Sex in Literature...Really, This Time

[Peg Herring]

We've all heard the gloating comments: when all other book sales are down over the last year or so, romance sales are up. Theories on why that's true abound, but it comes down to the old phrase, "Sex sells."

So how much sex is enough? How many ways can the act be described, and how many times can a reader get a charge out of the vocabulary, the phrasing, the details of who did what? I can't answer that, but I think that maybe "Sex sells" might not be quite right. It's the promise of sex, the courting ritual that builds as a book progresses, that requires the most effort from an author. Anyone can name the body parts and put them together with a little sweat and panting; it takes skill to create a situation where it's inevitable and oh, so right.

And for me, knowing exactly what happened isn't necessary at that point. You can turn off the lights and let them go at it. I'm not fourteen and clueless anymore.

[P.J.]

For me, that's where the good writing is winnowed from the great writing: taking yet another generic plot and making it sing, without gratuitous sex and/or violence. Please note the word "gratuitous"; I understand that some books, some characters really can't funtion well without some of either or both, but the extraneous stuff is usually fairly easy to spot. I do like to use my imagination, and it can certainly be steamier or more violent than what is usually published. Again, note the modifers. And Jon - drinking, food, and jokes are pretty much part of everyone's public life. Unless one is a staple of the PEOPLE/US/STAR magazines, I would hope that sex could be at least a little private.

[Jon Loomis]

I'm with John--if it weren't for the sex, drinking, food and jokes, my characters would be stuck with nothing to do but lurch through a mystery plot, which, let's face it, are all pretty generic.

[John McFetridge]

There's some pretty graphic sex in my novels because it's a big part of the characters - and how they actually behave before, during and after says a lot about them. Leaving it out would be leaving out too much.

[B.R.Stateham]

You get political commentary because conservaties are still trying to figure out the sex part.

[Jon Loomis]

My last book has something like a dozen sex scenes, including one each between skunks and humpback whales. Several of the human sex scenes allude to female dominance and strap-on dildos, one describes female/male oral sex fairly graphically, one makes jokes about impotence, and one is between two women. Weirdly enough, the only complaints I get from conservatives are about political humor. Go figure.

[I. J. Parker]

While a few men read and write romance novels, most are by women and for women. The emphasis usually is more on "foreplay" than intercourse. Understandably.
The problem with such books is that they have a very narrow focus (ha!) and a formulaic plot, and that makes them, in my view, the weakest of all the genre fiction.

[B.R.Stateham]

There's nothing wrong with having a little sex added to the story line--if it's a natural progression toward it. On the other hand, there are lots of writers I go to and sex has nothing to do with wanting to read them. If the sex is used as a blarring megahorn to attract me toward the book, the odds are I'm not going to read it.

Like you, the far more sexier encounter in a story is the merest suggestion of something erotic--and then you let your imagination fill in the gaps.