Who writes good sex scenes? (literary fiction only)

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Which authors write great sex scenes that aren't gratuitous and that add to the reader's understanding of the story and character?

For me, I've always enjoyed the way Martin Amis writes about sex. And Paul Theroux is not bad.

― Zed, Monday, 9 February 2004 07:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't recall the last time I read a decently crafted sex scene in something that I'd consider to be literary.

For faux-literary, though, Jean M. Auel's The Valley of the Horses and assorted other's in that series are pretty creative. Also pretentious and bordering on being too mushy.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

When you say "literary fiction only", it makes me wonder whether a "sex scene" can be literary. In other words, if it sets out to titillate, it becomes erotica or porn. If it's just a good scene, then there will be more to it than the sex. There is an excellent chapter describing two young people having sex in "Daniel Martin" by John Fowles.

― R the bunged up with jollop of V (Jake Proudlock), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Writing about sex always gets me going, no matter how bad it is! I have to skip over these sections if I'm on the bus, or at least put my bag on my lap.

There's a book by Nick Danzinger where he travels through Afghanistan. He gets jumped by a woman and 'taken to bed'. It was really unexpected and very erotic.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, the sex scenes in Being Dead were pretty effective in developing the characters and the storyline - lots of insight into the participants and all of that. Not very arousing, though (at least to my jaded libido).

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Steve Almond's "My Life in Heavy Metal" (short story collection, not memoir, so don't worry) is built mostly around sex. He writes pretty good scenes, although some of my favorite stories by him are not in that collection.

― Jessa (Jessa), Monday, 9 February 2004 19:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Dennis Cooper hands down writes the best sex scenes.

― Joseph Webb, Monday, 9 February 2004 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Nicholson Baker?

― Prude (Prude), Monday, 9 February 2004 20:00 (twenty-two years ago)

apparently, Bill O'Reilly's pretty good.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Monday, 9 February 2004 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Ondaatje!

― Leee Majors (Leee), Monday, 9 February 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I think M.J. Rose writes the best sex scenes of almost any contemporary novelists. Read her first novel, Lip Service, and still remember it.

― DougS, Thursday, 12 February 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Aw, get off your high horses. The best sex scenes are written by women novelists in commercial fiction. Whether you like it hot, sweet, sentimental, or S & M, the most creative stuff is being done outside the teensy, dried-up world of so-called "serious" fiction, which primarily focuses on the bizarre and perverse.

― deb smith, Thursday, 12 February 2004 21:22 (twenty-two years ago)

"serious" writers should read a little more jackie collins. some literary novels have sex scenes that read more like the owners manual that came with my dvd player.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 12 February 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

James Salter writes great sex scenes. "A Sport And A Pasttime" has little else in it but beautifully written sex scenes. But then James Salter writes beautifully about everything he writes about.....

― David Nolan (David N.), Thursday, 12 February 2004 22:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Steve Almond is getting to be as prolific as Joyce Carol Oates when it comes to publishing short fiction; while I enjoy much of his work, it is quite hit and miss.

Please everyone share your opinions of:

Marguerite Duras
Milan Kundera
Mary Gaitskill
Anais Nin
Henry Miller
D.H. Lawrence

― Ryan McKay (Ryan McKay), Friday, 13 February 2004 07:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Sex is all well and sometimes even good, it's more difficult for me to find books about love that aren't all sentimentally squishy. MickeyG, are you going to give up the title of the book by Danzinger you mentioned above?

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 15 February 2004 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's called Danziger's Travels - Beyond Forbidden Frontiers. It's his book on Afghanistan before it was blown up.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Monday, 16 February 2004 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Grazie, MickeyG. I'm off to look for it now ;)

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Monday, 16 February 2004 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope it makes you feel, er, nice. If it's really boring, feel free to humiliate me online. Like I say, any old thing gets me going.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Monday, 16 February 2004 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Humilation online is beyond infantile, MickeyG, I refuse to play it. I'm sure the read will be, if nothing else, an interesting new read for me. Thanks ;)

Sarah Waters has always been an excellent read for erotic scenes...

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Monday, 16 February 2004 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

virginia andrews.

