I'll never stop writing erotica in my work. This just compels me to write it more graphically. I absolutely give zero fucks on what people want to read. I don't write for them. If they hate it don't read it. I put disclaimers in it.
Also to the trad writers - eat my entire former sex worker ass. I dare them to try to stop me. I'll never stop. I'll ride on burning chariots under the sky over them. Surrealism + erotica + horror. So delicious.
JLG Noga said it best "there are few things as primal and evocative as the sensual feeling when you get when you're reading/writing the movement and motion of the human body, the sounds, tastes, sights sways" sensory details go hard.
"I can write a 600 page epic hard sci-fi space opera, but absolutely no one fucks anything." = the entire story is about sex.
"This is just smut" = Yeah, you like reading that, your imagination if way better than Pornhub, you dirty little skank.
"Gravity's Rainbow" = Listen, it's one of my favorite books, I've read it more than a dozen times, it's ONLY about sex, but everything in it about sex is about either entropy, power, penance, or rocketry. Alright.
If I write erotica, or sex, or sexy stuff, none of it has anything to DO with THE SEX ACT, and if you think so you haven't been paying attention to anything I write. This includes if I write a scene where two crusty tour kids are fucking in a port-a-let on the last day of Wakarusa in 2009. OK? Even if it goes STRAIGHT to cock entering pussy while in Golgothan porta potty, that shit ain't about sex.
People can bitch all they want, know a book with good just FUCK scenes? Glamorama. You know what all the sex scenes are about? Not sex. They're incredibly graphic and pretty brutal sometimes, they READ like porn WATCHES (not like smut reads, the difference is PALPABLE.) But they aren't about sex. The sex is a byproduct of literally everything else.
i wrote a long note but it had the R word in it... you know... 4 letters, rhymes with tape? and when i posted it, a message came up saying
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO POST THIS NOTE.
i just thought it was a connectivity thing... but it wasn't the usual message when that happens... and then i thought maybe it was because i used the R word...
now im nervous to test the theory in case i get banned for being an horrible person.
anyway the note was searing and intellectual and excellent, just so you know. i cant recreate that moment of excellence. its gone. im spent.
I have never read an erotic thriller, or a truly erotic novel in the 'spicy' sense of the word (i really want to, cuz i'll definitely write one at some point) But I find that there are few things as primal and evocative as the sensual feeling you get when you're reading/writing the movement and motion of the human body, the sounds, tastes, sights, sways. The best sex scenes in my mind (thinking of movies and TV here) might have a bit of gratuity in them, but they're mainly character-driven and above all else, layered with meaning like you said. Sex isn't just sex, and it's not even just about power dynamics. it's about the groundswells of power, who manipulates it, and what other forces intersect with it. Dope article. We shouldn't infantilize people and we shouldn't let trad puritanical reading/writing culture stop ppl from writing something everyone fucking does lol
Also on elevated smut from cinema--literally any Cronenberg film would fall under this. Especially Crash. And by extension JG Ballard's original novel
Bro wtf lol, Crash is the first film assigned for the workshop lol
Watching it today to get ready for Sunday. I feel some type of way with sex scenes, I'm not a fan, but I've changed my mind a bit in regards to its artistic merit.
Lol Elle Nash is starting yall on the right foot. Read the book too if you ever get the chance. And I get it, i honestly feel the same way abt them especially when they feel extra gratuitous. Which is why I make the distinction between a bad and a great sex scene in my head
Sex scenes are done best when they are plot-driven, character arc-driven, full of symbolism and emotion.
Her article had some points but honestly I was like… read the room? We’re in the midst of Project 2025 and books are getting banned for far tamer content than the examples she cited. Queer authors, artists, people are constantly getting told to tone ourselves down for the comfort of sensitive heterosexuals. Fuck that. If what I write makes you clutch your pearls, don’t read it. Or maybe do, and let it give you new perspectives.
I’ve been thinking a lot of Libe’s essay. I was pretty compelled by her argument about the awkwardness of most sex scenes, but what you’re saying here helps explain why I feel awkward. There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water, as you say.
I'll be very curious to hear what you think of the sex scene(s) in MiR. I like to believe that I achieved purpose in writing them, because I'm also of the mind that sex in lit really does have to be about something else in order to work. Clancy, in his MiR review, said that it was effective but I'm interested to see how it reads for others
The difference between Porn and well written erotica. Think of all the scenes around the Bond Babes and how the spy extraordinaire ends up in bed with the babe.
I feel like I’m the wrong person to enthusiastically agree with this, because I’m sex repulsed. I generally avoid reading sex scenes for the same reason someone easily grossed out by descriptions of injuries avoids graphic fight scenes. No yuck to other people’s yum, but for me the only response I experience is nose wrinkling “Ew…”
However.
While sadly I can’t remember examples, there have been sex scenes that I enjoyed reading, because they contained very little physical description of bodily fluids but LOTS of interiority exploring a concept I don’t understand. They were fascinating and fun. It’s like how I find a lot of fight scenes boring, but ones which aren’t about the fight are interesting.
In fact text works are the only format where I even try to engage with sex scenes, because the narrative lens means the stuff I find gross isn’t necessarily shoved in my face. Graphics formats and I’m immediately “Bye”.
And trying to explain that I view “smut” and “contains sex” to be two completely different things has been challenging, mostly because I don’t really understand the topic, so I appreciate you laying this take out.
I didn't want to show you what I was working on cos I wanted to wait, cos if you read it now you won't read it later (is the reasoning behind not wanting to share it initially).
It's related af to the theme of the essay (kinda' sort of)
I'll never stop writing erotica in my work. This just compels me to write it more graphically. I absolutely give zero fucks on what people want to read. I don't write for them. If they hate it don't read it. I put disclaimers in it.
