…and the other one is playing a piano.

Alanis Morissette gets beaten up a lot over her 1995 hit, Ironic, which lists several ironic things (like a black fly in your Chardonnay, or the good advice that you just didn’t take) which just… well, aren’t. Ironic, that is. I’m going to give Alanis a pass on Ironic, though. (She’ll be pleased to hear that, no doubt). She nailed the one about the guy who was afraid to fly and died in a plane crash, and a few others were pretty close. That’s good enough for me.

Where we come to blows, though, is in another song from the same Jagged Little Pill album called Hand in My Pocket. Let’s check some more of those lyrics:

And what it all comes down to my friends, yeah

Is that everything is just fine, fine, fine

‘Cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket

And the other one is hailing a taxi cab

I don’t think everything is going to be fine, fine, fine.

“Hop in, lady. Where ya goin?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t want a cab.”

“Well why’d ya’ hail me down?”

“I didn’t hail you, it was my hand.”

“Crazy bitch.” The cab’s tires squeal as it peels away from the curb.

Do you see my problem? Alanis’s hand was acting autonomously. Right now all it’s doing is playing pianos and hailing taxis, but before long it’ll be pulling puppy dog tails and tripping grannies, and mark my words, all hell’s gonna break loose.

Autonomous Body Parts

You might say I’m being pedantic (“Belinda, you’re being pedantic”), but this lyric and the one about playing a piano never sat well with me, and that was long before I learned about Autonomous Body Parts in fiction.

It just sounds wrong. Hands don’t play the piano, people do, and it sounds weird when you attribute those actions to a body part.

What does this have to with erotica?

In erotica and erotic romance, we talk about body parts and their myriad delectable actions a lot. Kissing, licking, stroking, fingering, spanking, fisting—our body parts get busy, my friends, and we’re not always completely in control. We’re wont to see a lot of involuntary or reflexive actions, such as:

Her lower lip trembled.

Her pupils dilated.

His cock bucked and throbbed and exploded inside her.

And these are all fine. We would never say, ‘She trembled her lower lip.’

Indeed, it’s the conscious actions we need to watch out for.

Brittany’s hand reached for his cock.

His fingers clutched at her ample ass.

Her lips kissed his turgid member.

Sorry about that last one. I can’t bring myself to put prose that purple into my stories, so this blog is my only outlet. On their own, you might not notice one of these rogue body parts, but our erotic writings don’t contain single, isolated actions—they contain lots of them, strung together pages on end. Put three or more of these together and people will notice.

I haven’t got it all figured out just yet

Voluntary, involuntary, autonomous…I’m confused. How can I tell when it’s okay to attribute an action to a body part?

Brittany’s back arched, and with a piercing scream, she came.

Should this be, ‘Brittany arched her back’? If she’s in the throes of orgasm, is it involuntary, or is she doing it deliberately to increase the pressure on her clit? God, this is so hard! (said the nun to the vicar)

Brittany blinked.

Blinking is involuntary! Should that be ‘Brittany’s eyes blinked?’ And how about this one?

Todd’s tongue slid into her mouth.

We can be pretty sure that Todd’s tongue wasn’t acting alone, here, but the alternative, (Todd slid his tongue into her mouth), whilst not wrong, is not an improvement. In fact, the original for all three of these cases sounds just fine.

It can depend on the verb. Every verb has a subject—the person or thing performing the action. In the case of Autonomous Body Parts, the subject is a thing—Todd’s tongue, Brittany’s hand—but for the non-autonomous version, the subject is a person—Todd, Brittany.

Here’s a useful trick: try using the verb in both a ‘who’ and a ‘what’ question to discover the subject.

1. Who slid?
2. What slid?

If the sliding was happening on a ski slope, then option 1 would work fine, but we’re talking about tongues, so ‘what slid?’ is the more meaningful question, suggesting it’s okay for the tongue to be the subject when ‘slid’ is the verb.

What happens when we change the verb to ‘licked’?

Todd’s tongue licked between Brittany’s supple folds.

Well, let’s ask it as a question.

1. Who licked?
2. What licked?

In this case, both might seem plausible at first, but look more closely. If you were given an obviously pre-licked ice cream, would you ask who licked it, or what licked it? So, when it comes to licking, the subject of the sentence should ideally be the individual who owns the tongue, not the tongue itself.

Let’s go back to our first example.

Brittany’s back arched, and with a piercing scream, she came.

1. Who arched?
2. What arched?

Both seem to work. This suggests there are edge cases and they’re not uncommon. If you come across an edge case in your writing, use your gut, and perhaps fall back on the voluntary versus involuntary sub-rule above.

Everything is gonna be quite alright

Whichever way those edge cases go, most people won’t notice and pedants like me will cut you some slack. The important thing is you’re finding the obvious ones which are more common and far more overt: kissed, licked, blinked, nuzzled, reached, stroked, fingered, touched—if you want your prose to sound in any way erotic, these all demand a human actor.

Or a tentacled alien. I’m not judging, just don’t make it an autonomous body part.