Let's Write About Sex Baby

Alice of Alice's Open Treasure Chest on Dirty Words, Dirty Acts, and Why Writing Is Really Just Sex While Sitting In Front of Your Laptop...Or Something

Dear Republic,

As a rite of spring (or something like that) we’re featuring a series of pieces on the surprisingly difficult challenges of writing about sex. If you spend time on Substack you may well be familiar with the stories of one of Alice’s (many) encounters. Here, she describes the mechanics of writing about them.

-ROL

LET’S WRITE ABOUT SEX BABY

“Surely there are only so many ways to describe ‘In-and-out’?”

This may not have been the supportive and encouraging response I’d been hoping for when I broached my — carefully selected to be least judgemental — friend with the fact I was sharing my sexual exploits in casual anecdotal form with the faceless denizens of the internet, but it was nevertheless a prescient one. For all its many and varied forms surrounding the business of fornication, the nitty gritty of sex itself very much is a largely ‘in and out’ affair and there are, ultimately, only so many enjoyable synonyms for ‘thrust.’ So how does one go about chronicling the sordid, social, and smutty aspects of sexual congress in a manner that’s both appealing and entertaining, without resorting to being little more than a linguistic metronome?

This is but one of a great many questions and challenges posed to those dipping their toes — or indeed any other part of their anatomy you’d care to imagine — into the wonderfully wide and frequently weird world of sexual writing. Thankfully, the solutions can be as varied and diverse as the beautiful act itself; actual bump and grind aside.

The first inevitable stumbling block is finding and settling upon a tone. Are you looking to be crude and vulgar, getting — both figuratively and often quite literally — straight to the point, or take a flowery and expressive approach more akin to a linguistic lap dance? It’s the difference between:

“I knelt down in front of him, the fibres of the carpet idly tickling the abrasions it had created earlier; now sending prickle of pain and excitement coursing through my body. I gasped, but it went unnoticed. He caressed his tumescence with vigour and, with an almighty exclamation, spilled his essence onto my naked body; splashing and sliding down the fullness of my chest…”

And:

“I dropped to my knees and he came on my tits.”

For clarity, both approaches are equally as valid — you’ll find no kink [writing] shaming here — and both certainly have an enthusiastic and equally sizeable audience but, not unlike sex itself, deciding where you sit changes everything.

Personally, I straddle both camps. I share sexual anecdotes in a stream of consciousness style, written in much the same garbled and digression filled way I’d tell a friend of an incident over a glass of something potent. I’d much rather a reader experiences the sense of feeling and thought than get too bogged down in the mechanics of it all. I’ll waffle at length regarding my thoughts on a guy’s ‘go to move,’ discussing my opinions on how it made me feel in the moment, rather than analyse the specifics of precisely where he touched and whether a 90 degree clockwise movement was what ultimately achieved satisfaction.

For me, sexual writing is a wildlife documentary. I’ll whisper narration in a reader’s ear, David Attenborough style; providing context, overview, and insight. But nobody needs to hear him describing each and every pump and thump of the circle of life in motion.

David Attenborough describing every pump and thump of the circle of life in motion

Hell, even choosing what to call various body parts can be tricky. When tasked with describing the male anatomy you’re presented with a veritable smorgasbord of choice: dick, cock, knob, wang. You can barely move for options to proclaim the penis. However there’s far less choice when it comes to the female genitalia; a fact I take enormous issue with, even if I’m largely shouting into an echoey cave.

I tend not to use ‘vagina’ when discussing sexual anecdotes for much the same reason as I don’t refer to the male organ as a penis; it’s somehow too clinical to be used for what is ostensibly entertainment. ‘Pussy’ has become the general go-to among the majority of sexual writing, though how it ever caught on to be the common go-to nomenclature is utterly beyond me. It’s entirely unfit for purpose; at once both incredibly childish to read and onomatopoeically unpleasant to hear; it literally has the word puss in it.

Fundamentally ‘pussy’ is not at all a sexy word and, in my mind at least, never will be. I only ever use it as the very last of resorts when my thesaurus has run dry of reasonable alternatives. And, frankly, I’d rather suffer the-sore-arse than embark on an act that would require me to deploy it.

But other than the tone, style and literal linguistics used, surely writing sex is easy, right? Sex is sex, and everyone loves sex, don’t they?

Ah, dear reader, it only it were so simple.

It’s a well chronicled fact that humour is subjective. What’s less widely realised yet every bit as true is that sex is entirely subjective too. You can spend thousands of words describing your most perfect intimate encounter wherein everything was heaven sent and orgasms were as plentiful as oxygen, yet you’ll still have at least a third of your readership describing the event as ‘about as erotic as eczema’. Equally you can spend some time bemoaning a miserable adventure in which the partner was diabolical and everything a crushing disappointment, only for the topic comment to be: ‘Hot. Jizzed twice.’

We all contain multitudes and, if sharing sexual stories has taught me anything, it’s that we’re all actually multitudinous perverts clamouring for a moment in the spotlight. Pick any topic off the top of your head and chances are there will be a corner of the internet dedicating erotica, art, and pornography to it. “If you build it, they will come,” was, in fact, written to describe architectural fetishists.

I’ve largely avoided having to make any decisions on how ‘niche’ to pitch myself by simply sharing my own actual experiences which, for the most part, haven’t waded too far into the realms of the obscure. Though I’m sure there would be many who would argue my — let’s be generous here and say ‘varied’ — sexual history is far from what might be considered ‘normal’.

And plenty do just that, in fact. Loudly and regularly. So called ‘slut-shaming’ is still a common feature among the comments of female-written sexual articles and stories. I’m thrilled to have gathered a regular and enthusiastic audience of wonderful, funny, and supportive readers who are prepared to put up with — perhaps even actively enjoy — my many and varied digressions and meanderings interlaced through what is ostensibly an arousing sexual anecdote, but once every blue moon I’ll be told in no uncertain terms that I’m little more than an e-whore (presumably a variant of Winnie the Pooh’s friend) or that ‘nobody is interested in your sex life; close your laptop and your legs.’ Aren’t people wonderful?

An e-whore

Which is why it’s not only important to know what you want to share, but why you’re wanting to write it. I post fun and silly sexual anecdotes of mine because I enjoy sharing them. Sex has always featured a strong social aspect to me, and I’ve spent many a happy evening entertaining (or horrifying) friends with my various examples of triumph and dismay. My primary desire with posting the same tales online was to put the stories out in the world in the hope they’d entertain others too; perhaps by raising a smile, or even by creating a rise in a very different part of the anatomy.

But mostly, they’re for me. Because for all we like to be grandiose and lofty, writing is a self-indulgence, simply one we hope others enjoy too.

Which makes writing basically sex.

A thoroughly appropriate conclusion to come to.

Alice

writes lengthy, occasionally humorous and often infuriatingly verbose sexual anecdotes from her life in her Open Treasure Chest on Substack. She's a fan of puns and double entendres, so always feel welcome to give her one.