Feh. Okay, I was overreaching. I haven’t had the morning coffee yet.

Anyway. Let’s talk about porn. Let’s have a pornversation.

Porn — man, maybe I’m just getting older. Maybe I’m just getting wiser. Could be that I’m just getting crankier. But for all the myriad ways we can now receive our pornography (I, for instance, just had a tall frosty glass of pornography with my oatmeal, and later I will receive one free porn video downloaded straight into my nipples when I buy a Venti Mocha at Starbucks), I’m getting kind of weary of it all.

By golly, I have complaints. Porn industry, are you listening? Are you listening to the complaints of this humble, brilliant man? Will you at least hear my plaintive complaints?

Will you hear the lamentations of my women?

Let’s get down to it. Let’s bitch and moan about pornography! Yeah! Woo!

The eXXXtreme Closeup!!1!

Listen. Listen. See this flower? It’s beautiful, isn’t it? White petals. Velvety folds. A burst of color near its center. Now, let’s take this beautiful flower, and get closer. And closer. And closer. So close, in fact, that we are smooshing the flower under the grinding sensation of the camera lens, smashing it into the sidewalk, back and forth, back and forth, until it’s all just a meaningless smear.

The vagina is like a lotus blossom, and the penis is like a… well, I don’t know, it’s hard to think of a beautiful metaphor for a penis, so let’s just go with “shiny rocketship.” But, man, same rule applies. You keep getting closer, and closer, and closer, and eventually I don’t even know what I’m looking at anymore. I have no context. I just see warty pink parts colliding. I see fluids collecting like run-off from a broken air conditioner. I see veins and crevices. It’s like someone’s smashing two piles of cold cuts together.

I don’t need to live down there. I don’t need to hang out where the sexy parts meet. Stop showing me five minute swaths of time where that’s all we get: smash, smash, smush, smush, squish, squish.  You’ve ruined the vagina. I’m not a baby coming out of there. I don’t need to get a close-up of her C-section scar. I don’t need to see the labial pores. Oh, and damn. The dick is worse. You get too close to a dick and that thing looks like a knobby knee of Cypress wood. It’s horrifying. It looks like the insides of an exploded deer. It’s a hot dog left too long in the microwave.

At a reasonable distance, a lot of things are beautiful.

But man, you get too close, oooh. Shudder. No. No! No.

You want to go in for a quick zoom, like a plane flying low over a majestic ridge, go for it. At least I still have context. But you linger down there for minutes at a time, and I lose all sense of visual meaning.

Where’s the Story, Morning Whorey?

Am I weird that I want story with my porn?

Is it just because I’m a writer? Do I instinctively look for the story? For the context? The meaning?

Porn seems to have lost all sense of story. I feel like an old man on the porch regaling you with Days of Porn Past (“I remember, back in nineteen-porny-two, the porn we watched had a story! A housewife and a plumber! The seduction of a pizza boy, perhaps. Two busty CIA agents going undercover, if you know what I mean! Undercover, like, under-the-covers? Oh, you shut up! You go to hell! Get the hell off my porch or I’ll shoot a load of hot steaming lead into your rear end! What are you laughing at? Stop laughing at me! I’m old! I have a gun!”). I remember watching porn with stories. Some good, some bad, but at least I had context. It’s like Penthouse letters. The stories were generally terrible, but you could follow the narrative.

Now, it’s cut-right-to-the-chase. Gone is the pretense of narrative. Straight to the deep dicking. Right to the scissoring. Naught but a moment before the animal masks and giraffe-tail butt plugs come out.

I lament the loss of story from porn. I’m probably a rare bird in this regard.

Is it so weird that I want to know who these characters are before they get down to the rumpy-pumpy, to the slap-and-tickle? Is it weird that I call it “rumpy-pumpy” and “slap-and-tickle?” Is it weird that I have a growth growing out of my lower back that looks like a tiny version of me? And it has a face? And it whispers vile things? Shh. Shhhhh. It tells me how to end the world. Listen.

Revenge of the Naughahyde Balloon Women

Two words: natural women.

That’s what I want. I want women who look like women. I do not want women who look like emaciated tackle dummies wrapped in vinyl and filled with silicone in all the “right” places. I want women who were born out of a human uterus, not out of some plasticky robot “birth-chute.” I fear breasts that look so swollen, straining against the flesh, that it looks like they’ll explode if someone touches them. That’s just nasty. And weird.

They look comical. Cartoonish. Bony thin here, bloated and ballooned there. Skin pulled taut. Inhuman smiles. It’s like, HR Giger’s version of people.

