The Joy of Writing Sex

THE JOY OF WRITING SEX ELIZABETH BENEDICT IS STORY PRESS CINCINNATI, OHIO The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. Copyright ® 1996 by Elizabeth Benedict. Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any elec• tronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Story Press, an imprint of F&W Publications, Inc., 1507 Dana Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207. (800) 289-0963. First edition. Other fine Story Press Books are available from your local bookstore or direct from the publisher. 00 99 98 97 96 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benedict, Elizabeth. The joy of writing sex : a guide for fiction writers / by Elizabeth Benedict.— 1st ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 1-884910-21-1 1. Fiction—Authorship. 2. Fiction—Technique. I. Title. PN3355.B38 1996 808.3—dc20 96-7333 CIP Designed by Clare Finney Cover illustration by Celia Johnson The permissions opposite this page constitute an extension of this copyright page. PERMISSIONS "A Lesbian Appetite" is excerpted from Trash. Copyright ® 1988 by Dorothy Allison. Reprinted by permission of Firebrand Books, Ithaca, New York. "Plan B for the Middle Class" is excerpted from Plan B for the Middle Class by Ron Carlson. Copyright ® 1992 by Ron Carlson. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. "One Holy Night" is excerpted from Woman Hollering Creek. Copy• right ® 1991 by Sandra Cisneros. Published by Vintage Books, a divi• sion of Random House, Inc., New York, and in hardcover by Random House, Inc. "How to Talk to a Hunter" is excerpted from Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston. Copyright ® 1992 by Pam Houston. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Excerpt from The Bluest Eye. Copyright ® 1970 by Toni Morrison. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc. Excerpt from "Spot-the-Ball," an unpublished work by Ian McGuire. Copyright ® 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from "Out There" by Wesley Gibson. Copyright ® 1992 by Wesley Gibson. First published in New Virginia Review. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from "Contact" is reprinted from the short story "Contact" by John Lonie, by permission of the author. This is for Jerome Badanes (1937-1995), who taught me that sometimes it has to be over the top to be in the right place, and for Lee Goerner (1947-1995), who cared about every last word. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We think of sex as something done in very small groups, and some• times all alone, but writing about writing about sex has more closely resembled an orgy that grew larger by the week. I could not have put together The Joy of Writing Sex without the brains, brawn, good humor and e-mail of many friends, colleagues and near strangers, who of• fered book titles and ideas, who listened patiently to mine, who photo• copied stories, and lent, bought and gave me books, in some cases, with yellow stick-on notes jutting out like unruly bookmarks, alerting me to the exact location of the dirty parts. Everyone I spoke to, but especially the writers who were generous enough to take time to be interviewed and who answered my letters, helped me figure out what to tell you about how to write about sex. I owe special thanks to editor in chief of Story Press, Lois Rosenthal, who called one afternoon and rescued me from the uncertainties of beginning a new novel with an offer that, as you can see, I could not refuse. In addition to being paid to read sexy books and think for long periods of nothing but sex, another perk of writing this book is that I have always had something to talk about at dinner parties that everyone wants to weigh in on, which is more than can be said of writing a novel. I am certain I will never have it so good, conversation- wise, as I did while writing this book. Jack Heffron has been a patient, diligent and good-humored ed• itor, helping me to focus, organize and get to the instructional point. I'm indebted to Lisa Meyer, whose early reading of the introduc• tion prodded me on; to Goldberry Long, for her long-distance re• search; to Pinckney Benedict, who sent his student Alice Lukens to me; to Deborah Eisenberg, who sent her student Ian McGuire to me; to Stephen Wright, for schlepping a copy of The Good Parts from Tower Records; to Jean Hanff Korelitz for a close reading of the manuscript; to Joanne Omang for another; to Katherine Meyer, Liz Forster, Kit Ward and Joe Gangemi for great suggestions; to Carol Houck Smith and her assistant at W.W. Norton, who led this horse to water with a bunch of yellow stick-on notes inside some very fine fiction; to Anne Hindley, for help with French from England; and to Michael Wood, who knew the answers to several arcane and essential literary and linguistic questions. Richard McCann read an early draft of the chapter on writing about sex in the age of AIDS and guided me through the revision with the luminous intelligence and generosity he brings to all our encounters. The two friends who share the dedication page died unexpectedly within thirty-six hours of each other as I was completing my work. They never met, but they shared an abiding devotion to literature and to the mysterious, magical process of good writing that I hope this book honors and encourages. My colleagues at Princeton have been generous to the point of indulgence. I am particularly grateful to Ruth Carden for helping ease some of the technical burdens of writing this book. As always, Gail Hochman and Marianne Merola are agents from heaven. To my family and to the usual suspects, from A. to Z., my gratitude knows no bounds. CONTENTS Introduction 1 CHAPTER I What Will My Grandmother Think? Talking to Writers About Sex 8 CHAPTER 2 A Sex Scene Is Not a Sex Manual Ten Basic Principles 24 CHAPTER 3 "Surprise Me" and Other Literary Come-Ons Beyond the Basics 33 CHAPTER 4 The End of Bravado Writing About Sex in the Age of AIDS 50 CHAPTER 5 Losing Your Cherry First Times to Remember 59 CHAPTER 6 Life Sentences Husbands and Wives 73 CHAPTER 7 Three Cheers for Adultery CHAPTER 8 Sex, Please, but Hold the History and the Guilt Recreational Sex 98 CHAPTER 9 Sex Forbidden by Law, History and Politics The Illicit 115 CHAPTER 10 First Things Last Solo Sex 130 Exercises 143 About the Author 145 Index 146 It is a bawdy planet. — Shakespeare The Winter's Tale Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feelings, inventions, moods, [there are] no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine. — Anais Nin From a letter, reprinted in her diary, to the man paying her one dollar a page to write erotic stories. Anyone who attempts to render sexual experience directly must face the fact that the writhings which comprise it are ludicrous without their subjective content. — William Gass On Being Blue INTRODUCTION I was given permission to write about sex in my fiction long before I knew how badly I would need it. In my sophomore year at Barnard, three graduates returned one afternoon to tell us about their careers as writers. They spoke in a science lecture hall with the periodic table of the elements hanging behind them and me in the front row, hanging on their every word; even then I knew I wanted to do what they did. One was a perky blonde-haired poet with a Chinese name, class of '63, whose first novel was about to be published. I don't remember much of what she said that day in 1973, but of course I remember her name. Erica Jong. Several months later Fear of Flying erupted into all of our lives. On every page, Jong's saucy heroine Isadora Wing celebrated orgasms, infidelity, masturbation, and something truly revolutionary called "the Zipless Fuck," which happened when you met a man on a train, had sex with him right there, and never saw him again—or even wanted to! That women, nice girls with college degrees, thought these things, did these things, and said them in print—it is impossible to convey today how mind-boggling a notion this was for those of us raised, not so long ago, to believe we would be virgins when we got married. Jong's broadcast was a little like learning Nancy Reagan had consulted an astrologist about matters of state while she was First Lady. You have blundered through life thinking the world operates like this, and someone comes along and tells you that you are not even close. At nineteen, I didn't know enough about sex or writing to do much with the freedoms that were now mine for the taking, but I knew this was not business as usual-. I knew to pay attention to the uproar and upheaval that Jong and the women's movement had ignited. I knew there was something in it for me as a woman and as a writer. Women's rights and women's sexual pleasure were now front-page news, the nitty-gritty details debated passionately and publicly.

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