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"In fact, I believe teenage boys lying to their friends about blow jobs are pictured in the magnificent hieroglyphs excavated at Abydos dating back from the Naqada IIIa period of the thirty-third century B.C."

That's author Rachel Shukert writing an imaginary fact from the history of sex. Have you ever tried to write about sex? It’s one of the hardest things a writer can do; too much sounds silly, too little sounds prudish.

Shukert can write about everything from making out to making whoopee, and you will be laughing the whole time. Today she shares her sexy writing wisdom. 

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
I love how you write about sexuality--it's clumsy, sexy and hilarious all at different times. How do you write about sex? Any advice for writers looking to spice up their prose?

Rachel Shukert:
What tends to interest me when I write about sex is not necessarily the act itself, but the circumstances surrounding it. Continue reading...

 

How did we get here?  Why this person?  What happens directly before and directly after--and perhaps most importantly, what is it about the anticipation or aftermath of the sex act that turns people into complete idiots?  

That's where the humor lies, for me, and also in my tendency to notice absurd details while engaged in an activity that is supposed to be wholly absorbing (like having sex, or mourning, or something.) I suppose it's a form of writerly ADD--that complete lack of presence, of always jumping around from perception to perception--some of which can be very funny.  

As for making things sexy, I think there is tremendous sexiness in candor.  There's kind of intimacy you can acheive with your audience just by being honest--almost like you would in a personal relationship.  And that kind of intimacy, of really letting them in, I find much more enticing than rapturously describing nipples and hard-ons and thunderous orgasms and such.