Men write literature; women write erotica

As a woman, writing sex at all is weighted with complexity. Nearly a century after DH Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover, two categories of writing about sex still appear to pertain. If a man writes sexually explicit passages in a novel, it may still be classified as ‘literature’; whilst if a woman includes sex scenes, her work is immediately labelled ‘erotica’, dismissed and diminished within genre.

A good example is the difference with which the works of Henry Miller and Anais Nin are regarded — Miller is seen as a significant novelist, whilst Nin’s work is categorized and reduced to the erotic. So ladies, if what you want is serious accolades, confine your sex scenes to delicate euphemism.

If you decide to throw your reputation to the wind and attempt something honest, the second problem is that one person’s erotic is another person’s comic. The British magazine The Literary Review awards an annual ‘Bad Sex’ prize which has become something of an institution. Judges select a literary novel which is marred by poorly written sex scenes. At the ceremony, the offending passages are read out by actors, with painfully hilarious results.

So when I set about writing my thrillers Maestra and its sequel Domina, I didn’t consciously wish to produce something that could be classified as erotic. Sex is an important part of the characterisation and plot of the books, and the brief I gave myself was simply to write about the things that adults do in the words that adults use. The sex had to be integrated into the novel rather than a periodic interruption to the narrative; it was important that the scenes served something beyond potential titillation by giving insight into the characters.

Another problem with much erotic writing, I think, is that the sex is too good. Not all sex results in earth-shattering orgasms. It can be delicious or dull, comic and complicated — squalid and ugly, as well as revelatory and blissful. Sometimes all in the same encounter.

I wanted the sex in my books to feel contemporary, so I looked online. It surprises me that sex in books so often seems to lag behind what’s happening in the real world. Like it or not, we do live in a culture where porn is available 24/7 and the internet is where a whole generation have come of age sexually. In terms of vocabulary, particularly, it’s important to consider what terms people are actually using — to me it’s curious that an up-to-date novel should turn all coy and Victorian at the sex scenes.

However, there’s no obligation to be explicit for the sake of it — if the writer is wincing, the reader will too. There’s a balance between the kind of language which will transport readers convincingly into the imagined erotic moment and the kind of realism which can quickly descend into crudity. I’m not afraid of explicit terminology, but I steer away from ‘porn-speak’.

I often liken sex scenes to battle scenes in my historical non-fiction work. To describe a battle well one has to have an overview of many physical entities engaged in the same goal simultaneously. So choreography is important — for one scene in Domina I had to ask four friends (clothed, I hasten to add!) to arrange themselves in the scene I had imagined to confirm that the contortions were plausible.

I don’t consider myself mistress of erotic writing (for that, read the great work of art which is Pauline Reage’s Histoire d’O), but perhaps the best advice I can give to aspiring erotic writers is: Have fun! This is imaginary sex, fantasy sex, which should hopefully be as pleasurable to write as it is to read.

Domina is published by Bloomsbury India, and is available for Rs 247