The third thing is: clarity. 

Sex can be rough and tumble, with one person on top then the other, with their arms and legs entangled. That’s good when that happens, and sometimes you’re too busy feeling and doing to really keep track.

But as a writer, keeping track is your job. You have to know where your people are, and write it realistically and clearly. For example, if your characters are having rear-entry sex, the man cannot kiss his lover’s eyes. At best he can kiss one of her eyes, but you should mention, first, that she has turned her head. He will have to lean right down to manage it. 

If either of them has a tool in their hand, whether it’s a vibrator or a cane, it should be where it must be. If it’s in his hand, and the writer hasn’t mentioned him putting it down, then it’s still in his hand. If he has put it down to stroke his lover, then he has to pick it up again before he can use it. 

And the writer has to record that. And so on. 

I once read a book in which the hero has sex with the heroine at last. In the morning, the writer told me, he woke up naked, his withered hand resting on his thigh. So I leafed all the way back to the beginning, to see if he had a disfigurement to his hand. It turned out that the writer meant that his cock and balls, resting on his thigh, looked a little like a withered hand. Well, I thought, if you say so.

People often get metaphorical when writing about sex: waves crash, fires light, and trains even go into tunnels. Most of the best known metaphors are dead, really. Overuse has killed them, and they communicate a writer’s lazy boredom rather than sexual intensity. 

My preference is for saying what’s happening, in direct language that tells about the state and the action of penises, vulvas and mouths.

A note on metaphors and similes

Only after I’ve done that will I try to think of a good metaphor. Part of a metaphor being a good one is that it shouldn’t have been worked to death by other writers. The other part is that it should make sense, and communicate something specific to the reader.

For example, I once said a masturbating woman’s orgasm noise seemed “high and lonely, like a seagull’s cry.” Almost everyone knows what a seagull cry sounds like, so the simile communicates something about how it sounded, and also something about her emotional state.

Another kind of orgasm could be said to be like the sound a cat makes if someone rides a bike over its tail. That is arguably an accurate simile, for some orgasm sounds, but it’s a bad one because its too outlandish, too far removed from a sexual context.

Metaphorts and similes should be accurate, appropriate to the emotion of the situation, and not too outlandish, or too commonly used.

The fourth thing I try to achieve is… humanity.

The second thing I like when I achieve it in my writing, and try to achieve is: “no inflatable darlings”.

2. No inflatable darlings

An inflatable darling is a character who doesn’t have needs and drives and desires, except perhaps for the desire to please the protagonist. She – it’s usually “she”, though some people write male characters in the same hollow vein – has nothing inside. No doubts, no worries, no insecurities, only lust. So the hero, Tex Turisedmeattube, says to his lover, “We’re going to have a threesome with Mona next door.” 

“Goody,” she cries, clapping her little hands in glee, “I love threesomes.”

So, as it happens, does Mona, who has been sitting at home, crocheting sleeping bags for mice, and waiting to be asked. For ages.

When the threesome happens they are jolly and jovial throughout.

In fact, they’re more committed to Tex’s pleasure than their own. Despite that, they both come noisily and often. Out of the blue, really. 

But I’m going to come back to one of my stories soon. I broke it off just as the threesome was about to happen. And at the time I just found it too hard to write.

There’s a man and two women, each of whom have their own desires and fantasies, and their own fears. He’s afraid of hurting his regular partner, or their guest. He’s afraid he won’t be able to keep them entertained. He’s worried about seeming selfish, or bossy in the wrong way.

One woman is worried about her body, and worries that the man will prefer the other woman. She’s worried about the other woman, and just how far she’s supposed to go with her, because she’s a little bi-curious but she’s basically straight.

The other woman is worried that she’ll cause trouble between the principal couple.

Perhaps she actually prefers the other woman, and is putting up with her mixed feelings about the man because the encounter will only happen if he’s present. 

And so on. There are three agenda. They’re all trying their best to please the other two, and to be decent, and to give pleasure and receive it.

But it’s complicated, because they’re real people. Erotic writing is still a kind of literature, and it should capture some of that complexity. In fact the more it does the realer it is, and the realer it is, the more more sexually powerful it is. 

Even when one of the characters is submitting, and dedicating themselves to serving the other’s pleasure, that person is still a person, and there are reasons why he or she chose their submission, and there’s usually a history to the pleasures they take from it. 

So, when I’m writing, I try to make sure I know what each character is wanting and thinking. Even if I don’t say all of it, there should be enough to make it clear to the reader than these people are real, feeling, wanting and alive. 

The third thing I aim for, and like when I get it, is clarity. So I’ll talk about that next week.