Comments on: How To Write Sex Scenes: The 12-Step Program

By: Robin C

Robin C — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:15:32 +0000

@ Kendra: Isn’t the notion that all it takes is one thrust from any warm and rigid penis to make a woman come more sexist than the concept that a pair of people engaged in the act may actually have to work to get each other off? As a woman who is in no way the type to cowtow to chauvanist prigs, I read this article and laughed out loud. Then I read your comment and sighed heavily, knowing that women who lack any sense of humor about themselves or others and believe that any type of joke about sexuality is a personal attack on women, is why all the comedy is left to the “heteronormative males”.

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:09:20 +0000

Wow that helped a lot, thank you! I needed some advice on my writings and that was really what i needed!!

By: Andi

Andi — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:05:04 +0000

This was really helpful, of course ever since I saw your reading at the University of Idaho I’ve taken your writing as like the bible. I really like your writing style. I actually wrote my Imitation essay imitation “Candy Freak”. Thanks for the great writing advice all around.

By: Sean Ferrell

Sean Ferrell — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:47:12 +0000

I had 12 orgasms while reading this, and then I had a 13th, bonus one.

May I be bold enough to suggest a 14th rule: Never name a character “Vans Deferens.”

By: Janet Hardy

Janet Hardy — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:24:33 +0000

As someone who reads dozens if not hundreds of sex manuscripts every year:

Yes on #3. In spades. I keep a running list of Bad Genital Euphemisms, which I will not reproduce here out of respect for the creators thereof — but suffice it to say that a) they’re appalling and b) nothing will make me chuck a manuscript in the general direction of a trash can faster.

No on #10. It’s OK if you’re aroused during the first draft, but if you’re still aroused by the third or fourth, your internal editor is living in the wrong part of your body. In fact, I’d change #10 to read: If it still turns you on, you haven’t been working on it long enough.

And an addition, which you hint at but don’t say explicitly: Step 14. If it doesn’t terrify you to write, you’re not digging deep enough. (That’s actually true of all personal writing, not just sex writing — but it’s especially true of sex writing.)

By: Chellis

Chellis — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:56:45 +0000

Steve Almond is hilarious. Def read his essay collection. And Stephen Elliott, why does it always have to be about money? With that said, I will also donate a $1 to The Rumpus to create the Print function.

By: Brian Spears

Brian Spears — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:32:00 +0000

Kendra,
I think what Steve was getting at was that in much “erotic” writing (i.e. Penthouse Letters and the like), women are generally depicted as being ready to explode at the merest touch of the penis, which is generally untrue. It’s also generally untrue of men. So when Steve says “it takes a long time to make a woman come,” he’s resisting the male fantasy tradition that all it takes is a guy getting his rod out, jamming into a woman, and she’s immediately in the throes of continuous orgasm. How is that sexist, latent or otherwise?

By: kendra grant malone

kendra grant malone — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:13:09 +0000

a lot of these steps really irritated me- the only worth noting was step 9, “It takes a long time to make a woman come.”

according to whom? the man who wrote this article? its opinions like this, expressed like this, from a male about a woman’s sexuality, as if it were fact, that are annoying. the author of this may not announce his orgasms, nor the women he fucks, but this generalization is really stupid. joke or not, i think most people can agree or at least recognize that most sexism is latent and this is a lovely example of just that. a man using his own experience to describe a woman’s orgasmic capacity as if it were a biological fact. as a woman, this is annoying to see on a website i frequently relate to and trust.

this column was just another example of boring heteronormative male middle american sexuality that media is already flooded with.

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:10:07 +0000

I didn’t love The Fermata, but maybe I would like it if I read it today. Human Smoke is one of my favorite books.

By: Catherine Lacey

Catherine Lacey — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:07:12 +0000

But in the Fermata by Nicholson Baker almost none of these rules apply and yet, somehow, it’s an awesome book.