Sexual Language
The sexual tag words. Use them or not? When writing sex, there is no formula for this. It depends upon the voice and the narrative. Overt sexual language can work very well. For instance, in Requiem for a Dream or American Psycho, the language can be abrupt and coarse. In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman’s voice and aesthetic are a mix of raw sexuality and snobbery that is both ironic and darkly hilarious and completely misogynistic, and yet, it is self aware, socially satirical:
The next question I ask, after another long silence, is, “Did either of you go to college, and if so, where?”
The response to this question consists of a barely contained glare from each of them, and so I decide to take this as an opportunity to lead them into the bedroom, where I make Sabrina dance a little before taking off her clothes in front of Christie and me while every halogen bulb in the bedroom burns. I have her put on a Christian Dior lace and charmeuse teddy and then I take off all my clothes— except for a pair of Nike all-sport sneakers— and Christie eventually takes off the Ralph Lauren robe and is buck naked except for an Angela Cummings silk and latex scarf, which I knot carefully around her neck, and suede gloves by Gloria Jose from Bergdorf Goodman that I bought on sale.
Now the three of us are on the futon. Christie is on all fours facing the headboard, her ass raised high in the air, and I’m straddling her back as if I was riding a dog or something, but backward, my knees resting on the mattress, my dick half hard, and I’m facing Sabrina, who is staring into Christie’s spread-open ass with a determined expression. Her smile seems tortured and she’s wetting her own lips by fingering herself and tracing her glistening index finger across them, like she’s applying lip gloss…. (American Pyscho)
The language Ellis uses is jarring, aggressive, and yet, the juxtaposition of this language with Bateman’s suave and snobby persona presents a dark humor that builds satisfactorily. Does the sex scene titillate? Sure. It would probably titillate many readers. It would also turn off a number of readers for both its raw language and misogynistic portrayal of prostitution. But more importantly, the primary intentions of the scene are not to titillate. They are to reveal a satirical study of a psychopath and his use of women and how the women are complicit in this. Even when Bateman begins to cut and hurt them, they stay until he has paid them their money. The scene is sexual and aggressive and raw, but it is about so much more than the sex. Through writing sex, Ellis tells a framed satire of gender and violence.
On the flip side, Munro and Nabokov use a more subtle rendering of sex often marinated in ironies and charm.
Sexual Language and Voice
Both minimalism and overtness in sexual language can work. It is all about the voice of the work and the individual characters. If you are writing sex with overt and raw language without the ironic scene arc and internal sexual conflicts, your sex scene may likely become gratuitous, just as a violent horror scene without the ironies and internal conflicts can become gratuitous. Write essential and character-focused sex scenes. Your readers will thank you.
Course Materials
- Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 1969.
- Aronofsky, Darren. Requiem for a Dream. Film. 2000.
- Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. 1963.
- Chopra, Joyce. Smooth Talk. 1985.
- Cook, Fielder. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Film. 1979.
- Demme, Jonathan. Beloved. Film. 1998.
- Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. 1991.
- Ferber, Abby L., Kimberly Holcomb and Tre Wentling. Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics. 2016.
- Gaitskill, Mary. “Secretary.” Bad Behavior: Stories 2009.
- Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader. 2007.
- Harron, Mary. American Psycho. Film. 2000.
- Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 1937.
- Kubrick, Stanley. A Clockwork Orange. Film. 1972.
- Lyne, Adrian. Lolita. Film. 2013.
- Martin, Darnell. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 2005.
- Morrison. Toni. Beloved. 1987.
- Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Novel. Vintage, 1989.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” 1978.
- Paglia, Camille. Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism. 2017.
- Potter, Sally. Orlando. Film. 1992.
- Selby, Hubert Jr. Requiem for a Dream. Novel. 1978.
- Shainberg, Steven. “Secretary.” Film. 2000.
- Williams, Diane. Some Sexual Success Stories: Plus Other Stories in Which God Might Choose to Appear. 1992.
- Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. 1928.
SUGGESTED MATERIALS
- Burroway, Janet, Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Ned Stuckey-French. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft.
- Derrida, Jacques. “Cogito et Histoire de la Folie.” 1963.
- Harmon, William. A Handbook to Literature. 2011.
- Kandel, Eric. The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. 2012.
- National Institute of Mental Health. Cognitive Neuropsychology Section, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition.
- O’Conner, Patricia T. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English.
- Puchner, Martin et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature.
- Rosen, Gideon and Alex Byrne. The Norton Introduction to Philosophy.
- Shawl, Nisi and Cynthia Ward. Writing the Other.
- Stevenson, Angus and Christine A. Lindberg. New Oxford American Dictionary.
- Strunk, William. The Elements of Style.
- Truss, Lynne. Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.
Contributing Faculty
Rae Bryant is the author of the short story collection, The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals. Her fiction, prose-poetry and essays have appeared in print and online at The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, Diagram, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney’s, New World Writing, Gargoyle Magazine, and Redivider, among other publications and have been nominated for the Pen/Hemingway, Pen Emerging Writers, &NOW Award and Pushcart Prize. She has won awards in fiction from Whidbey Writers and The Johns Hopkins University. She earned a Masters in Writing from Hopkins where she continues to teach creative writing and is editor in chief of The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. She has also taught in the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa. She is represented by Jennifer Carlson of Dunow, Carlson and Lerner.
One on One Creative Writing Workshop
If you would like to share your narrative, post it to the discussion board below and share it with your course peers. If you end up expanding this narrative into a fuller work and would like written, individualized feedback on it, we invite you to join us for a One on One Creative Writing Workshop.