by Writing Workshops Staff
2 weeks ago
Every year, the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award reminds us that even accomplished novelists can stumble when writing about physical intimacy. The award, established in 1993, honors passages of sexual description so awkward they're almost impressive—and it proves that writing about sex well requires specific craft skills that many writers never develop.
The problem isn't that writers shy away from the subject. The problem is that most of us have never been taught how to approach it. We've read plenty of intimate scenes in novels and memoirs, but without understanding why certain passages work—and why others make us cringe—we're left guessing.
The truth is, writing about sex is never just about sex. It's about power, vulnerability, connection, disconnection, desire, fear, and the messy humanity that emerges when we're at our most exposed. The writers who do this well understand that a sex scene is doing the same work as any other scene in your manuscript: revealing character, advancing the story, and creating emotional resonance.
Why Sex Scenes Fail
Before we look at what works, let's examine what doesn't. Most failed sex scenes share common problems: they rely on clichés ("their bodies melded as one"), focus exclusively on physical mechanics, or shift into a purple prose that feels disconnected from the rest of the narrative's voice. The passage suddenly sounds like it was written by a different author—one who's deeply uncomfortable with the material.
Another frequent mistake is treating the sex scene as something separate from character development. The scene exists to be titillating or to check a box, rather than to reveal something true about the people involved. As a result, it feels grafted on rather than organic to the story.
The best writers approach intimate scenes with the same tools they use throughout their work: sensory specificity, emotional honesty, and an understanding that every scene must earn its place in the narrative.
The Power of Sensory Displacement
One technique that separates masterful sex writing from the merely competent is what we might call sensory displacement—the practice of grounding an intimate scene in unexpected physical details rather than the obvious ones.
In Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy, an early encounter focuses not on the kiss itself but on what led to it: the way a boy's fingers looked on piano keys, how he looked from behind crossing a pasture, the smell behind his ears. By the time we reach the actual physical contact, the passage pivots to an unexpected observation about taste—or its absence. The scene becomes a meditation on desire and disappointment, revealing the narrator's analytical mind and emotional distance even in moments of supposed intimacy.
This technique works because it mirrors how consciousness actually operates during physical encounters. We don't experience intimacy as a catalog of standard sensations. We notice idiosyncratic details. We think strange thoughts. Our minds wander and return. Writing that captures this fragmentary, surprising quality of lived experience feels far more authentic than writing that hits all the expected notes.
Interiority as the Real Subject
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, an intimate scene between a married couple becomes a symphony of internal experience. The physical act is present, but what dominates the passage is the woman's rich inner world—memories of colors, childhood sensations, the specific quality of desire she feels for this particular person in this particular moment.
Morrison renders interiority not as abstract thought but as embodied experience. The character's brain "curls up like wilted leaves." Colors from memory flood into present sensation. The passage becomes almost synesthetic, blending physical and emotional experience until they're inseparable.
This approach solves one of the central challenges of writing sex scenes: making them interesting. Physical mechanics alone get repetitive fast. But the interior experience is infinite in its variation. Two characters might engage in identical physical acts while having completely different internal experiences—and that difference is where the story lives.
Tension, Power, and What's Not Said
Mary Gaitskill's story "Secretary" (from her collection Bad Behavior) demonstrates how intimate scenes can be sites of complex power dynamics. The narrator experiences contradictory impulses simultaneously—fear and compulsion, revulsion and desire, shame and a strange sense of freedom. Gaitskill doesn't smooth over these contradictions or resolve them into comfortable feelings. She lets them coexist, which creates a palpable tension that propels the reader forward.
The prose itself enacts this tension through its combination of clinical detachment and visceral imagery. The narrator describes her own reactions as if from a slight distance, analyzing even as she participates. This dual consciousness—being inside the experience and slightly outside it—creates a reading experience that's deeply uncomfortable in productive ways.
What Gaitskill understands is that interesting sex writing often lives in ambivalence. Desire is rarely simple. Power is rarely one-directional. Bodies do things that surprise and sometimes disturb us. Writing that acknowledges this complexity resonates in ways that neat, comfortable scenes cannot.
The Anticipation is Part of the Story
Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels demonstrate how anticipation and aftermath can be as powerful as the act itself. In The Story of a New Name, an extended scene of one woman bathing another before her wedding night creates almost unbearable tension. The physical intimacy of the bath stands in for the sexual intimacy to come, but it's also something entirely itself—an act of care, of preparation, of unspoken jealousy and love.
Ferrante's passage works because it refuses easy interpretation. The narrator experiences a confusion of feelings—tenderness, envy, desire to protect, desire to possess—that the text doesn't resolve. The scene expands to contain multiple contradictory meanings, which makes it feel as rich and resistant to summary as actual emotional experience.
This technique—using adjacent moments to carry the weight of intimacy—can be especially useful for writers who want to write about sex without explicit description. The approach acknowledges that sexual experience radiates outward, affecting how characters feel about their bodies, their relationships, and themselves.
