lol that is so true about the one swift moment! it's more likely that the movement starts that way and then you end up tripping over trouser legs and wrestling with socks!

and of course if you're wearing DM boots you're really in trouble...

maybe that's why there were no teenage pregnancies within my group of friends (whereas the fake-tan and dance music loving, alcopop swilling brigade seemed to have many). It took so long to get the boots off we got too tired and gave up

The Duke of Marlborough was famous for being too eager to take his boots off when returning from campaign...

Research is so important.

Sarah

I must say, I've always found that a very sexy line.

Emma

Many thanks for your Champers sex scene comments, Roger! I must say at this point that everything I know about sex I learnt from my husband - of course!

)

A
xxx

I love this thread! In an upcoming chapter of club_dominion and the Life Beta, the narrator is going to treat us to her Tips on Writing Porn (or rather how not to write bad porn) which include long lists of euphenisms such as this gem from a novel by Tanith Lee: "The sword he used on her was of flesh."

Tiger

ew... flesh swords... very bad... throbbing member is another one that's awful

There was this film on TV on recently where a student with a lecherous tutor kept her boots on at his request. They were the sort that zipped up to the crotch and she was struggling to get them off when he told her not to bother. Maybe Wellington would have had to call for the boot-boy and was similarly impatient.

Ever eager to pick up some tips about writing, I went to hear Wendy Perriam speak last week - the free talk was mentioned in the newsletter of a college where she was tutoring a creative writing course. She had her fifteen novels and three short story collections laid out on a table. The blurbs said she was expelled from a convent.Aged 65, with a posh voice and an anorexic look about her, she was dressed in a red vest with a floppy hat and lipstick in a matching shade. No wonder she seemed a bit nervous in the austere surroundings of the Holst Room at Morley. She was obviously a practised speaker, though, and seemed to have her talk off by heart. I was impressed as it had lots of quotes - the subject was the difference between novels and short stories. Bizarrely, she mentioned her underwear a few times and said her favourite writer was DH Lawrence, which surprised me a bit, but not when I thought about it afterwards. Her talk ended: 'As John Mortimer said, 'A good writer grabs his reader by the balls...'

When I got home I had another look at Google and see that she recently won the annual Literary Bad Sex Award. I came to the conclusion that to write about sex it probably helps if you have a very repressed upbringing and a flamboyant personality which prompts you to break out big time. Oh well, back to the computer...

Sheila

I couldn't resist reproducing these two classically bad sex scenes from Double Fault by Lionel Shriver.

Despite deservedly winning the Orange Prize for her novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shriver's earlier work left much to be desired. Here, the heroine (Willy) is missing her lover (Eric):

Though they both liked order, when Eric was on the road Willy missed his sweat-soaked T's, ragged tube socks, and crenulated jock straps drying on the curtain rod. She yearned for his dank sweats to drape on the hissing radiator, their yeasty must infusing the apartment like rising bread... Restive, Willy would wistfully rewind her husband's jump ropes into neat coils in the foyer, pausing to sniff the foam handles, funky with his perspiration. When she was lucky, they'd still be wet.

And here, they kiss and make-up after Willy chucks a racket at Eric's head and they return from the ER:

The laceration over Eric's eye had also opened a gash between them, and Eric would suture this wound with a blunter but more powerful needle. Resting a hand on his clavicle to emphasize that he mustn't do any of the work, Willy straddled his hips and eased down onto the instrument of their mending.

Tiger

ohhhhh... someone pass me a bucket!

The first one is simple yuck! I've never understood the sweaty thing. The second one is unbelievable! Doesn't say much for her editor, that that got past.

Emma

I don't think Shriver had an editor, back then. This novel was out of print until the success of Kevin and then Serpent's Tail republished it. Part of me wants to imagine Shriver was being ironic, parodying bad sex scenes, but I don't know...

Tiger

Her vagina was like a second mouth, sucking at his member like an algae-starved mollusc.

No?

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

JB

There is a sex scene (and a fair amount of 'sex-thinking' in Taking Comfort and it has been interesting seeing people's reactions to it. My wife's sister made some comment about it to her, and my wife's reaction was: 'What sex scene?' So I don't know what that means. Of course, the worst thing was knowing that my mum was going to read it. She did once remark to one of her friends who said she was interested in reading the book: 'I hope you're broad-minded.' That was about the only comment she made.

I didn't use any euphemisms. Probably because I don't know any.



<Added>

Who ordered the smiley? Not me.

I am prompted to say ewwwwwww again at JB's mollusc comment


Also those Shriver sex scenes are AWFUL

I think the most important thing is that the sex is genre appropriate. You don't want hot sweaty (musty?) sex in a Regency romance, and you don't want 'throbbing members' in a serious psychological novel. If you are writing a good old fashioned bodice ripper, by all means let the shafts be silky and the members throb.

I have certain words I won't use, not because they are dirty, they just make me queasy: nubs instead of nipples for example.

Hilary