Now, I’ll admit: the porn industry is probably the leastmost offender here. You look at models, you look at straight-up Hollywood actresses, and I think the problem is endemic there more than it is here.

But even still, here I have to see them naked.

And if they look more like CGI and Photoshop than, say, “human being,” I’m far likelier to send out an extermination squad to eliminate you and your SkyNet sisters from my television screen lest you all finally decide that humanity is no longer useful to you.

Please, more human beings in my porn.

Thank you.

Ambush Porn

Let me define “ambush porn.”

You’re watching. Everything seems good. “Oh, okay. She’s getting naked. She’s preening. This is good. This is fine. Oh! Oh, what’s this. A knock at the door. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, go answer the door. Who is it? Is it the plumber? Is it the pizza girl? It’s — oh god. Sonofa–! It’s a naked old man! And now she’s on her knees and licking his frosty gut hair, ohh, no, no, I didn’t ask for this! He’s like a gnarly old hobbit! A salty boat captain, his flesh worn raw by the briny sea! I didn’t order this! I didn’t want Old People Porn!”

In other words: abort launch.

Ambush porn: the “art” of sneaking in shit you didn’t really ask to see. Scene’s going along at a nice clip, and before you know it, someone’ s peeing in someone’s mouth. Wait! No! I’m not knocking anybody who wants that. Hey, you want pee-pee erotica, more power to you. You want to get all hot-n-greasy checking old some old dude going at a “barely legal” girl, hey, that’s your bag of tricks.

It’s just, I don’t want that. And I don’t want it randomly appearing before me.

See, that’s the tricky hell of hentai. You’re like me, you think, “Okay, fine, at least this has a story. I’ll watch.” And some of it does its duty admirably. But a lot of the time, it’s soul-crushing and boner-deflating. Once again, everything seems to be going fine until — wham. A hard left turn into horror town. “…I’m pretty sure he’s raping her. Yep. Yes. This is rape. It’s not even like, a rape fantasy. I need to turn this off now. Oh. Oh no. He’s growing demon wings. And he’s got tentacles. And they’re ejaculating some kind of demon fluid. This is fantastic. Please stop. Please stop. Why won’t it stop?” *claw eyes*

Oh, And Speaking Of “Barely Legal,” Ew

“Barely legal” is code for, “Congratulations! You’re almost a pedophile.”

It’s creepy.

Stop it.

Ew.

I Should Never Yawn While Watching Pornography

Jesus Christ, pornography is getting boring.

…and yes, I did just evoke the Lord’s name in describing porn. What? Shut up. He’d think so, too. He’d yawn and be like, “It’s a miracle I’m still awake. I mean that. An actual miracle. Write it down.”

I feel like I’m seeing the same thing over and over again. An endless parade of samey-same sexy-time. Nobody really looks into it. Everybody looks fake. They’re all shot in the same California mini-mansion or in the same dingy apartment. I’ve seen that same set of bedsheets again and again.

By the way, this, this is why people go to the really wacky holy-shit-what-the-fuck porn. Because they’re bored. “I want to see a girl make love to a ghost. No! No. Two ghosts. And there should be a cup. And the ghosts should excrete extoplasm into the cups and pour the ectoplasm back and forth into one another’s mouths. Two ghosts. One girl. One cup. So hot. So hot.”

No story, no context, no quality, no nothing, total boring.

Yawn. Naptime.

You Stay Classy, Pornography

Arty porn. You don’t see much of it. In photography, yes (and are people still calling that “erotica?”). With the written word, too — once in a while you get some surprisingly well-written stuff out there. But video? Nehhh. Not so much. It’s all cheap-looking. Harsh lighting. Overhead view. Garish and glaring. Sterile, awful, suburban, dull. Why can’t we get some high quality arty stuff? Doesn’t have to be top dollar — heck, you can do indie films for the cheap, why not indie porn? Is there an indie porn industry? Am I missing it? Am I asking for too much? Will I be mocked? Run out of town on a rail?

Porn feels trashy because it’s basically trash. Lowest common denominator.

C’mon, people. Let’s treat our porn better. Let’s dress it nice. Let’s elevate its self-esteem. Let’s give it something to feel good about!

Let’s put art into porn.

Or, porn into art.

Or something into something.

(And while it’s ancillary, let me also lament the loss of quality sex scenes in non-porn films. Hollywood loves explosions and blood squibs, but has fallen prey to the Moral Censors and no longer shows truly sexy stuff in film anymore. Kind of sad, really. We’re a nation supposedly scared of sex, and yet, and yet, we spend billions on porn. Ahh, sweet, sweet repression.)