― queen gwarrrrrr, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 08:14 (twenty-two years ago)

yesabibliophile, my name is MikeyG. MickeyG is my thuggish understudy.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Oops, my apologies MikeyG! Well, I guess I could verbally eviscerate your understudy if the Danziger is a less than satisfactory read ;)

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 02:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I've always gotten randier for the really subliminated, other-stuff-as-sex-substitutes old-fashioned or sci-fi things...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 03:45 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Thomas Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow!

― Glenn Davis, Thursday, 4 March 2004 04:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Personally, I enjoy my own written descriptions of sex.

hehehe ...

― Margo B99, Thursday, 4 March 2004 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Why read or even write about sex? Film it. Get with the modern age!

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

How can you film it if you're not doing it? I guess you can always break into your neighbor's house to film them but I can tell you for a fact that that's illegal and you can go to jail for it.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Thursday, 4 March 2004 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I know I'm gonna catch a raft of shit for this, but I happen to really love the stupid ridiculous over-the-top four-way orgy in Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew. It's not really supposed to be sexy, and exists just to parody every single kind of sex writing from Victorian Pearl-ery to modern straightforward Playboy bullshit, something telegraphed in the fact that the outfits keep changing color and the various acts couldn't possibly ever happen physically...but I still kinda think it's hot anyway.

So I'm a sick freak, so sue me. Wait, don't.

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Thursday, 4 March 2004 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

three weeks pass...

Anais Nin's Delta of Venus is pretty good.

― Moti Bahat, Friday, 26 March 2004 18:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I just picked up Erica Jong's Fear of Flying. [blushing] And that's all I have to say about that.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 26 March 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Just about any Jong is sexing up, VG. [not blushing] :D Although I never read those aloud to any lovers/husbands.

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Friday, 26 March 2004 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

...of course, you know I meant "good sexing up" - oy... I need more beer.

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Friday, 26 March 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I am very happy someone else has asked this question (where to find good books with beautiful sex scenes) and i am reading all the replies with great interest. Personally, i have always loved the sex scenes in Dan Simmons' books (science fiction and horror, but very well written). He also gives beautiful descriptions of how his characters look and the sex scenes always take place in a loving and passionate atmosphere. He likes different positions (woman on top, man on top and others). My favorites are Hyperion, Carrion comfort and Children of the night.

― Rik Van der Vloet, Sunday, 28 March 2004 16:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Last year i also read The buddha of suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. The book is about a young Pakistani growing up in London and contains several sex scenes which i found good and very realistic.

― Rik Van der Vloet, Sunday, 28 March 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I discovered Terry Southern's "Candy" as a teenager, and even though the sex is parodic and grotesque (thinking in particular of the humpback scene), it was enough to fuel my adolescent imaginings. (Of course, getting a 15-year-old boy going isn't much of a feat.) Pretty funny book, if a little dated at this point.

― spittle (spittle), Monday, 29 March 2004 06:25 (twenty-one years ago)

It might be because I'm female or it might be just me, but I find sex as written by Milan Kundera, DH Lawrence, Henry Miller and Martin Amis completely alienating, unerotic and unconvincing.

But the first GOOD sex writers that spring to my mind are men too: Daniel Handler, Federico Andahazi, JG Ballard (well not sure about him actually in terms of the writing's QUALITY, but it, er, does the job).

And Jean Auel, Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins between them constituted my adolescent sex life, so yay for them whatever their literary calibre...

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 29 March 2004 11:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Last week i read In the cut by Susanna Moore - the book was recently filmed by Jane Campion, starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo. It was a pretty good book, with interesting sex scenes (sometimes a bit raw though) and also a lot of slang talk about sex. There is one thing i must warn you about : unlike the film, the book does not have a happy ending.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Saturday, 3 April 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Archel -- Ha ha, I was a kiddie Cavewoman junkie too -- I remember being embarrassed by how bad I knew Jean Auel was even then -- not that I didn't carry other bad books around but I kept thinking "people MUST know I'm reading this for one reason and one reason ONLY..." I mean, if it weren't for the sex what about those books WASN'T boring?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 5 April 2004 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Handler's sex scenes = 'Watch Your Mouth'? Wow. Gosh. Lots. Many. Detail. Squelch. (That said, I read it when I was a twee virgin, it might just have been the repression talkin')...

(They are re-releasin' it with "By the author of the Lemony Snicket books" on the cover, which is kind of hilariously inappropriate and offensive).