When Comedy and Pathos Collide
Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach is essentially a novel-length study of one disastrous wedding night. The intimate scenes are excruciating partly because McEwan so carefully renders both characters' perspectives—their hopes, their fears, their terrible misunderstandings of each other.
What makes McEwan's approach distinctive is his willingness to let the scene be awkward, even comic, without losing its emotional stakes. The physical mishaps are rendered with a kind of tender precision that makes us feel for the characters even as we recognize the absurdity of the situation. This tonal balance—finding the humor in human fumbling while honoring the genuine pain underneath—is extraordinarily difficult to achieve.
The passage also demonstrates how effective it can be to slow time down. McEwan takes us moment by moment through an experience that lasts only seconds but feels endless—both to the characters and to the reader. This temporal expansion allows room for all the complexity the scene requires.
The Direct Approach
Not all effective sex writing is oblique. James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime is famously direct in its descriptions of physical intimacy. What saves the passages from feeling gratuitous is their emotional intelligence. Salter's narrator watches two lovers with an intensity that reveals as much about him as about them—his longing, his envy, his attempt to possess through observation what he cannot have through participation.
Salter's prose in these scenes is stripped down, almost matter-of-fact, which creates a curious effect: the directness feels less pornographic than the purple prose it might seem to invite. There's something clinical about the gaze, which makes the reader aware of the act of observation itself. We become conscious of watching someone watch—and this layered consciousness complicates any simple titillation.
Applying These Techniques to Your Own Work
If you're working on a scene involving physical intimacy, consider these questions:
What does this scene reveal about my characters that no other scene reveals? If the answer is "nothing," the scene may not be earning its place in your manuscript. An intimate scene should function like any other scene—advancing character or plot or both.
Where is my point-of-view character's attention actually landing? Not where it "should" be, but where it actually is. Often our minds go to unexpected places during intimate moments. Following that unexpected attention can lead to more authentic prose.
What's the emotional temperature of this scene? Desire can coexist with fear, boredom, sadness, humor, and countless other emotions. Allowing complexity makes for richer writing.
Am I relying on the reader's imagination to do the work, or am I giving them something specific? Generalities ("they made love all night") are almost always less effective than particulars, even brief ones.
Does my prose style shift for this scene? If you suddenly start writing in a different register when you reach intimate material, that's often a sign of discomfort. The scene should feel like a continuation of your voice, not a departure from it.
"Writing about sex is never just about sex. In this online writing workshop, we'll explore the many dimensions of sex writing—from humor to the sacred, from pleasure to trauma."
— Minda Honey, Instructor
Writing About Sex vs. Writing About Sexual Trauma
One distinction that often goes unaddressed is the difference between writing about sex and writing about sexual trauma. These require different craft approaches, different ethical considerations, and different relationships with the reader.
Writing about trauma—sexual or otherwise—involves particular questions of consent (both the writer's and the subject's), pacing, and emotional safety. A scene depicting trauma needs to respect the reader's experience while still telling the truth. This is delicate work that benefits enormously from guided practice and feedback from experienced writers who've navigated similar material.
Memoir writer Melissa Febos has written extensively about how to approach such material with craft and care. Her work demonstrates that it's possible to write about difficult sexual experiences with both honesty and artistry—but it requires specific techniques and often the support of a skilled community.
Finding Your Approach
There's no single right way to write about intimacy. Some writers are drawn to the oblique approach of Kincaid or Ferrante. Others prefer Salter's directness or McEwan's painful comedy. What matters is that you find an approach that serves your story, your voice, and your relationship with your reader.
The writers we've discussed share one thing in common: they treat sex scenes with the same seriousness and craft attention they bring to every other aspect of their work. They don't check out or shift into autopilot. They remain present and curious, following their material where it leads.
If you're ready to develop your craft in this area, consider working with an instructor who can guide you through the specific challenges of writing about intimacy. Having a skilled teacher and supportive peer community can make all the difference—especially when working with vulnerable material.
Ready to develop your craft for writing intimate scenes? Join Minda Honey's 4-Week Nonfiction Workshop starting February 10th, 2026.
Register for How to Write Sex →Minda Honey—author of the memoir The Heartbreak Years (Little A, 2023) and contributor to Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic—brings both publishing experience and teaching expertise to this intimate subject. Her four-week workshop covers writing sex with humor, writing sex as a sacred act, and understanding the crucial craft differences between sex writing and writing about sexual trauma.
Through guided readings from writers including Audre Lorde, Kiese Laymon, Melissa Febos, and Hanif Abdurraquib, you'll explore multiple approaches to intimate material. You'll have opportunities to generate new work, share it with peers, and receive feedback from both Minda and your fellow participants in a supportive online environment.
As one past student wrote: "I have to invent words and phrases to express my gratitude for the spaces that Minda curates. I've never participated in anything before that is so enriching, fulfilling, affirming, encouraging, and enlightening that also includes substantial critique and feedback."
Learn more about How to Write Sex: A 4-Week Nonfiction Workshop with Minda Honey →
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