I dunno. What about you, Internets? Porn good? Porn bad? Porn skeeve you out? You okay with the lowest common denominator feel of it all?

You can practically hear the “ding.”

Yes, that’s right. My wife has hit one of those milestone ages. Finally, finally, she’s turned “sweet sixteen.” Let the fun begin! She can get her driver’s license! Woo to the hoo.

(Lest the authorities be reading this, I assure you, I am not married to a 16-year-old girl. Though, if I lived in [YOUR LEAST FAVORITE STATE OF THE AMERICAN DEEP SOUTH], it’d be totally legal. And she could be my cousin or sister. Good times.)

So, in case you didn’t know, my wife is totally awesome.

First: my wife puts up with my shit. That’s a big one right there. I’m a jackass. You leave me to my own devices for more than eight hours, and you’ll find me nesting in a ring of dirty plates and napkins. My hair, matted with mud. Porn everywhere. Somewhere, the distant sound of raging chimpanzees. Even on a day-to-day basis, I got a lot of shit with which to put up. I forget things. I’m kind of a dick. I’m loud. It really can’t be fun for her.

Second: my wife doesn’t put up with all my shit. As I’ve noted regarding us crazy-ass writers, you throw us a support rope, and we’ll hang ourselves with it. She supports me without supporting my stupid-ass bullshit.

Third: my wife has a foul mouth. Couple that with the fact I consider her both sublimely hot and stupidly hilarious (and only getting both hotter and funnier with each passing day), and you have my dream wife. One could even imagine that she is not human, but a Perfect Creation built in my basement, forged from the Stuff of Dreams (and also, mannequin parts).

Fourth: I call her the “mongoose” for her ability to get on the phone and Straighten Shit Out. Bank? Magazine subscription? Fucked up dentist appointment? Taxes? Lawyer? Hostage negotiations? These are all the cobras that my wife, the mongoose, will destroy. Her teeth, their throats. Rippity-rip.

Fifth: I’m pretty sure she’s going to wake up soon, so I’d better hurry this the hell up. What I’m saying is, my wife’s a great editor. She reads my stuff, and tells me the God’s Honest Truth. And helps me track down those niggling little errors that stick out like hangnails or skin-tags.

Sixth: I think my wife might be an alcoholic. I mean, I’m looking at all these pictures, and boy, she’s one boozy broad. She’s an AKC-registered boozehound. I should’ve really seen the warning signs. Day in, day out, she’s slapping me in the face and yelling, “Get me another dirty martini, dickbag!” except it sounds more like, “Geh me anudder durdy mar, mar, teeny, diggbag,” and then she spills her drink and throws the empty glass at my head.

…okay, that’s not true. My wife is not a boozehound. Hell, in that one picture she’s drinking coffee.

Anyway, I’m going to finish this up because, really, I think she’s going to wake up soon. I would’ve done this yesterday, but, ta-da! Snowbound. Hence, she’s been here the whole time. Hard to be sneaky. I do have a day planned with Three Main Events (meant to pair up with the fact that Valentine’s Day is in two days; I try not to ever let it be that her birthday and that holiday blend together with that whole, “Here, I got you one gift!” problem).

So, if you all would do me a lovely favor, could you wish her a happy birthday here in the comments? I’d appreciate it. She’d appreciate it. She’s awesome, and if you like being here at terribleminds, you have her to thank, because she keeps me sane and wisely under lock-and-key.

Oh, and I would of course like to add:

To My Lovely, Kick-Ass Wife:

Happy Birthday

Love,

Your Dipshit Husband

]]> http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/02/12/my-wife-just-leveled-up/feed/ 41 http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/01/03/avatar-porn-will-destroy-us-all/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/01/03/avatar-porn-will-destroy-us-all/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:52:55 +0000 terribleminds http://terribleminds.com/ramble/?p=2406

Theory: we know that a property has entered the pop culture consciousness when pornography is made in its image.

Examples: Pulp Friction, Forrest Hump, Saving Ryan’s Privates, Shaving Ryan’s Privates, and so on.

You don’t find this to be the case with films that fail to connect with audiences. The Hurt Locker is a critical darling, but failed to make money with audiences (a big fat super shame), so we’re unlikely to see The Squirt Locker, or The Spurt Stocker or The Skirt Focker. Further, we’re unlikely to see The Last Whorehouse On The Left, Race to Bitch Mountain, Angels & Semens, The Men Who Bang Goats, or The Jonas Brothers: The 3D “Girlfriend” Experience.

