A Time for Andirons

Love is in the air. How do you feel about writing sex scenes in crime fiction? Give a sample of your favorite love or romance scene from your own work and tell us your method for handling these relationships.

 

I don’t like writing sex scenes. Blame it on men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. Women baffle men, and men amuse and frustrate women. No wonder men like Harry Burns stared at the ceiling wondering how long he has to hold her before he can leave to clean his andirons. Confession: I didn’t know what andirons were when I first saw the movie When Harry Met Sally.  

            Men write sex scenes badly. John Irving has won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award several times. It’s an award for those godawful carnal howlers between the pages and for its gentle torment of the recipient. I’m convinced that location plays a part. James Frey received his award at the In & Out (Naval & Military) Club in St James’s Square, London, where 400 guests raised a toast to the winner.

            A writer is faced with two choices when it comes to writing sex.

            Write the physical, and get graphic, including all the squishy details, or write the emotional, which almost always sounds pretentious and unrealistic. In real life, the physical is often mumbles and fumbles and anxiety for both parties. I think this is why some men are self-deprecating about the bedroom. Again, I think of Harry Burns saying that his mother, disguised as an east German judge, awarded him a 5.5 for the dismount.

            Oh, and there are the descriptions. I’ll never forget Sylvia Plath describing her first time seeing bits in The Bell Jar. She described them as ‘turkey neck and turkey gizzards.’

Sex is powerful. I remember an interview with punk rocker Iggy Pop, where he described his first time. He says she was older than him, and did all ‘the work.’ What made me laugh, however, was how he described riding home…wait for it…on his bicycle, totally discombobulated, enough so that he was hit by a car, rolled off the engine and laid on the ground in the mist of post-coital daze.

           Call it puerile humor, but I hear the word ‘moist’ every time Sheldon Cooper in Big Bang says, ‘coitus.’ I think of Sir Thomas Beecham’s comparing a certain musical instrument to sex: “The sound of a harpsichord – two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.”

            As for sex in literature, there is a broad swath for quality across the centuries. No guy ever believed Letters to Penthouse were real, and I’m certain most young ladies know the reality of ‘relations’ is like Ray Romano trying every trick in the book to get seven seconds of dubious pleasure with his wife Debra; the inference is she could only dream of seven minutes in heaven. Life has its disappointments and funny moments, such as objects in the mirror are closer and smaller than they appear. I’ll say nothing about Sally’s deli scene.

What baffles me is readers don’t seem to mind awful violence, but not sex. Say ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ or put Mr. Whiskers in danger once in your manuscript, and the torches and pitchforks come out. Combine sex with religion, and especially with some profanity, the writer rides the rails to the land of one-star reviews. There is no clean way to write sex. I write sex in crime fiction, but I try not to make sex a crime.

Films from the Thirties helped me because there is plenty of subtext in dialog, and there are visuals to intimate sex and other adult behavior. Studios then had to tiptoe around the Hays Code, which stayed on the books until 1968. The fact that the Code existed implies Americans had sex on the brain. Abortion, gender fluidity, infidelity, prostitution, etc. were all there on the silver screen. We like to think we are hip, modern, and progressive.

We’re not. All we did was find new words for old behavior.

            In my noir landscapes, sex is often positive, recreational, or a means to leverage an advantage. In this excerpt from my Naming Game, Leslie, using the alias Maggie, and her future lover Vera talk about men; it’s assumed that society is stacked against women. There is a scene later where they visit a lesbian bar in West Hollywood. It’s 1951, but little has changed as to how people play to each other’s assumptions and fragile egos. Life is short, so have a laugh, enjoy yourself, and don’t forget your andirons in the morning.

“I’m not trying to down you or tell you what to do, Maggie. You’re your own woman. Do what you want. You’re young and you’re holding the deck of cards. Take it from me, you’re holding aces.”

“You’re not exactly retired,”

The coffee was ready and Vera poured.

“I might not be Miss Haversham, but I didn’t marry a Thalberg to secure my future.”

“You seem to do just fine.”

“All I’m saying, Maggie, is use men before they use you. Men talk. Learn to listen. Phillip is a talker. He doesn’t seem like it now but he’ll talk. He’s just a little shy boy. Mother him a little. The problem right now is you intimidate him.”

“I intimidate him?”

“Honey, you haven’t seen his other secretaries.”

“You think Phillip will open up more?”

“I do. Give it time. But be ready to be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yep.” Vera stopped for a sip. Leslie did the same. The coffee was strong. “Phillip is like the winter weather report. You hear all the hype in the forecast. When the storm happens, all you get is a few inches that’ll leave you wondering if it was worth all the publicity.”