I’ve started this weekly blog about my life as an erotica author. Why and how did I get started? How is it going? What have I learned? These posts are suitable for general audiences, but probably not of interest to anyone under 50. Feel free to contact me with questions or for information about my 50+ erotica books. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. Might even give tips regarding how to get involved. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
6/11/23
Talk Dirty to Me, Baby
I DID A TALK at Exxxotica in Denver back in 2017 titled ‘An Erotic Author’s Guide to Talking Dirty.’ Essentially, I said we needed more writers with a larger vocabulary than “Uh uh uh. Oh. Harder. Uh uh. Faster. Oh, F! I’m coming!” After you’ve heard that line in more than a dozen porn videos, or read it in a hundred erotica stories, it’s meaningless.
Of course, in video porn, it would also require actors and actresses who could remember their lines during sex. Writers shouldn’t have that problem.
I believe the reason most sex scenes fail, whether on screen or in writing, is because they are boring. The sex scenes are repetitive. One after the other everything is the same. I could sit down and write half a dozen sex scenes and writers familiar with the work of the other authors could identify exactly who I was imitating, because every sex scene that author writes is the same. Same foreplay. Same sequence of positions. Same result. Same afterglow.
Back in the early ’80s, I worked with an IBM Selectric Memory Typewriter. It had a cassette tape that could record a sentence or a whole page of type so I could produce form letters and only have to manually type in the name of the respondent. “Dear ____, [Execute]. I’ve been going over your rental agreement, ________. [Execute] You are currently delinquent by $______. [Execute] Please remit this amount by return mail. Sincerely.”
Each time the cassette stopped, I typed in the name or the amount, then pressed the execute key to resume having the cassette take over typing. I’m convinced some authors acquired the device, long before they had access to personal computers with word processors that have the same function, just so they wouldn’t have to retype the same sex scene over and over. “Bill and Mary [Execute] It was the best ever!”
Part of the reason sex scenes become repetitive is because we lack an adequate sexual and emotional vocabulary. In writing Model Student 2, Rhapsody Suite, I came to a point where Tony was blindfolded and his girlfriends and their friends tormented him by making him guess which one had just kissed him. Eight kisses and about 3,000 words later, I had what I consider one of the sexiest scenes I’ve ever written and there was absolutely no sex!
Tony had to consider and describe to himself what each kiss was like, how the girl tasted, moved her lips, and used her tongue—even how far she opened her mouth. He had to compare what he knew about each girl with what he was experiencing.
‘Slip’ and ‘slide’ are two perfectly good words, but there are more words than that to describe how one person moves against or in another. And if he slipped his hand under her shirt as she slipped her tongue into his mouth and he slipped into her, the reader has already taken a vacation and jumped down several lines.
What’s more, simply going to a thesaurus and looking up synonyms won’t help. There aren’t that many to be had that convey the same meaning. So, you need to completely recast the scene. Think beyond the description of the act itself. Try, “His hand stole up her ribcage, like a thief moving from the shadow of one rib to the next, his prize almost at hand.” When you expand the vocabulary used for common acts, you open the door to far more interesting scenes.
Search out comparisons of each sense. If there isn’t a different word for it, use a simile or comparison. There is a scene in Model Student 5: Odalisque in which Tony finally discovers the scent of his lover Lissa in a spice rack as he is cooking and is transported by the smell of cardamom to thoughts of his lover’s embrace. Yes, you will never smell cardamom in the same way again.
At the same time that I advise authors of erotica to expand their dirty talk, I caution them not to overdo it. Just because you know a hundred slang words for penis and ninety-seven for vagina doesn’t mean you need to use them all in your story.
You shouldn’t be hunting through the Kama Sutra to find a new position for every scene. But if you are looking for ideas, The Joy of Sex is a great book even fifty years after its publication. You’ll also find a new website called OMGYES that talks to women about getting greater enjoyment from sex in very frank terms. Terms that women use.
In my experience, women use much less slang for genitalia than men do. I guess that having grown up with a vulva and vagina makes a woman more comfortable using those terms than men are. Having it while growing up, though, probably isn’t an adequate reason. Men can barely whisper the word ‘penis’ without choking on it. The word, I mean. A man is likely to use a number of different euphemisms for sex organs, while a woman will use the actual name or a single favorite. Remember that men in general are so threatened by the use of some words that they restrict their use, as in ‘gay.’ Using euphemisms for genitalia builds a defensive barrier between the reader and the reality. If I say ‘I petted her pussy,’ you have to draw your own conclusion as to if I’m actually talking about the vulva.
So, when you are writing a sex scene, find ways to describe the act that expand on it rather than trivializing it. When a man enters a woman in intercourse, believe it or not, other parts of his body have feelings as well as his penis! The shiver that begins in the back of the neck and runs down the spine like an electrical shock until his butt cheeks clench, for instance. If you cannot imagine it, you cannot convince your reader of it.
Engage all the senses. You don’t necessarily need to run down the list of see, hear, smell, feel, taste every time, but one might come to the fore. “I’ve never touched lips as soft, yet insistent as yours.” “Mmm. You brushed your teeth. I taste peppermint.” “Pinch. Harder. I need to feel you pinching me!” You get the idea.
Talk dirty to me, baby. It doesn’t mean just using vulgar words. Convince me that you are fully engaged.
Of course, I’d never get anywhere in my story writing without my editors. Next week, I’ll talk a little about these invaluable resources in “Red Pencil.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