(Actually, you might see that last one eventually.)

Of course, I say this, and I wonder if the art of “pop culture into porn” is actually fading. I don’t know that the “porn movie” is even much of an, erm, “artform” anymore. Now it’s five-minute super-close vignettes of genitals smashing woefully into other genitals, as indistinguishable from a closeup of a kielbasa being shoved again and again into the hole of a glazed donut. Now it’s bizarre-o fetishes. Now it’s slashfic.

I wonder, though, if Avatar might just be the film that will bridge the Old World of Porn with the New World of Unbridled Deviancy.

Saw the film again yesterday with the wife.

Got a fetish? Lord Cameron hath provided. For he is King of the Paraphilia.

First — blue cat-slash-goat people run around half-naked. They’re topless. You catch all their curves. Right there you’ve got that anthropomorphic furry-esque hook — “I want to bang savage blue animal people” — which is probably the easiest and most obvious fetish connection in the film. And Cameron knew it. He had a design goal: “Make the blue chick fuckable.” I’m not kidding. He’s practically creating a furry revolution. Before now, you look at a furry — some lad or lady in an overstuffed giraffe costume — and it’s mostly just a little confounding. But here Cameron has sought to make the furry way (the Do of Furry?) accessible to anybody and everybody.

Then you have whispers of outright bestiality. Grace jokes when Sully’s avatar plays with his little tentacle tail, telling him he’ll “go blind” if he keeps playing with it, which makes it pretty clear: “Hey, look! He’s masturbating!” So, when later we see him jam his head-hair-tail-tentacle-cock into the leathery reptilian vagina-stalks of the horse-things or the pterodactyl-ik’ran-things, you get an uncomfy feeling about what’s really going on. It’d be like if “training your dog” meant connecting with it by sticking one part of your anatomy into some part of the pooch. (“I’m going to teach my dog to fetch my slippers! Let me put my penis in his ear so we can have a telepathic connection!”)

And that leads me to: tentacle porn. Those head-hair-tail-tentacles have weird little tentacular (not a word) filaments. And they stick them into other tentacles. Tentacles penetrate other tentacles. It’s like the zenith — the apogee — of tentacle porn.

Film’s got bondage elements, too. (Funny how bondage is actually a pretty light fetish these days — couples of the whitest-of-bread have probably tried fuzzy handcuffs, right?) Jake and Grace bound up, waiting to be sacrificed to the coming military horde? Or a stuck fetish with Jake locked away in a coffin-like machine while he psychically links up with his Big Blue Meanie buddy?

Erotic asphyxiation? A number of characters lose their breath and gasp orgasmically in the Pandoran atmosphere. Dendrophilia, or being aroused by trees? The film is practically tree porn, and once more they link up to the trees using their head-hair-tail-tentacles. Klismaphilia? The scene where Sully receives a glowing tree-sap enema from a pack of howling reptile hyenas and — oh, wait. That doesn’t actually happen.

I know what you’re saying. “Chuck, you’re really stretching. You’re stretching like an inflation fetish, your body a sexual balloon blowing up with mad lust.”

And you’re right.

I am stretching.

I don’t know that Cameron intended any of this.

But that doesn’t matter.

Because it’s too late.

Film’s out there. Sully’s already banging a blue alien chick who might be some kind of crazy giant cat-goat hybrid. What’s done is done.

And I’m telling you right now — Avatar bridges that gap between pop culture and porn, and as a result, Avatar porn will destroy us all. It is a meme that will overtake us. We’re done with Nigerian Princes and cats that are unable to spell properly or form cogent sentences about cheeseburgers. We’re done with dudes on skateboards plowing their junk into railings, we’re done with dick pills, we’re done with all the Internet trends.

Soon, all will be Avatar porn.

You know how I know?

Because it’s happening already. The hunger is out there. The need. The desire.

I monitor the search terms on this site, as you well know.

And I am floored by the things people search for on the Internet.

My toying with “Pauley Perrette” and “Abby Sciuto” has earned me a troubling surge in blog hits. I was joking when I said it would get me hits, because I had one or two here and there, but now I get hundreds daily. And recent competition has come in from people looking for Dragon Age pornography, of all things. People want to bang the shit out of Morrigan. They don’t want to romance her. They want to tie her up and do awful things to her unreal body. And it goes beyond Morrigan — just yesterday, I got the search term, “How to fuck a goat in Dragon Age: Origins.” Seriously. Someone looked for that. Someone not only thinks you can do that in a video game, but they want to do that in a video game.

Ahh, so where’s Avatar come in, you say?

