Why Good Writing Is Like Good Sex

Please note: this entry discusses adult concepts.

There’s been a lot of chat recently about bad sex. Experiences recalled include “inappropriate” things being said at particular times – some very funny, it must be said – and the unbecoming appearance of the body parts involved and perceived ineptitude at using them.

But I don’t want to talk about bad sex. I want to talk about good sex, and good writing, and how the two have a lot in common. Because defining good sex is not as easy as defining (what each individual sees as) bad sex. It’s not enough to say “The individual doesn’t say X inappropriate comment, has an acceptable-looking body and knows what he or she is doing.” Does that summary strike you as having the potential to arouse someone to distraction? No, me neither.

Just as in writing, I might compose a technically perfect little piece, with some nice turns of expression that are well used and reliable (i.e. cliché) and an ending that sums up the rest of it as perfectly as the Duchess’s moral out of Alice in Wonderland. And it could be the dullest, most turgid piece of dreck that ever existed. Writing well is not about being unobjectionable. Being unobjectionable can never suffice – either in bed or on the page. Writing well is about having the courage to try something that may earn someone’s condemnation.

Natalie Goldberg makes this analogy in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life. She maintains that there are five rules of writing and that they also apply to other aspects of life. She specifically mentions sex when listing them:
1. Keep your hand moving (I would add the caveat – if it knows what it’s doing. In both cases.)
2. Be specific
3. Lose control
4. Don’t think
5. Go for the jugular (Note: she doesn’t mean literally. At least I hope not. Killing people is not an activity sanctioned by this blog!)

Goldberg’s points are pretty good. I would add more. In matters of sexual contact, I truly believe that all this talk of clangers in the sack, funny substances and dodgy bits is missing the point. What charges sexual activity and communication is the establishment of trust. If you have trust, you have the ability to carry the reader – oops, sorry, the lover – with you. And so it is with writing. If I have a strong opening paragraph, if I keep the lover – sorry, I mean the reader – hooked page after page, forever wanting more – well I could write like Dan Brown and get away with it. In fact Dan Brown has made a rather handsome living getting away with it.

Sometimes in Irish culture (and others too, I have no doubt: I am talking about the culture of my birth and upbringing) trust goes missing. Centuries of entrenched thinking and fear have persuaded us to reveal as little as possible to each other. As writers we can carry that baggage – we can rest our laurels on clichéd memories of sepia 1950s collective memories of Big Houses and coal-gathering. McGahern wrote of such things, yes. But unlike people of subsequent generations he lived them too and suffered for bearing witness in his writing. He lost his job as a teacher for marrying someone the Church disapproved of and for treating sexual matters frankly in his novels. He was not reflecting on some archived memory in serene tranquillity and old age. He was a writer and a sexually active man. He was punished for both of these things.

Somebody once said, “There is no need to say ‘sorry’ all the time. Bed is not the place to be polite.” It was a crucial personal lesson. But for apology to stop and the real talk to begin, the parties have to agree to take down the boundaries of politeness. I think this is a particularly hard (ahem) lesson for Irish people to learn: other cultures seem to get it more. Dave McSavage has a hilarious sketch on his recent TV show where an Irish couple “sorry” each other into bed and maintain small talk until the woman asks “Er…Is that your **** inside me?” and the man says cordially “Yes, it is”. Riveting stuff…not. Would you want to read pages of that?

Natalie Goldberg is right. Go for the jugular. Good sex starts where the apologising ends and deeper taboos are spoken. Things that are normally glossed over are brought to light. Our more secret selves come to the fore. Risks are taken. Kinks are indulged. If the risks fail or the kinks become ridiculous, trust ensures that the reader – sorry, the lover – forgives. We can relinquish the exhausting requirement of having to be ironic all the time and just enjoy the narrative, just as in the best lovemaking the sophisticated human surrenders to his or her more animal self.

A famous athlete – his name escapes me and Google is mute on the matter – was once asked how to win a race. His response was “First you sprint, then you sprint, then you finally sprint”. Just as he runs, the writer must seduce, seduce and finally seduce. But there is good news. When the reader is seduced, she stays that way. You can drop holes in the narrative, use cliché, even have a character need to use the toilet on page 34 and leave him unrelieved on page 165 – and she will forgive you.

And trust me. If you do it right, nobody is going to care what your hoo-hah or lingam or dangling participle might look like when the sun rises the following morning and the page is turned. In my humble opinion anyway.