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How To Write Erotica
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maybeimamazed02
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
It's funny...I've been preparing to write a sex scene for the YA novel I'm working on, and I've been a little scared about how to, um, go about it.

Now I'm kinda more confused than ever. Anyone got any good pointers? (Haha, I said "pointer.")
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sybann
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Lord, if I had to tell you all the dicks that have bludgeoned like a tome upside the head you'd get the comparison. And Henry Miller? Not sexy.
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Blueberry26
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Aren't a lot of erotica scenes written for women from the perspective of a woman ... by a man? How is that writing from your own experience, sir? When exactly were you a woman going on all these crazy sexual expeditions?
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
06/22/09

@Blueberry26: I guess this guy has missed the whole point of "target demographic".

Which makes me wonder how decent a fiction writer he is generally, what with that need for empathy thing and all.
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Maulleigh
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
One of my favorite trash novels of all time was/is Love's Tender Fury by Jennifer Wilde. The sex scenes were HOT.

Turns out Jennifer Wilde is really a guy named Tom Huff.
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Ginmar Rienne
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Ugh. I hate Henry Miller's sex scenes. Thanks, as a woman, I get anonymized enough. That's exactly what I don't want to see happening to a woman, thanks. Plus isn't there a scene in Miller where his host's wife is bending over, filling the tub, and according to Miller, he just flips her robe aside and er, takes her? And describes her unflatteringly, too? Be still my fucking heart, let me tell you. Sex with a selfish, macho man, no consent, and no foreplay! Yeah....no.
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Laulau
06/22/09

@Ginmar Rienne: You aren't turned on by condescension and rape? How bourgeoise.
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mbot says Spock yeah!
06/22/09

@Ginmar Rienne: The one I remember is when his upstairs neighbor is leaning over his sick wife in bed, and THEN he flips up the neighbor's skirt and takes HER. While she's leaning over his WIFE, who is SICK in bed. Yeah.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Good erotica encompasses both well rounded (ahem) persons and anonymous trysts. What a moron to make such broad stroked (ahem) generalizations.
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queenieinmanhattan
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
I don't understand. He starts off with this:

"Do men write better sex than women? Yes, but this is not the fault of a difference in our DNA."

But then cites Nin (female) as an example to follow, but holds up D.H. Lawrence (male) as an example to avoid emulating. I am confused...
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penguins268
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
"Oh, please, honey, listen, if I can do it, anybody can. You just start with half a dozen European cities, throw in thirty euphemisms for male genitalia, and bam! You have got yourself a book."
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
06/22/09

@penguins268: That sounds like something Paula Deen might say.
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YourScreenplaySucks
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Huh. I think Miller's & Nin's writing about sex is awful when it's not ludicrous. But maybe I'm just frigid.
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SomeAuthorGirl
06/22/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: I was just typing such a comment. I have never found Miller to be enjoyable as either literature or erotica, nor have I understood the dumptrucks full of praise for him as an author.
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bluebears
06/22/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: me too. When I've read either of them I've been like, "really? this is sexy? really?" Actually I've always chalked it up to being just dated.
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Uncommon Whore
06/22/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: @SomeAuthorGirl: Ugh, thank you. I love me some literature but I have tried unsuccessfully to read Tropic of Capricorn several times and I can never get through it. I get five pages in and then I'm like, "wait, what the fuck was he talking about?" This has always made me feel secretly ashamed.
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sybann
06/22/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: See my comment below: I agree, he's a turgid bore.
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
My favorite sex writer does fanfic for an anime I used to watch in the 8th grade.

Because I am, truly and forever, that lame.
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maybeimamazed02
06/22/09

@MissSkittles is not your kind of lady: I don't generally read fanfic, but I stumbled upon a Veronica Mars one in law school--this was season 2, before Logan and Veronica got it on.

Daaaaaaamn.

I may or may not have printed it out.
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Santos L Halper
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Once, in the halcyon days of my youth, I started licking this guy's face on the couch. He was salty and my tongue kept getting stuck in his nostril and snot doesn't taste good, but he seemed into it. I must have been licking pretty hard because my tongue just snapped off into his lap. He laughed and said, "Let's go to the beach. I've got a friend there." I said, "Ooommmoooooooompfft." And off we went. I took my tongue swimming in the ocean, where I inexplicably grew an extra arm, which the guy's companion thought was "hot, in a mutant way," so we ended up having a fivesome: me, two dudes, my severed tongue and my extra arm.

There, porn. It's easy.
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PreposterousHypothesis
06/22/09

@Santos L Halper: LOL. At my desk. Fantastic.
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save jinger
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
This article is making my bosoms heave with anger.
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VegetableServing
06/22/09

@save jinger: Your ivory, glistening bosoms?
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wtfox?!
06/22/09

@save jinger: My cheeks are flushed a deep, rosy red with indignation as well.
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save jinger
06/22/09

@VegetableServing: With their rosy, throbbing peaks.
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Cheeks All Over
06/22/09

@save jinger: Whole heartedly friended my darling!
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save jinger
06/22/09

@wtfox?!: Are your hands clammy, your pulse racing, and your breath bated?
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wtfox?!
06/22/09

@save jinger: They are! I might also be about to swoon, but that may be my corset.
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save jinger
06/22/09

@Cheeks All Over: The thought of this new relationship makes me glisten with sweat and my knees quiver beneath me.
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save jinger
06/22/09

@wtfox?!: I am overcome with the desire to rip your bodice open.
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Keitha
06/22/09

@save jinger: Ok, that sounds like the flu to me.
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save jinger
06/22/09

@Keitha: Romance novel heroinism has many flu-like symptoms. It's important to go see your doctor to get diagnosed. And though he will be rude and distant at first, his heart will eventually melt, and the two of you will end up married with a baby on the way by the time you reach the epilogue.
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sympathyforthebasementcat
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
I think you just have to be creative. Like instead of saying "Reggie's peen," you say "Reginald's quivering member."
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save jinger
06/22/09

@sympathyforthebasementcat: Is is swollen, turgid, or tumescent?
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AtomiClash: humanitarian misanthrope
06/22/09

@sympathyforthebasementcat: Is that a Ten Things I Hate About You reference?

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save jinger
06/22/09

@save jinger: *it

I got too excited thinking about Reginald's bratwurst.
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sympathyforthebasementcat
06/22/09

@AtomiClash: I couldn't resist.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
Ever heard of The Story of O, dude? It was written by a woman, pretty much on a dare that a woman couldn't write a story like it.
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Dynamo
06/22/09

In reply to How To Write Erotica
"He says, "it's because male writers have a much longer tradition of breaking taboos about sex (straight and gay)." His examples are Henry Miller and Anais Nin."

Anais Nin was female!
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save jinger
06/22/09

@Dynamo: Yeah, he's basically saying Henry rules and Anais drools.
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queenieinmanhattan
06/22/09

@Dynamo: I think he's saying that Miller broke taboos; Nin did not. Which is, I think, full of BS.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
06/22/09

@queenieinmanhattan: Nin wrote about a prostitute receiving sorta-oral sex from a dog. Is that not breaking a taboo or two?
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queenieinmanhattan
06/22/09

@Alys Brangwin: Future grad student: Exactly. Full of BS. (This Morrison guy; not Nin.)
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whynotshesaid
06/23/09

@Alys Brangwin: Future grad student: I was just going to say.

Also, I read Tropic of Cancer and found it boring. I'll take Delta of Venus any day over that pretentious pile of poop.
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