How PEMS Sexual Intimacy Shapes Your Characters

#5 FWSG Blog Series

PEMS Sexual Intimacy is this week’s topic in the Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Blog Series. If this is your first read in the series I’m highlighting content from my upcoming release, The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide, you can look here.

I want to introduce you and help you understand the complex interplay of PEMS in sexual intimacy, its implications for personal growth and storytelling, and practical advice on weaving these elements into compelling character narratives. It begins by considering the bigger picture of sexuality for your characters, understanding how sexuality is an integral part of your story, and then delving deeper into your characters to explore how they experience sexuality in their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects.

Understanding PEMS and Its Role in Sexual Intimacy

When any sexual event has happened for you personally and for your character, it registers in four areas of your body: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. This will always have the component of what has happened before during sexual explorations. The responses in these areas inform what is going to happen next. Since these will live in memories, you will get them from investigation and choose the perfect ones to highlight in your story.

What does that look like in the example form?

A 21-year-old woman was in a dressing room, full door and forgot to lock the door. While trying on a two-piece bathing suit, the woman was naked in the dressing room, and someone opened the door, catching sight of her. The person quickly closed the door and apologized.

This is an event that will register in the four areas of the body.

Physical: How she responds may be based on who the person is. Male, Female, Older, Younger. Known, unknown. Who the person is may determine her attraction or lack thereof.

Emotional: Shame. Guilt. Excitement? The emotional response may also connect to physical, mental, or spiritual factors. How does the emotion set the stage for holding the event with meaning?

Mental: Her thoughts about the event. Was it an accident? Her part in not locking the door. Did she have an interest in the person who opened the door? Nudity is no big deal.

Spiritual: Destiny. Fate. Character Building.

You can see that the responses in all the areas depend on many factors. Who, what, when, where, how, and why. When you change the elements, the responses are different. As a writer, the more you know about the character in the context of your sexuality threaded through your story, the deeper you have brought inside the reader.

The Integration of PEMS Sexual Intimacy in Character Development and Storytelling

Your story characters will have a lifetime of events that shape their responses in all four PEMS areas. When you look at this, you see which area is the strongest or weakest. How they typically respond to situations and how you can consider this as valuable material to work with in adding more meat to the character bones.

You could also consider this idea for yourself. When was the last sexual thing you experienced? It might be a physical event experience, an emotional response to a conversation, a mental thought processing anything in the what did that mean category, or asking yourself how something is connected to the divine or spiritual. This is a circular frame. It can start at any point. If you can work on these points in your life, you’ll have no trouble doing this for characters.

In Sum

In this week’s entry of the Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Blog Series, we delved into the nuanced realm of PEMS Intimacy, aiming to unravel the intricate dance between physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions in sexual experiences. By examining a personal anecdote, we see how a single event—like an unexpected intrusion in a dressing room—can evoke a spectrum of responses across these four domains, influenced by the context and the individuals involved.

This exploration not only enriches our understanding of character development but also offers a mirror to our own multifaceted experiences of sexuality. Through this lens, we learn to craft more layered and resonant narratives, ensuring our characters’ sexual journeys reflect the complexity of real human emotions and experiences. By integrating PEMS into our storytelling, we add depth to our characters and invite readers to engage with our stories more profoundly, seeing pieces of their own PEMS journeys reflected in the characters we create.