Let's start with the initial sentence-diagramming question: What or whom are we talking about? A physical act that, putting aside its thrills, is not in itself all that interesting to describe. This is true of most routine physical acts. There really isn't much to say about eating or drinking or walking. And writers never feel obliged to go into great detail about how a character walks - unless, of course, the character has trouble walking because of a limp or something. If all goes well in the bedroom there isn't much to write about. Missteps can provide material, but usually of a comic nature.
The erotic is what goes on in the imagination that stirs the sexual drive. It isn't the mechanics of the act itself. Sex in modern fiction is an exact counterpart to the sentimentality iofVictorian fiction. And by the way, Donne's poems tend to be matter-of-fact and even rather coarse when it comes to sex. Consider this:
Practice may make her know some other part ;
But take my word, she doth not know a heart.
Or this:
And then poor aspen wretch, neglected thou,
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
A verier ghost than I.
Not my idea of erotic.
Practice may make her know some other part ;
But take my word, she doth not know a heart.
Or this:
And then poor aspen wretch, neglected thou,
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
A verier ghost than I.
Not my idea of erotic.
I'll tell you, this isn't erotic writing by any means, but I just read Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, and his descriptions of the pain that woman felt anticipating her wedding night, and the absolute disaster that night turned out to be, were so accurate I kept shrieking and having to look away. This is a rare case where sex itself is excruciatingly detailed AND very well done. But this is probably in part due to the fact that he wasn't trying to stir erotic feelings in the reader. Eesh, quite the opposite actually.
ReplyDeleteThe Better Maker originally had some graphic sex. i cut it all out on one of my dozens of subsequent edits when i realised it was more powerful to just allude to it, at most sketching a suggestion. And to be honest it was just plain bad, i'm so glad i cut it out now.
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