Remember your first real kiss, how nothing could compare to it? Or your first orgasm? Ah, the mind-blowing experience of a first time. Something you can never recapture in real-life, no matter how hard you try.

But as erotic fiction writers, our job is to capture that first-time experience and put it on paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first sex scene we’ve written, or the forth or the four-hundredth.

Here are five simple ways to keep your sex scenes as sexy and fresh as that first time.

1. Use Your Character’s Worldview

Your characters have unique sexual backgrounds, turn-ons and desires (if they don’t, read Naked Men and Sultry Women for tips on how to make that happen). They see the world — and sex — in a way that’s different from anyone else. By using those quirks, you can create sex scenes that move beyond the “and then we fucked and it was amazing.”

Using your character’s world-view allows you to say something common in a way that’s original to your character. In my story, “On the Tongue,” (Sex and Coffee, Pretty Things Press), my narrator is a coffee taster, so he “sees” everything, even desire and sex, in terms of coffee and flavors. Instead of having him say something like, “I desired Rafi,” I wrote, “No matter what I know now about Rafi, I can’t help the way he makes my blood move, high caffeine from heart to fingers.”

2. Use Your Character’s Words

One of the common sex-scene mistakes is diagram sex, where it becomes a list of moving body parts: “I put the first two fingers of my right hand on her left breast as she turned on her right side and put her left hand around the base of my cock.”

It’s easy to avoid diagram sex by getting into your characters’ heads and letting them describe their body parts and actions in their unique way. Some characters have a dick and you’re not going to be able to tell them otherwise. Other characters may have a cock or a penis, a rod or even a “Joey.” Some characters fuck, some make love and others just “do it.”

Do a conversation test to avoid the “throbbing manhood” trap. What would your character call that movement or that body part if they were talking to a friend or lover? No guy I know would say, “Come and sit on my throbbing manhood, baby,” unless he was trying to be funny.

The other way to use a character’s words is through dialogue. Lovers often have a secret sexual language. In “The Sun is an Ordinary Star,” (He’s on Top, Cleis) I gave my couple a secret language that revolves around the various S/M toys they use. So whenever the wife says, “Honey, you’ll have to get out the crocs tonight,” the readers knows that she’s talking about a pair of nipple clamps. But she’s also letting her husband know something about her mental stage and the kind of sex she’s hoping to have.

3. Make Mistakes

Real-life sex is rarely, if ever, a perfect thing. After all, it’s two bodies coming together to do a bodily function, which makes it ripe for foibles, funny sounds, miscues and mistiming, and plain old mistakes.

Going too far in the “reality” direction can make sex unsexy, so it’s a fine line. But a few details showing your characters’ imperfections, insecurities or mistakes can add a sense of erotic reality to your scene.

4. Don’t Look Away

I once read a book on writing horror and one of the best pieces of advice I got was this: “Your job as a writer is to not look away.” The book was talking about gory scenes, but I think the advice also applies to erotica. If you want to arouse your reader, you can’t look away.

This doesn’t mean that you have to explain every detail, every body movement and every shining drop of cum. It just means that you write about the desires that make you squirm with embarrassment, or describe the person’s body part that you crave most.

This is also the time to ask yourself: does what I’m writing turn me on? Does it make me excited or a little nervous or very wet? If the answer is yes to any of those, then your sex scene is likely in good shape.

5. Make Every Scene a Sex Scene

You can heighten the sexuality of your sex scenes by adding an undercurrent of erotica to the non-sex scenes. Foreplay is a vital part of erotic stories as it gets readers ready for the big scene, and it constantly reminds them that this story is about sex.

Think about that guy or girl you met or went out with once, the one that you knew you were going to sleep with as soon as you laid eyes on him or her. What did you think about? How her lips looked, whether or not she touched your hand across the table. Yes, you probably ordered dinner and ate and paid the bill at some point, but I bet you barely remember doing that. What you do remember is the way she put her hand on your back to help you out the door, how her fingers felt the first time she touched your cheek and how she smelled when she leaned in close to you.

Try to capture that heightened sexuality in every scene, whether your characters are driving a car or eating dinner. This way, when your characters finally come together, the reader is as ready for it as the characters are.

6. Bonus Tip: Make Sex Necessary

The best sex scenes are not something that you add on to the story just because you need a little arousal here. The best sex scenes drive the story, or change your characters in some way. They’re a natural outgrowth of all the things that came before, and they’re going to change all the things that come after.

In the S/M story I mentioned earlier, “The Sun is an Ordinary Star,” the husband is nervous about hurting his wife, who recently had an operation to remove a cancerous tumor. By combining his fear and desire, the sex scene becomes about much more than just sex.

“Jesus, Stella, I’m sorry,” he said. But even in his panic over hurting her, he couldn’t stop looking at her body. How her nipples were like stars too, a constellation against the sky of her chest. How her waist curved in and then swelled into hips. His cock twitched, sending a mixed flood of arousal and shame. Worst husband of the year award, right here.

So, that’s it. All I know about writing great sex scenes. Once you’ve conquered that, come back for my next column, The Rest of the Sex Story: Writing description, action and dialogue.

Other Places About Sizzling Sex Scenes

• How to Write a Sex Scene, by Steve Almond
• On Writing Sex Scenes, by Marge Piercy
• Writing Sex Scenes, by Rosina Lippi

Shanna Germain
March 2007

“Sexy on the Page” © 2007 Shanna Germain. All rights reserved.