Guess what’s nipping at the heels of these other search terms?

“Neytiri porn.” “Avatar porn.” “Avatar bestiality.” “Naked pictures of Naytiri (sic).”

Of course, me linking to those things is only going to get me more blog hits. Useless blog hits, of course — I’m not proud. These aren’t people coming here looking for writing advice. They’re not coming her for the Avatar porn but staying for the witty banter. I’m sure I leave hundreds of clickers horribly disappointed day in and day out.

What I’m doing is warning you –

Avatar porn is coming.

A strong, fetid tide of it.

It will wash upon us — a septic wave.

Be ready for it.

Tape up your windows.

Tie down the furniture.

Have an evacuation plan.

And for God’s sake — hide your goats.

I asked for blog post ideas, and that was one of many that Will Hindmarch came up with.

And that was the one I dismissed immediately. I waved it off and said, “The others sound good. I’ll do those. I have nothing useful to contribute about writing sex in fiction.”

My brain apparently didn’t agree with me. (Which surprised me, given that it’s my brain, but since this insurgency happens frequently I dunno why I’m surprised.) While I had dismissed the idea out of hand, my brain nipped at my heels like a shepherd dog. Nippy brain-dog continued to remind me, “Hey, dickhole, you served up some sex scenes very recently. You can actually contribute something to this conversation! Get on it! Rock out with your cock out! Jam out with your clam out! Go all out with your balls out! Go to a machinist’s house with your… ahhh, eh, penis out?”

And then I chastised brain-dog, and said, “You basically just want me to write about penises and vaginas,” and then brain-dog gave me a guilty look and ran into the shrubbery to lick himself.

The brain always leaves me just when I need it most.

Still. The brain was right. I had written sex scenes fairly recently — three of them, if I count correctly, though one of them was a bit of a non-starter (in the context of the story). Writing those scenes merited extra thought at the time, and so maybe you can derive some usefulness (or at the least, amusement) from my travails. I’m not here to tell you what makes a good sex scene in fiction, and what makes a bad sex scene. I’m not sure it’s really any different from a good anything scene and a bad anything scene (fails to convey action, fails to convey feeling, clunky writing, cliched dialogue, whatever.) Instead, I’ll just tell you what went through my head. Hopefully, you’ll add to the conversation, because as it stands it is an incomplete one.

The (Fake) Problem

We’re a nation of Puritanical assholes.

Or, we come from that. It’s why as Americans we get all goose-pimply and blushy about sex. It’s why Janet Jackson can’t show her cosmic nipple on TV, but you can show dead bodies and blood spatter and explosions and disasters. It’s why most of our dirty words are sex words, and why none of our dirty words have to do with violence.

So, writing sex scenes doesn’t come naturally. We get giggly. Nervous. We get the vapors, like a Victorian woman on a fainting couch. (Irony: to end the vapors, the women often submitted to “pelvic massage.” Mmm-hmm, lady, I’m onto you. Whenever you get the vapors, you or someone else has a medical excuse to tickle the little man in the boat. Clever girl.)

Think about that, though. They say, “Write what you know.” I know sex. I’ve had it. More than twice! Violence, on the other hand…? How often have I jammed a grenade belt down an enemy soldier’s throat? (Answer: less than twice!) Why then, was the latter easier to write than the former? Why does the description of violence come (heh, come!) so easily, when writing sex does not?

Because we come from Puritanical assholes.

So, that’s the only true challenge in writing sex scenes. Find that hump (heh, hump!) and get over it. You’ve had sex (and if you haven’t, and you’re of proper age, please go have some now; it’s super-fun!), so you know everything that makes it awesome and awkward and clumsy and perfect and messy and strange and beautiful and primitive and so on and so forth. Stop ascribing sex taboo significance, and just write it.

In my admittedly limited experience writing these things, I figure you have three ways to go when you settle down to write some sweet, sweet fictional love.

The Gynecologist’s Indelicate Touch: The Clinical Approach

The approach here is all mechanism. Sex is a physical act, and so the writing of sex is about what happens. This is the real “Tab A to Slot B” shit. (In a perfect world, I’d have real world examples, and I’d quote them like a professional. But I’m writing this half-asleep, and you jerks don’t pay me for this, so suck it up, Jennifers.)

This is all about the cold, clinical approach. It doesn’t need to default to “The penis enters the vagina. It exits the vagina. It enters the vagina. It exits the vagina.” But it is about what happens. It’s about the act. Where do the fingers go? The lips trail down to… where? The act of sex can have an almost chess game feel to it; the pieces move a little differently each time, so describe how those pieces move, and to where.

