Let's [Write] About Sex

Art by Deanna Staffo, found at the Baltimore City Paper

Disclaimer: if you don't want to read about the craft of writing erotica, come back next week. These posts will not themselves be pornographic.

So, last night was my superbly awesome Grub Street class, "Go Deeper, Baby: Writing Meaningful Erotica" with instructor Sue Williams. I'm going to make this a 2-part post, so that I can just share some lovely quotes from the experts today, and we can chat more tomorrow.

From Sue Williams:

"Erotica is art and/or literature that arouses, or seeks to arouse, the reader."

"The more loved and understood our characters are, the more they encourage self-acceptance and reflection in our readers. And that's meaningful, baby."

"Meaningful sex does not have to be clean and pure."

"Desire is often more arousing than sex itself."

From Susie Bright:

You don't have to be doing it to write about it: "Consider how many overweight, chain-smoking, clumsy reporters cover sports with complete devotion. No one asks them if they are great athletes, or if they have even the smallest interest in physical fitness."

From Steve Almond's

How to Write a Sex Scene, the 12-Step Program:

"Real sex is compelling to read about because the participants are so utterly vulnerable. We are all, when the time comes to get naked, terribly excited and frightened and hopeful and doubtful, usually at the same time. You mustn't abandon your lovers in their time of need. You mustn't make of them naked playthings with rubbery parts. You must love them, wholly and without shame, as they go about their human business."

And a poem from Susie Bright's How to Write a Dirty Story:

There is no such thing as a person without an erotic story.
I don’t mean a tall tale, or a punch line, or a story about the one who got away.
I’m talking about our personal erotic history, what you might call our “sexual philosophy.”
Take a look at your own erotic story,
and you’ll see that it’s a motion picture of everything about you that is creative;
the risks you’d be willing to take,
the weightless depth of your imagination,
your attraction to the truth,
and the things that would make you go blind.

Anything you disagree with? Anything you care to add? Come back tomorrow for some more thoughts on crafting erotica, and two lovely writing prompts.

And please don't forget to enter my contest. The winner gets my amazing fudge recipe AND a lovely SIGNED chapbook of flash fiction and essays on writing by Steve Almond -- yes, the very one quoted above. You know you want it.