"Come over here, Sugar - and type me something sexy."

In my sophomore year at NYU, I was writing a feature screenplay that required two types of scenes that I had never written before – the fight sequence and the sex scene.  Since I had less experience in the former, I decided to tackle it first (ha) and get it over with.  The fight sequence turned out to be incredibly detailed.  It was different, interesting and moved the story forward.  I proudly brought it into class that week and we did a read-through of the scene.  My predominantly red-blooded, action-movie-loving, male classmates really got into it.  They physically reenacted the scenes and asked me if personal experience inspired any of it.  I shared the story of the one fight I had ever been in: at thirteen, a girl slapped me across the face with a spoonful of ice cream to impress the boy she liked.  Long story short, I won the fight and we were banned from our local Häagen-Dazs.

Armed with the confidence that my classmates had given me, I returned home to write what I thought was the easier half of the ordeal – the sex scene.  After typing hours worth of blush-worthy, shuddery scenarios and being overly conscious that my classmates may associate what I wrote with my personal experience (or try to reenact it), I ultimately rejected it all and opted to have my characters simply enter a bedroom and shut the door.  I know… I totally wussed out.  I rationalized that implication and cliché was the way to go.  A screenwriter or even a playwright writes with the knowledge that their work will be seen.  If your actors are hot enough, who cares that the sex is clichéd?

So what does sex look like as a novelist? Read more »