Also to the trad writers - eat my entire former sex worker ass. I dare them to try to stop me. I'll never stop. I'll ride on burning chariots under the sky over them. Surrealism + erotica + horror. So delicious.
JLG Noga said it best "there are few things as primal and evocative as the sensual feeling when you get when you're reading/writing the movement and motion of the human body, the sounds, tastes, sights sways" sensory details go hard.
Hard yes on the Cronenberg.
Go hard as you like. Thumbs up all around.
My female love interest is also a former sex worker. YAY.
💯
"I can write a 600 page epic hard sci-fi space opera, but absolutely no one fucks anything." = the entire story is about sex.
"This is just smut" = Yeah, you like reading that, your imagination if way better than Pornhub, you dirty little skank.
"Gravity's Rainbow" = Listen, it's one of my favorite books, I've read it more than a dozen times, it's ONLY about sex, but everything in it about sex is about either entropy, power, penance, or rocketry. Alright.
If I write erotica, or sex, or sexy stuff, none of it has anything to DO with THE SEX ACT, and if you think so you haven't been paying attention to anything I write. This includes if I write a scene where two crusty tour kids are fucking in a port-a-let on the last day of Wakarusa in 2009. OK? Even if it goes STRAIGHT to cock entering pussy while in Golgothan porta potty, that shit ain't about sex.
People can bitch all they want, know a book with good just FUCK scenes? Glamorama. You know what all the sex scenes are about? Not sex. They're incredibly graphic and pretty brutal sometimes, they READ like porn WATCHES (not like smut reads, the difference is PALPABLE.) But they aren't about sex. The sex is a byproduct of literally everything else.
i wrote a long note but it had the R word in it... you know... 4 letters, rhymes with tape? and when i posted it, a message came up saying
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO POST THIS NOTE.
i just thought it was a connectivity thing... but it wasn't the usual message when that happens... and then i thought maybe it was because i used the R word...
now im nervous to test the theory in case i get banned for being an horrible person.
anyway the note was searing and intellectual and excellent, just so you know. i cant recreate that moment of excellence. its gone. im spent.
I have never read an erotic thriller, or a truly erotic novel in the 'spicy' sense of the word (i really want to, cuz i'll definitely write one at some point) But I find that there are few things as primal and evocative as the sensual feeling you get when you're reading/writing the movement and motion of the human body, the sounds, tastes, sights, sways. The best sex scenes in my mind (thinking of movies and TV here) might have a bit of gratuity in them, but they're mainly character-driven and above all else, layered with meaning like you said. Sex isn't just sex, and it's not even just about power dynamics. it's about the groundswells of power, who manipulates it, and what other forces intersect with it. Dope article. We shouldn't infantilize people and we shouldn't let trad puritanical reading/writing culture stop ppl from writing something everyone fucking does lol
Also on elevated smut from cinema--literally any Cronenberg film would fall under this. Especially Crash. And by extension JG Ballard's original novel
Bro wtf lol, Crash is the first film assigned for the workshop lol
Watching it today to get ready for Sunday. I feel some type of way with sex scenes, I'm not a fan, but I've changed my mind a bit in regards to its artistic merit.
Lol Elle Nash is starting yall on the right foot. Read the book too if you ever get the chance. And I get it, i honestly feel the same way abt them especially when they feel extra gratuitous. Which is why I make the distinction between a bad and a great sex scene in my head
Excellent rebuttal.
Sex scenes are done best when they are plot-driven, character arc-driven, full of symbolism and emotion.
Her article had some points but honestly I was like… read the room? We’re in the midst of Project 2025 and books are getting banned for far tamer content than the examples she cited. Queer authors, artists, people are constantly getting told to tone ourselves down for the comfort of sensitive heterosexuals. Fuck that. If what I write makes you clutch your pearls, don’t read it. Or maybe do, and let it give you new perspectives.
Brb going to make my book even hornier now.
The horny is calling, will you answer?
I’ve been thinking a lot of Libe’s essay. I was pretty compelled by her argument about the awkwardness of most sex scenes, but what you’re saying here helps explain why I feel awkward. There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water, as you say.
I'll be very curious to hear what you think of the sex scene(s) in MiR. I like to believe that I achieved purpose in writing them, because I'm also of the mind that sex in lit really does have to be about something else in order to work. Clancy, in his MiR review, said that it was effective but I'm interested to see how it reads for others
I am excited to get to them!
The difference between Porn and well written erotica. Think of all the scenes around the Bond Babes and how the spy extraordinaire ends up in bed with the babe.
Saved all of these for later thanks!
I feel like I’m the wrong person to enthusiastically agree with this, because I’m sex repulsed. I generally avoid reading sex scenes for the same reason someone easily grossed out by descriptions of injuries avoids graphic fight scenes. No yuck to other people’s yum, but for me the only response I experience is nose wrinkling “Ew…”
However.
While sadly I can’t remember examples, there have been sex scenes that I enjoyed reading, because they contained very little physical description of bodily fluids but LOTS of interiority exploring a concept I don’t understand. They were fascinating and fun. It’s like how I find a lot of fight scenes boring, but ones which aren’t about the fight are interesting.
In fact text works are the only format where I even try to engage with sex scenes, because the narrative lens means the stuff I find gross isn’t necessarily shoved in my face. Graphics formats and I’m immediately “Bye”.
And trying to explain that I view “smut” and “contains sex” to be two completely different things has been challenging, mostly because I don’t really understand the topic, so I appreciate you laying this take out.
I like this.
I didn't want to show you what I was working on cos I wanted to wait, cos if you read it now you won't read it later (is the reasoning behind not wanting to share it initially).
It's related af to the theme of the essay (kinda' sort of)
I WANT TO READ IT
Oh, it's good.
Check dm