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 03:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I know! I got that edition from the library and once I'd read it I was like 'please shelve this FAR FAR AWAY from where pre-teen Lemony Snicket fans might possibly even accidentally see it.' What were they thinking? Blimey.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 08:36 (twenty-one years ago)

[obvious]Marquis de Sade[/obvious]

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 6 April 2004 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous ( Nikki Gemmell - Oz chick lit)
... is notable for the way it traces the moral corruption of its main character as, betrayed and bored, she sells her soul for sexual pleasure.
oooeeerrrr!

― kath (kath), Thursday, 8 April 2004 17:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't believe someone mentioned Candy, I too discovered it when I was about 14 - I used to read the sex scenes every time I went to the library, at least twice a week! Kept me pure for years though

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Thursday, 8 April 2004 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

D. H. Lawrence

― matilde s, Friday, 9 April 2004 07:23 (twenty-one years ago)

The critics are all very enthousiastic about the sex scenes in Jane Smiley's Good faith : earthy, detailed and joyful / terrific / ravishing etc. are their comments. Jane Smiley has been married 3 times, so she has plenty of experience to narrate from... I haven't read the book yet, but if i do i will let you know what it's like.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Thursday, 22 April 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Quentin Crisp: 'When you shoot at someone, he cannot be relied upon to die at once ... The same is true of fictional treatment of sexual encounters. In real life, they are seldom accompanied by violin music ... The nastiness of your opponent's body is not redeemed by being in soft focus.'

Not that I agree about people's bodies being nasty, but I love the
'opponent' use

― . (...), Friday, 23 April 2004 05:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Gravity's Rainbow is mauled and mangled to death by its surfeit of sex scenes; as well as by its other damaging flaws, I suppose.

― the blissfox, Friday, 23 April 2004 13:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I know people are going to disagree with me on this but I have to say Philip Roth. They're usually not sexy sex scenes but they are so intense that I find myself re-reading them in the library on occasion, just scanning for the dirty bits. I'm thinking more along the lines of The Breast and less along the lines of Portnoy's Complaint.

― Claire (Claire Miccio), Friday, 23 April 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

four weeks pass...

As promised i read Jane Smiley's "Good Faith". I think it's a terrific book, very pleasant to read, and with eight detailed sex scenes plus some mentionings of sex. The sex scenes are all very hot, loving and beautiful - i've never seen an author before who could so well describe the "act of love" between two people who are crazy about each other. The one thing i regret is that nearly all the sex takes place in the missionary position and the girl is never on top. That's a shame!

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Friday, 21 May 2004 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Scott Spencer's Endless Love has, for my money, the best sex scene out there. There are a bunch of brief ones throughout, but I'm talking about the fifty pager (could my memory possibly be right?) in the hotel when David and Jade have first reunited. Nothing soft focus about it - so vivid as to be practically hallucinatory.

― David Elinsky, Saturday, 22 May 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I know this has been said already, but Daniel Handler's Watch Your Mouth is absolutely fantastic. Part one is a sort of incest opera soaked in black humour and with lots of magnificent, lustful sex scenes (all kinds of tricks and positions, like a walk in seventh heaven). Along with Good Faith (Jane Smiley) these are my favorite sex scenes... Part two is far less interesting (and sexy), but this is definitely one of the best books i've ever read. Thanks for the tip, you all!

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Sunday, 23 May 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I found the sex scenes in Mark Manning & Bill Drummond's "Bad Wisdom" both very arousing and true to life.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings has quite a few sex scenes in it. The gay stuff wasn't really my thing, but the encounters between the Egyptian queen and her young lover are hot enough and all the adultry of the Egyptian gods among each other is both amusing and exciting.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Friday, 28 May 2004 16:05 (twenty-one years ago)

years ago I was given a manuscript to edit.

The sex scene went as follows:

"They took their clothes off.
They did it.
They put their clothes back on."

