Let's Talk Write About Sex

I belong to a writing group where we're all working on novels. We support and critique each other, and periodically we are challenged to try something to stretch our skills.

One of the members handed out a couple of chapters of a new book, "My Enemy's Cradle," by another Cape-based author, Sara Young for us to see how she handled an intimate scene. It was done very well, and is something I haven't ever been real comfortable writing myself.

In my novel there are a couple of scenes, nothing tawdry, but I find I squirm when I write them fearing I'm going to go down the road of heated bodice rippers, and wondering what my children will think (not that they ever read anything I write).

As I pondered writing this post, I thought about scenes in movies that I thought were well done. Not movies featuring nurses, pizza delivery guys or twins, but movies of the R rated variety.

One of the hottest movies I've ever seen is the one pictured above,"Out of Sight," the 1998 film starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. The heat between the two of them was palpable, and extremely hot. Part of it may have been the classic opposite attract story line: Clooney is a "bad boy," a criminal on the lamb, while Lopez is the cop hot on his trail.

Or, it may not be as much the way screenwriter Scott Frank adapted the Elmore Leonard novel, but the fact that with two of the hottest people on the planet, how can you miss? Look at that tango scene in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," the film where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got together, as soon as I saw that I knew Jennifer Aniston never had a chance.

When I was working on writing my monologue for the Vagina whatever it is I was asked to submit to, I became painfully away of just how hard it is to write a really good sex scene. Again, I'm talking about something tasteful, meaningful, and maybe even funny. It's a fine line.

I wrote and deleted and eventually put my monologue on hold while I worked on some more pressing projects, mostly because I was stymied on how to do it. (There are SO many opportunities in that sentence for "that's what she said jokes" I am physically restraining myself.)

I figured out fairly quickly that you want to stay away from certain key words:
1.Milky
2.Heaving
3.Throbbing
4. Pulsating
5. Moaning

After that the sky is pretty much the limit. I am going to spend some time later trying to compose something to bring to group this week. I think watching that clip from "Out of Sight" repeatedly may offer lots of inspiration. Or it just might make me feel really bad about my present social life.