A Compass for Our Yearning: Notes on Sex in Fiction
Reflections sparked by the Libes v. Moseley debate
I don’t know how I ended up reading the
v. debate on writing sex scenes. This I lie masquerading as a hook—it was because of . I went on his page to check if he is alright1, and I saw that he restacked this post—I didn’t bother to read the note he made about it which said that he is not reading it. Well, I did. And now you all are going to suffer.You can read Liza’s original post here, Tolly’s reply here.
Now, I love a good cultural debate as much as the next person2, but this isn’t why I read it. Or why I am writing this piece that started out as a comment, then wanted to be a note. I am currently writing a vampyre novel as part of
’s MmFA, and it carries an erotic undertone that I want to handle it with care.In the end, it felt like a waste of time. Neither said anything I didn’t already know. What a dull quarrel. Both eventually concede—once D. H. Lawrence is invoked—that serious literature can include sex scenes. Then Liza demurs, claiming you can’t indulge your kinks in serious literature, and I can already hear Tolly’s inevitable rebuttal: that Lawrence did exactly that, again and again, crafting stories of upper-class women fleeing into the arms of “savage” exiles. His last short story is exactly that: a woman running off with a tribe of savages to be sacrificed.
But neither woman dares to go deeper. Yes, they discuss the why and the how, but they fail to place prurient interest alongside morbid fascination, which we elevate without hesitation. Perhaps we’ve grown desensitized to violence over the past century, but death still captivates us. So does sex. There’s a reason dirty jokes have endured across cultures and generations: the erotic and the macabre are twin curiosities at the heart of being human.
Titillation reflects something far older, more primal. Biologically, our most powerful drive is to reproduce—yet in us, complex creatures, that yearning twists into strange and beautiful forms. So strange and beautiful that it transcends the human body entirely, merging with cities and myth, becoming part of the stories we tell to make sense of ourselves. And I know this because this happened to me when I wrote this story:
My vampyre story may be the most erotic thing I’ve ever published3, and certainly one of the most titillating things I’ve ever written, yet it contains not a single sex scene. Still, it would fail the Miller test: “taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.”
Because what I expressed expresses is a yearning so deep it threatens to engulf me entirely. And yes, we are all sexual beings in one way or another. Otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone left here to have this discussion.
What I’m trying to say is this: writing sex scenes shouldn’t feel like walking a tightrope—between prurience and transcendence, between body and myth, between what we dare to write and what we fear to admit. Instead, we should let what titillates us serve as a compass, guiding us into the deepest, darkest recesses of our own souls.
And, at the end of the day, what is a kink? I ask this not in a biological or psychological sense, but in a metaphysical one. Is it a metaphor, a symbol of something deeper stirring within us? Or is it a ritual: a way to make the unbearable more bearable, to shape our yearning into something we can touch, name, even play with? Really curious to hear all your thoughts, so let me know in the comments:
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. This little tangent helped me clarify my own thoughts on sex in fiction. Thank you for walking this side alley with me. More substantial pieces coming soon. (Not going to ask you to subscribe, but below is the button if you need it).
I don’t know if he is struggling financially or it’s just a mere advertising puff, but either way he is a good editor and a passionate man of letters. So check it out if you need editing services.
I write good smut when I wish to, my friends often wonder why I don’t just do that full-time instead of struggling on Substack.
"When we encounter a sex scene in literature, the vast majority of us will not be able to relate to it and will therefore feel as if we are reading about the fetishes of the author rather than those of their characters." (Libes) I know this is rhetoric based on the 60% of 200 readers from her survey, but I think even if this were true it shouldn't necessarily change an author's mind about what to write. Art is a place for self-exploration and expression, and to prescribe diminishing sexual content to 'improve' said writing would be silly: like telling someone to write less verbose/alienating because people think it's pretentious; or telling someone to write less violence because people think the author is a psycho. Context is key, and different stories require different elements.
Also, great essay! I agree with your take on using personal sensation to guide your writing, and "the erotic and the macabre are twin curiosities at the heart of being human." was pure fire.
I am indeed struggling financially, but it's a complex and cascading problem having to do with the move earlier this year, and the feast/famine You're up/you're down nature of editing and writing services. (Substack raised around 12k for our move, which I will never be able to pay back, the whole move cost closer to 25,000. We were not in the best spot to bein with. So, commes ci commes sa. But yesterday my psychiatrist did spring an in person appt on me and double his price, so I was in fact, in financial crisis. But it also got me a new editorial client!)