Jumpstart Writing Sex: A Fresh Mindset, Perspective, and Craft Tools

In writing sex, whether in scenes or threaded throughout your story, to get maximum impact, it takes a type of sex education most people never get. As a writer, you may be a natural-born storyteller and have intuited lots of information in your world about your characters. But what if you also used sex information that provided depth and created holistic characters?

As a sex educator and therapist, I see what people miss in their writing. So I ask questions. I created one poll and started there. As you can see below, “Myself” was the answer to what stops you from writing scenes with sex.

The individual and what we are made of is always the reason, but if we can find out more about it, then we can overcome it. Because when we do, we can add layering to our characters, including sexual components.

Sometimes writers don’t know what they don’t know. That is especially true in our everyday lives with sex. Who taught us to evaluate and review our thinking and behavior regarding sex? We carry extra information that might get wired into the story unintentionally. So we might have an inkling that we are missing something, but we don’t know what that is.

Above all, by learning new information in mindset, perspective, and craft, you can become a confident sex writer.

---

---

To aid writers in this quest, I created an article that discussed five elements that I believe can transform your sex writing in mindset, perspective, and craft.

Mindset for Writing Sex

As an author, do you ask: Can I do this?

Will they ridicule me? Will they judge me?

Do I sit in terror of writing sex like Monica Ali, a bestselling novelist with her debut novel, Brick Lane, shortlisted for the Booker Prize? Do I suffer in silence because I don’t think I should talk about it?

These questions show that Mindset lives in you, the person of the author. It’s the “Myself” addressed in the poll. Mindset is a great place to evaluate your thinking before you write.

Are you in a “can do” or “can’t do” mindset? Can you separate yourself out from your characters and have clear boundaries? Do you have a strong enough self to make these rational choices?

Some folks said they didn’t know what keeps them from writing. They may not because most of us haven’t learned in our real-life worlds how to self-reflect and assess our sexuality. We do not pause and evaluate our wants and desires as a credible and clear standing thing. But we may have a clear sense that it is us, the individual person, who stops the process, whether we understand the reasons.

Perspective on Sex Writing

I continue to say, when we write, we teach whether we intend to or not. For me, it is an ethical thing as a sex educator who is a writer. I support “factually accurate” and “fictionally realistic” sex writing. I’ve heard so many students say that novels taught them. I hope to help you create a new curriculum that helps alleviate misinformation and myths.

In life, we each get sexual messages or scripts about how to be in the world. How to behave. We take our experiences with the world and attempt to put them into the character. But they might not fit with the character you are creating.

But if we take the creation of character and add their holistic component, then the way you portray sex can include a lot of depth. Affection. Intimacy. Gender roles. Etc. We can weave all of this into how we experience the character and make them multi-dimensional.

Craft Tools

What words do I use in the scene with sex? How do I describe it? Most people are so concerned with how to describe the body parts and movements, they forget that there is meaning to the actions. I call this putting the cart before the horse. That is worrying about the physical details without knowing the meaning of the sex in the scene.

If you stay with the why of sex in the scene, the type of physical sex that reflects the meaning, (i.e. love, anticipation, joy, lust,) and the amount of “glue” of it, then you give the readers a true connection to the character.

Sometimes writers forget it is always about the character’s wants and needs and how they get met or don’t. Whether or not the obstacles they must overcome are directly related to some aspect of their sexuality.

If you have considered your character a sexual person from the beginning of your story, you can layer in many things about their movements, based on motivations, desire, history, etc. We must anchor sex like a thread starting a tapestry. It must be there to use.

And when it is there, we wrap the emotional glue around it and bring it forward in a physical embodiment.

---

---

Take-Aways

In conclusion, start with yourself before you write sex.

Clarify your mindset.

Set the perspective to work from.

Delve deep into character development that includes sexuality. Then you have meaning to bring sex alive.

Writing can be a two-part process of transformation. For you and for your characters.