made pure and unadulterated love repeatedly in his small bed, they kissed like they’d invented the process and Andras had no knowledge of where the end of his fingertips stopped or where Krisztina’s body began.

During the several hours of splendid bed squeaking passion, before Krisztina silently left to return to her own bedroom in the early hours of morning, Andras truly came of age. Among the many heady pleasures occupying his mind after Krisztina had left him, and as he drifted towards a heavenly but short sleep, was the thought he must surely now be a man. He would also bask for many weeks in the altogether sensational thought that his girlfriend was most definitely all woman."

SCENE 2 - involves two more mature and experienced adults, one of who is actually the daughter of the female in Scene 1. This couple have been admirers of each other since their teens, but up until the moment captured in this scene, had been shy and reticent about sharing their emotions and feelings.

"Nigel was sound asleep when the door to his bedroom swung silently open. It had only been about half an hour or so since he’d retired for the night, but he was already dead to the world.

Iren was once again the perpetrator of the nocturnal activity. On this occasion, however, she’d come to Nigel with an entirely different agenda than her somnambulistic efforts of the previous week. On this night of such historical significance she was unwittingly about to take a leaf directly from her own mother’s history book, replaying the night Krisztina Kovacs had made her way into the bedroom of a young Andras Molnar with seductive intent. That was of course also the very same night Iren was conceived.

In this more modern version of the passion play, it was Nigel Kent who was to be the unsuspecting recipient of an entirely updated and far more mature version of Hungarian/Australian sensuality. His first awareness that an incident erotique was about to take place came when he woke to the feel of his boxer shorts being gently lowered and his flaccid member being surrounded by Iren’s soft lips. Needless to say, flaccidity remained only a momentary issue. During the stand still of time that followed the slightly awkward moments after his rousing, the couple revelled together in the kind of vivacious and electrically charged sensuality that authors down the course of literary history have strived to capture in all its colourful glory. Had a writer from one of the racier adventure genres for instance, been asked to recount what happened in the bedroom that night, they might have described the events thus. “Rolling storm clouds glowered and thundered within the confines of the four bedroom walls that night. They were accompanied by lightning bolts of exhilarating sexual energy which almost illuminated the darkness with their exquisite vibrancy. The ecstatic heat from the searing bedroom activity could easily be likened to that which came before a desert storm, whipping all before it in a majestic frenzy of nature. Anything not pegged down or safely secured was simply left to flap and groan in the wake of such a powerful force. Joining in with the wild storm of passion was a continuum of inspired shrieks, escaping from O-shaped mouths as the couple’s many years of restrained passions were finally and tumultuously unleashed in the guest bedroom of Johnny Molnar’s house.”

In the brief moments of time they took to try and regain breath and energy during their volatile hours of love making, nothing was ever mentioned about Iren’s now obviously forgotten vows of chastity; nor the reason behind her sudden departure from the party. They were both too lost in the splendour of these moments of connection for such rational considerations. They had no time or need for talk as they caressed the remains of that blissful night away in the unbounded beauty and pleasure of a wise and mature love.