Why Go This Way?

This approach eschews poetic language and goes right for the clarity of the act. Embracing that clarity might indicate you’re writing a scene that isn’t about emotion or sensation, but is about two people getting their rocks off. Or maybe it’s a business transaction. Or maybe it’s a hollow reiteration of a once-beautiful thing. I used this approach in a recent work, because it was about two people fucking. I don’t know that they even liked each other that much. The scene became about the mechanical act, and (if I did it correctly), the description of pure mechanism was isolating. It created distance between these two characters.

Stimulate The Pineal Gland: Writing Raw Sensation

Sex can be transformative. It can be an epiphany. It can be downright bizarre, even under the simplest of circumstances. The memory of sex — in real life — can be one of pure sensation, not one that recalls exactly what was on the booty-menu that night (in narrative terms, this is sex that’s all story, no plot). You don’t remember whether she wore the red panties with the black hearts or the pink strap-on with the Hello Kitty cock-topper — you only remember what it felt like to see her for the first time that night. You don’t remember at what point she stuck the duck up your ass, you only remember the feeling of soft feathers or the echoes of quacking quaking deep in your bowels.

Sex might take place in the dark. Or in dark places. Or in strange places. Or when you’re both tired (either late at night or early in the morning). Sometimes you can’t see everything. Sex can be an act close to sensory deprivation — your eyes are vestigial to the process, but your nose may be critical, or your tongue, or your skin. By cleaving to pure sensation, you take the visual out of it, and make it all about the feeling. Moreover, emotion comes into play — revelatory sex can stimulate bizarre-o emotions, and the fiction should highlight that. Not just glee. Some people cry after sex. Some get giddy. Some feel guilty. What emotions rise up?

Why Go This Way?

I think I already covered it, but by approaching it this way, you’re bookmarking the sex as something strange and poetic, something both firmly within and way outside our frame of reference; it’s an individual’s game, with each sex act like a crazy fractal snowflake. You’re saying that it doesn’t matter what actually happens. What matters is how it feels to the characters, and what it does to them.

The Gynecologist’s Pineal Gland: A Little From Column A, A Little From Column B

Take clinical, mix with sensation, and you’ve got what I consider the mainstream approach to writing sex scenes in fiction. Not much else to say. It’s up to you what the ratio of mechanism versus sensation is: 60/40? 75/25? 90/10? I dunno. Best guide is to ape the style you’ve already been using for the rest of the work.

Why Go This Way?

Again, I consider this the mainstream approach. Sex in a piece of fiction — unless it’s purposefully designed to take us out of the narrative and show us a new face of the story — is ultimately just another part of the story, no more or no less important than any other moving part. In Chapter 4, Billy wrestles an alligator. In Chapter 6, Billy has sex with Miranda. Yes, they’re separate acts, but in terms of distilling the story down to an equation, X is not necessarily greater than Y. By taking a standard descriptive approach, you’re not making the sex stand out needlessly like a hammer-struck penis. Or clitoris, if you’re into giant throbbing clitorises. Man, that is going to get me some delicious Google hits one day. Surely from people looking for a blog just like this one!

The Fourth Option I Made Up Just Now: Painting With Shadow

Did I say you had three options?

Scratch that. Here’s number four.

See, I’m just realizing that sometimes, to write a sex scene, you need to write around the sex scene. The before, the after, but not the during. Forget the moment. The act of painting or drawing can be as much about what you don’t paint as much as it is about what you put on the canvas, right? You can even draw a face or a scene by drawing everything but that face or scene; the shadows, the negative space, become your definition. I think of this, and I think of Glengarry Glen Ross — Ricky Roma in the Chinese restaurant? Talking about the people with whom you’ve had sex? “What do you remember about them? I don’t know. For me, I’m saying, what is is, it’s probably not the orgasm. Some broad’s forearm on your neck, something her eyes did. There was a sound she made…or, me, lying, in the — I’ll tell you. Me lying in bed. The next day, she brought me café au lait. She gives me a cigarette, my balls feel like concrete. Eh? What I’m saying, what is our life? It’s looking forward or it’s looking back. And that’s our life. That’s it. Where is the moment?” Good question, Ricky Roma. Good question.

Why Go This Way?

Going this way, you’re singling out that it’s not the sex that matters. It’s what the sex means. It’s what results from it, and it’s how we moved to it. In this approach lies an interesting truth, I think. The before and after tell us the during. Paint with negative space.

The Perilous Perils Of Porn Mining

In writing sex scenes, it pays to watch out for hazards. “Mind the gap,” as it were.

