SEX IN THE STORY

by Beth Bernobich
(c) March 2002

If you've come to this essay expecting erotica, you will be disappointed. Yes, I write erotica. Yes, I include sex in my other fiction as well. Because I do, I decided to write an essay to explore how sexual elements in fiction add new layers to a character or a world.

Definitions.

First we have to define what sex is. After all, we might be writing about alien cultures, or an alternate history, or even a culture based on a real society, past or present, where sexual customs and laws are different from our own. How many sexes exist in this culture? What are the taboos? What makes up pleasure for our characters? Even more important, what fears do they have about sex?

How much?

Once we know the full range of sex in this world, we need to decide how much to include and from what parts of the spectrum. It's like any other kind of world building — know the entire picture, and select from that.

Adding sex is like adding color to a painting. Add a lot and you skew the tone in to one extreme. Add none and it veers in the opposite direction. The choice depends on several key points: the culture you've chosen, the focus of the story, and the characters involved.

Hints.

One technique is to reduce the sexual elements to hints alone. The story acknowledges sex, but in oblique ways. Hints might be broad, as in the well-known line of asterisks; or they might be as faintly drawn as a look or an expression. A culture where sex is regarded as private would use hints. A story focused on the interplay of two characters might hint at sexual tensions, but only as one more element of their characters.

Excess.

I'm talking explicit here. Sex on the stage. Characters reduced to naked vulnerable creatures right in front of the reader, with nothing to hide behind.

The key, I think, is the word vulnerable. It not only gets into the reader's face, it does the same thing to the characters as well. Explicit sex steals all the armor, strips away the disguises, and shines a nasty revealing light on all the character's flaws. Sometimes it shows a character's strengths.

But does it drain away the tension? Done right — no. Done badly — and a lot of readers will yawn. (Okay, not all of them, but see my point below about consequences.)

When do you use explicit sex in a story? For culture — a culture where certain sexual acts are forbidden might include explicit scenes are part of a rebellion. For a character — to strip away that character's defenses and show what they're like when they can't hide any secrets. For tone — to make a telling contrast with a previous scene.

Absence.

Too much sex or none at all. Lots of stories contain no sex — not even the faintest hint or whiff. The absence of sex in a story can be as powerful a statement about the world and its characters as anything the writer does include. Again the questions to ask are: what does this absence say about the culture, what does it show us about the characters, their fears, their motives, their strengths and their weaknesses.

I was going to list Lord of the Rings as a story without sex, but then I realized it does exist. The hobbits are sexless; so are the wizards and orcs and elves. And the lack of sex is quite understandable — these characters must put everything aside for their quest. But there is a point where Tolkien includes sex, and because of its rarity, the sexual tension between Aragorn and Eowyn struck me as far more vivid and powerful than it could otherwise been.

Consequences.

One last point to consider when you are adding (or subtracting) sex from your fiction. All too often, sexual elements exist simply as set pieces — a chapter or scene inserted into the story to show off the writer's skill, or worse, the writer has turned off creativity and simply grabbed a standard scene from the tropes-and-clichés database. Set pieces are often disconnected from the real story. They interrupt the plot, like a commercial. Sex scenes that exist in a vacuum are no different.

So how to avoid making the sex into window-dressing?

One answer is to show the consequences. Emotional consequences of two peoples (or three or five) letting down their guards for intimacy. Physical consequences of pregnancy and disease and pleasure. Political consequences — sex as a declaration of independence, of choice, of repression. Religious consequences of sin and compassion. Include the sex, but include the consequences, just as you would include the consequences of a war. Even a story entirely focused on sex, such as erotica, is stronger if we show the consequences of having sex.

Reasons.

Random questions to ask yourself when deciding about a story's sexual elements. What does the sex add (or detract) to the characters and their story? Does a sex scene increase the tension line? Or does it drain tension and distract from the main plot? Does the sex or its absence have consequences beyond the act? How does it change relationships? Does it illuminate or does it simply mark time?

It's like any other element in your fiction writing. Know what you want to achieve. Use it with skill. §