Ekstasis

Writing about sex...

…is the most difficult thing a writer can do. You may notice that, for all the sex I link to and the sexy photos that tend to catch my eye, I don’t write about sex. I can’t; not for lack of desire, but because I lack the technical prowess. The worst piece of porn Anais Nin ever wrote is better than the average piece of anthologized fiction. Some of the best writers in history have laughably bad sex scenes in their work. The most poorly written sex blog is still more interesting than the average blog about politics or technology, and infinitely more so than the glorified diaries most of us keep.

It has something to do with the subject, with the nature of desire. More importantly, I think, it has to do with the nature of the writers. Writing openly and honestly about sex takes courage, if that isn’t too much to say, or at the very least a certain kind of clarity. To do it well, to write beautifully about sex, requires an even rarer set of characteristics. This is why I love writers like Susannah Breslin. From her post today:

“…Today, I threw out the last fucked up, being-a-pussy version of the novel that I started not long ago. I decided to rewrite it from the mind of the pornographer who appears in the title story of You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You? Fuck the porn star. Fuck the girl journalist. Fuck the police. And fuck Buck Banks. Go inside the mind of the beast. After all, he’s the one I like the best, after all these years, baby. So fuck agents, and fuck genres, and fuck everything else. I’m tired of trying to be a good girl that I’m not.”

That sets off all the right synapses in my head, the contrary ones, the ones that are full to overflowing with desire and creativity. “After all, he’s the one I like the best, after all these years, baby.”  There is something chilling about that, properly chilling. 

So, rock the fuck on sex bloggers. You are our collective Id, without which we would be lost. There is no need to turn toward the mainstream. nor is there a need to succumb to any of the porn cliches so deeply ingrained in our society. Just keep on doing what you’re doing. If nothing else, talent will carry you forward.