The Sound of Silence???

[DeMont]

Good evening all,
As you've probably already guessed the ol' D brain is a strange and twisted labyrinth filled with convergent (and divergent) thought paths, dead ends, dark alleys and the like. That being said, I have a question. I was fixing a faucet set the other day, installing a new one, when the thought flew into my head, "Is there a glossary somewhere on language that is used during sex."

We have some wonderful treatments of the subject here already, that's true. Our dear colleague @onehitwanda with the essay "Painting With Soft Brush-Strokes", @dirk2024 who opened the can of worms in his post "Writing an orgasm" and @StillStunned who replied most eloquently and pointed the way to an invaluable resource about such.

Even yours truly made effort to weigh in as part of "50 ways to write about sex acts" and "The vocalising of sex"

However, to me the writing about such things is not, any longer, so much the difficulty of making each new scene for stories fresh, somewhat unique and appealing to readers but the use of words by the characters. What words, terms, phrases or yes, even sounds, make for a plausible, credible and reader friendly experience?
Ever respectfully,
D.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm not sure there's a universal answer to this question, unless it's "It depends on the story." It can be difficult to make a new sex scene feel new if you've written a dozen of them during the past six months, but that doesn't mean they're not all good.

As writers we probably fall back on our own preferred terminology - there have been plenty of discussions here about cock, dick, knob, shaft, pecker and more, and even more about lady bits. Is it hot to use vulgar terms, is it distracting to use biological names? Everyone's answer will be different, whether they're a writer or a reader.

Personally, I rarely make a conscious effort to make my descriptions seem fresh. Hopefully my scenarios at least are engaging, and then I just picture my characters in that scene. I try to make them human throughout, not just bodies having sex. They still have thoughts, and they still interact as people, and that creates a sense of intimacy. Small moments of realism make it more recognisable for the reader, too: a sudden squelch in the silence, or trying to spit out a pube that's caught on your tongue.

So I suppose that's my answer: don't try to make your sex scenes fresh, so much as human and engaging. Unless, of course, the story calls for a different approach.

 

[EmilyMiller]

To coin my previous phrase, there is a finite number of ways to write insert tab A into slut B (once more no typo). But you can have much more variety about the mental state of one or other of the protagonists. Not just physically what they are doing but emotionally what they are experiencing.

 

[lovecraft68]

The story makes the sex, not the other way around. Build it up, get the reader involved with the characters make them anticipate the sex to where they want it more than the characters. Once you deliver the sex scene the readers are more apt to enjoy it regardless of whether its 'standard' or you've tried to bend like a pretzel striving for something different. I'm not saying don't take it seriously but don't sweat it in advance.

I've bene doing this awhile and I have no idea how many sex scenes I've written. I've reached the point where I'm enjoying writing the story and when I think of the sex its "Yeah, have to do that again." But I don't stop, I keep writing and by the time I hit the sex scene it comes along fine because I want these people I've created to get what they want and get it good so then the time comes for them to come, it ends uo being fine because I've got myself and hopefully the reader ready for it.

If you don't cook it right, the meal's going to be shit.

 

[crookedletter]

There are only so many words, especially when it comes to body parts, and also most people's limited eloquence when in the throes of something intense (like sex). I don't think the trick is to come up with new words or new descriptions, necessarily, but to play with rhythms and varying sentence lengths and punctuation to punch up -- or punch down -- the intensity of what's going on. A sentence or a scene can be greater than the sum of its parts. It's in the way you tweak your words and your sentences to complement and contrast each other.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

I think what goes into a sex scene depends on A) the type of story and B) the type of sex. This does mean you will occasionally get people complaining about how you wrote a sex scene.

In my most recent story, One in Forty, the intercourse sex is three paragraphs. I got some complaints about that. That story is 15k words, I could have made it longer. However, I didn't because that story was about the journey, not the destination. From the moment that sex is inevitable to the first kiss is 700 words of mental foreplay and teasing. From the first kiss to the moment of penetration is 2200 words. Intercourse was the payoff, not the main course.
Two of the 17 comments on this story are bitching about how short the sex scene is. One of them helpfully pointed me a story that they thought I should emulate.

My story, Motivation, has 9 sex scenes in 40,000 words. The shortest one is, "They had sex on the couch for the first time since they'd bought the house ten years earlier." The longest one is a threesome scene in a brothel that is 8,000 words from the moment they meet the woman until they walk out the door. The language for each scene varies drastically. The first scene is the MMC lamenting his inability to perform in his 50's the way the way he did when he was in his 20's and weighed 120 pounds less than he does now. That language has to reflect that frustration and lack of satisfaction in himself.
The scene where he and his wife do anal for the first time in the 25 years they've been married has very different language to show the care he's taking.
When she gives him a tit job for the first time in years, it's written to be kind of funny.
When he's banging her good and hard and she calls him "Daddy" for the first time, the language changes right in the middle of the scene. His being rough is no longer about his satisfaction, it's about her fantasy.

 

[Britva415]

I'm not sure there's a universal answer to this question, unless it's "It depends on the story."

This and a hell of a lot of other questions.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Good evening all,
As you've probably already guessed the ol' D brain is a strange and twisted labyrinth filled with convergent (and divergent) thought paths, dead ends, dark alleys and the like. That being said, I have a question. I was fixing a faucet set the other day, installing a new one, when the thought flew into my head, "Is there a glossary somewhere on language that is used during sex."

We have some wonderful treatments of the subject here already, that's true. Our dear colleague @onehitwanda with the essay "Painting With Soft Brush-Strokes", @dirk2024 who opened the can of worms in his post "Writing an orgasm" and @StillStunned who replied most eloquently and pointed the way to an invaluable resource about such.

Even yours truly made effort to weigh in as part of "50 ways to write about sex acts" and "The vocalising of sex"

However, to me the writing about such things is not, any longer, so much the difficulty of making each new scene for stories fresh, somewhat unique and appealing to readers but the use of words by the characters. What words, terms, phrases or yes, even sounds, make for a plausible, credible and reader friendly experience?
Ever respectfully,
D.

Those words, however overused, need to come from your characters. I find it a lot more powerful to write how inserting tab A into slut B(per @EmilyMiller) feels to the characters, what emotions it elicits, what reactions it draws, than the physical description of any specific act.

 

[DeMont]

@StillStunned et al,
Bless yer li'l cotton socks everyone who responded. Much to muse over.

I came up with an idea to put into practice. I am going to write a scene, just a single scene from the moment the MC's walk through the bedroom door to the moment they exit stage left. Then I am going to try and write what happens in between as many different ways as I can think up. A stretch? maybe, a valuable exercise? Certainly.
Deepest respects all,
D.

 

[AG31]

@StillStunned et al,
Bless yer li'l cotton socks everyone who responded. Much to muse over.

I came up with an idea to put into practice. I am going to write a scene, just a single scene from the moment the MC's walk through the bedroom door to the moment they exit stage left. Then I am going to try and write what happens in between as many different ways as I can think up. A stretch? maybe, a valuable exercise? Certainly.
Deepest respects all,
D.

How about you publish your results? If very short, publish here. If, combined, they add up to more than 750 words, publish them as X Ways to Tell What Happened on the story side, maybe under Essays.