The biggest danger is telling, not showing. Don’t tell us “she felt ecstatic.” Give us the indicators of that ecstasy. If I were standing in the doorway, hidden in shadow, and I was able to watch these two people have crazy wombat sex on the bed, how would I know she was caught in the throes of ecstasy? When I was telling my buddy later, how would I describe to him the moment I knew she was cresting the hill on the Orgasm Express? The best language is clear but illustrative.

Second danger? Don’t get porny. You’re not writing porn. Porn is clumsy. Porn is heavy-handed. Single-camera, zoom in on the naughty, pimpled parts. No. That’s not what you’re doing. The sex serves the context of the story. It’s a moment for these characters. In porn, character is lost (sadly). Don’t lose the characters. Don’t lose the narrative throughline.

This leads to danger number three: overwrought language. You can cross the porn border and move into tawdry erotica, and that’s not great, either. Okay, it’s great if you’re writing tawdry erotica. If you’re writing mainstream fiction, though, you can work language too hard (heh, hard!), the same way you can overwork pancake batter. It ruins the pancakes. If you ever describe some dude’s junk as “his turgid tumescence,” somebody should probably kick you right in the turgid tumescence. You’re allowed to use poetic language. Just don’t get purple (heh… uh, purple?).

Finally, the sex shouldn’t go on too long. You’ll chafe. … I mean, the reader will become bored. Less is more. If you take ten pages to describe a sex act, it’ll probably take most people longer to read that than to actually put the book down and engage in the sex act. Get in, get out, do the job.

Heh.

So, That’s That

Now you know as much as I do, which is to say, probably not that much. But, I figured this is something that I’d been thinking about without even realizing I’d been thinking about it. I’m interested to hear your experiences, fellow wordheads and penmonkeys.

Let me explain.

The site keeps track of the search terms that you fine, upstanding weirdos are using to discover this website, and boy, am I glad it does. Because if it didn’t, I would never know that you found this site via searching for the following terms:

“Man sucks off monkey”

“Crushing feet sex”

“Free movies of big clits”

“Lee Majors penis size”

And, most recent and most favorite:

(drum roll, please)

“Insects in my ass”

That last one kind of… curled my noodle. It means that Someone is searching for that term on purpose. This Someone is looking for it either because he is plagued by the problem of having insects in his ass, or he is Someone who wants to have insects in his ass.

So, I’m left to wonder: do people want insects in their ass? Is that a thing? Anytime I think, “Shit, that can’t be real,” you look online and there’s at least three people who… y’know, gloomily masturbate to some made-up, almost impossible fetish. (“I want my girlfriend to dress up as a monkey, who is in turn dressing up as a butler, and I want her to duct tape a banana in my mouth. Is that weird?”) And hey, more power to them. As long as everybody’s signed the right consent forms, enjoy. Do whatever makes your grapefruit squirt.

Investigating this, however, took me down a fast wrong turn, and before I knew it, I was deep down the drain with the clots of hair and rat bones and goat placentas.

The Internet is home to some truly amazing — and truly bewildering – sexual fetishes.

Furries

Furries — a.k.a. those people who dress up in animal costumes and bang each other, or watch other people in animal costumes making the erm, beast with two backs — is almost so commonplace that it’s barely a fetish anymore. I’m happy I’m not dating these days, because I’m afraid I’ll meet some woman and we’ll go back to her place and she’ll start getting out a swan costume or something. (And by the way, that makes Zeus the original furry, because that guy was always ravishing chicks as a bull or a swan. Not to mention he’s all over the place turning people into dogs and turtles and shit.) I’ll be like, “Hey, yeah, no,” and she’ll turn her nose down at me because I must be one of those people on the Internet who do it human-style (also known as “skinnies!”).

I’m happy that these people have found their niche, really. I do wonder though, if you’re trying to hump some chick in a giraffe costume, doesn’t that mean you maybe kinda sorta want to hump an actual giraffe? (I don’t recommend that, by the way. Giraffes look cute, but they will fuck your shit up. Giraffes know some dark moves.) I’m just happy you’ve sidelined your bestiality.

Dragon Porn

Yup. They’re out there: people who want sex with mythic creatures. Don’t believe me? Clicky-clicky, non-believer. I guess this is pretty harmless, given that dragons don’t exist. Though I guess it could get out of control? You’ll know if it does, because some dude will be arrested at the zoo when a Komodo dragon bites off his peener. And at least there’s no unicorn porn. (Oh, no.) Well, fine. Hopefully no one has violated poor Humbaba.