― clellie, Friday, 28 May 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

J.G. Ballard's novels Crash (1973) and The Kindness of Women (1991) are both very rich in sex scenes. Ballard writes pretty inventive stories and his sex scenes are extremely detailed and graphic, but for my taste they are a bit too pornographic and they also lack feeling - i prefer reading about sex between two people who really love each other.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't Mark Manning Zodiac Mindwarp, DV?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

clellie, a manuscript to edit? Are you a publisher or something? If I were a publisher I would publish the script. Absurd, yes, and were funny.
Last years most talked about book in Denmark was by a female debutant, Jette Kaarsbøl. She recieved a lot of attention, due to some nasty tricks in her novel. The book is a lovestory and quite long. When we finally reach the sex scene the writer simply skips it!!! In stead of the sex scene, she just writes a few lines, saying that what they do in bed is their own business and of no concern to the reader.

― Jens Drejer (Jens Drejer), Monday, 14 June 2004 01:17 (twenty-one years ago)

She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of the old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa -- and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and the improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty -- between my gagged, bursting beasst and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock. Under my glancing finger tips I felt the minute hairs bristle ever so slightly along her shins. I lost myself in the pungent but healthy heat with like summer haze hung about little Haze. Let her stay, let her stay...

How has this thread gone on for four months without Lolita?

― spittle (spittle), Saturday, 19 June 2004 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

David Elinsky, thank you VERY much for the tip !!! Scott Spencer's Endless Love is not only a very moving and beautiful book on the pure and powerful love between two teenagers but it also contains the greatest (that is, the hottest, sexiest, most beautiful and most explicit) sex scene i have read so far (and somehow i think it's going to stay that way). This long scene (over 30 pages) has everyting i have always wanted : the love, the passion, the lust and even the shifting of positions i find so important. This may well be the "ultimate" sex scene. I am very glad to have discovered this book.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

After giving it some thought i decided that my favorite sex scenes are in Watch Your Mouth (Daniel Handler), so not Scott Spencer and definitely not Jane Smiley. Just wanted to make that clear.

But it's not just novels that contain great sex scenes. I just finished a compilation of erotic short stories (The Erotic Edge, edited by Lonnie Barbach) and i was amazed at the quality of some stories. Especially The Sacred Harlot by Kim Chernin has made a deep impression on me - it has an atmosphere of pure and ancient sexuality which is almost paranormal. Some of the other stories are very good too (hot, passionate and explicit).

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Sunday, 25 July 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Can I get an Updike?

― antexit (antexit), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

can a brother get Nadine Gordimer

― Brotherman, Friday, 30 July 2004 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

As i remember there's a brilliant one in "The Innocent" by Ian McEwan

― Wooden (Wooden), Friday, 30 July 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Give the lady a Pulitzer.

http://www.nerve.com/fiction/anderson/flowerduet/

― henry house, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Steve Almond in My Life in Heavy Metal: he writes about booty like a food critic writes about eating at the French Laundry

― donald, Thursday, 12 August 2004 02:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Almond's excellent in "Candyfreak" too, donald. I'm going to go check out MLHM tonight.

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Thursday, 12 August 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Re: Henry's link: Delibes has just rolled over in his grave.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 12 August 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anyone read this yet?

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 13 August 2004 06:51 (twenty-one years ago)

no but I'm gonna!

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Friday, 13 August 2004 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha. Me too!

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 13 August 2004 12:19 (twenty-one years ago)

No, but I plan to now, Archel!

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Monday, 16 August 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

Clive Barker's 1985 horror novel The Damnation Game contains a fairly long and graphic woman-on-top sex scene in which the two main characters (an ex-convict and a drug-addicted girl) try to get rid of an evil spirit which is haunting them by having sex. Cool !

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

The erotic novel "K : the art of love" by female Chinese author Hong Ying contains several nice sex scenes in a tantric and taoist atmosphere. Very refreshing indeed and each love scene helps to develop the relationship between the two protagonists who are drawn towards each other by fate and destiny.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Sunday, 7 November 2004 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

Helen Walsh is a 26 year old british writer. Like Millie, the main character in her 2004 debut novel "Brass", she is bisexual. Everyone agrees that her book is brilliant - it is based upon her own experiences as a teenager when she grew up in Liverpool. Her alter ego Millie is a beautiful girl who likes drugs, alcohol and rough sex. She is easy to identify with, mainly because her personality and her adventures are described in a way so captivating and true to life. The sex scenes in the book - three lesbian ones and two straight ones - are sheer pornography but so beautifully written you have no choice but to love them.

― Rik Van der Vloet (Rik Van der Vloet), Friday, 11 March 2005 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

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