Crush Porn

From what I can tell, “crush porn” comes in a couple flavors. The first is semi-harmful but entirely consensual: people stepping on people. Hey, cool. A boot-heel smushing your junk like it’s a still-smoldering cigarette? You signed on for it. Russian kick dance on your boobs and butt? Go you. The second variety involves stepping on rodents and bugs, and this might be the origin of why someone was looking for insects in his ass. If you get a sexual thrill from stepping on (and harming) harmless animals, you should probably just fellate a gun barrel instead. I don’t think that star-nosed mole under your cha-cha boots signed a consent form, Charo. And no, I’m not suggesting Charo maims animals for sexual pleasure, just in case her lawyers are poking around (and if they are, I’ll ask them: what search term did they use to get here?).

The Stuck Fetish

Another fetish with a few “sub-varieties.” One variety — demonstrated by Little Miss Gum Gams, here — involves getting stuck in some kind of gluey substance, like bubblegum or road tar or maybe a movie theater floor (“I’m so hot for melted gummi bears and boot-stepped nacho cheese”). Another variety involves what could only be described as “extremely clautrophobic shit.” A girl gets her leg caught in a hole, or a dude shoves half his body into a rolled-up carpet and can’t get out (this latter sub-sub-variety is called the “Stuck Headfirst” fetish). The former variety, I almost understand. Stepping in gum is totally crappy, but being stuck I guess simulates a bondage aspect. Kay, fine, sure. But cramming your body in a hole? I know people who panic when they get on an elevator or drive through a tunnel. I don’t have claustrophobia now, but you shove half my body in a sinkhole, and I’m damn sure going to develop it. Especially when I can’t, y’know, breathe. I’m getting weirded-out just thinking about this.

Robot Porn

At this point, I’m almost like, “Eh, who cares? Guy wants to sex up an android, sure. Girl needs all holes filled with cyborg pistons, whatever makes her tumescent.” (Sorry, I just wanted to say “tumescent.”) My greatest fear, though, is that I’m going to come home one day and find somebody trying to mouth-rape a Roomba. And I don’t even own a Roomba.

Formicophilia

You’ll note I’m not doing these in any kind of order. I’m kind of discovering them as I do, which is like feeling your way in a dark room and your hand keeps falling on sweat-slick unicorn pelts and sticky leather. Anyway. This one might also be the source of the “insects in my ass” search term, because apparently, some people (hopefully no more than, say, five of them) like to let bugs crawl on their junk. I guess that’s fine, I just know that if a centipede or a spider ever does the soft-shoe on my Mister Man, it will be at least a year and a day before I will once more be able to achieve erection. Or “tumescence.” Hey. Wasn’t he the satyr in that Narnia book?

Anyway, the point here is, I don’t think that praying mantis asked to participate in your sexual experience, pal.

Plushies

Aren’t these people basically “furries,” except… without a human partner? Some guy dry-humping a giraffe costume? I guess that’s cool. Just don’t touch my Care Bears. I get it, her name is “Love-A-Lot Bear,” but that doesn’t mean she’s asking for it. Go put the moves on Paddington. He’s super-lonely! Plus, he looks like a flasher, or some dirty old pervert fisherman.

Looners

The thought process here must go something like this: “I really like wearing latex. It makes me feel sexy. Hey, aren’t balloons made of latex? Yeah. Yeah, they are. I will now have sex with a balloon.” That just has to make the worst possible noise. All that rubbery squeaking? It’s like a nightmare. A nightmare with clown sex. Which calls to mind…

Clown Sex

I…

Ehhh.

*vomits*

No! No. I draw the line here, Internet. No clown sex for anybody! What the fuck is wrong with you? All that honking? The smeared greasepaint? The cake? (And yes, I am now also familiar with Cake Farts, Sweet Jeebus I’m going to scoop out my eyes and shove them into my goddamn ears). Hey, you want to gussy yourself up in a goat costume and fake-bang a plush pegasus on a floor covered in glue traps? Get in there and give a thumbs-up when you’re done. But clowns? Clown sex? Cake farts? This is why Rome burned. Wasn’t the barbarians. Wasn’t nascent Christianity. Wasn’t an Empire spread too thin. Instead of bread and circuses, it was clown sex and cake farts. We’re doomed. Western civilization is orbiting the drain, people. You go to some Third World village and show him a YouTube video of some clown poop-fucking a cake or something, and that person will kill you and cut off your penis because you are some kind of evil sorcerer. And they’d be right to do so! Shame. Shame on you, Internet! Can’t you just fuck a robot like the rest of us?