What is good sex?
by Jessie Verino
I gotta confess. I’ve been thinking about this blog for about a week, and my mind keeps coming up blank. It’s the writer’s version of “Not tonight dear, I’ve got a headache.” I’m just not feeling it. Not in the mood. And no amount of candlelight, or music, or sexy innuendo is going to influence me enough to change my mind. And make no mistake about it, sex starts in the mind. And good sex will blow your mind.
But what is good sex? Well, it depends on (you got it) you’re frame of mind. Sometimes the good stuff is a quickie, and sometimes it’s an all-nighter. Sometimes it’s tender and mellow with the candles and music, and sometimes it’s a violent explosion of intense desire. Right here. Right now. My way. And it can be dangerous.
I’m a House junkie, and this is one of my favorite quotes from the popular television show.
“Sex…could kill you. Do you know what the human body goes through when you have sex? Pupils dilate, arteries constrict, core temperature rises, heart races, blood pressure skyrockets, respiration becomes rapid and shallow, the brain fires bursts of electrical impulses from nowhere to nowhere and secretions spit out of every gland, and the muscles tense and spasm like you’re lifting three times your body weight. It’s violent, it’s ugly, and it’s messy, and if God hadn’t made it unbelievably fun…the human race would have died out eons ago. Men are lucky they can only have one orgasm. You know women can have an hour long orgasm?” – from the episode Occam’s Razor.
Here, I was going to talk about all the messy emotions that get thrown in, and how emotions aren’t logical. How nothing can explain love at first sight. But, love, like sex, sometimes comes at you tender and slow, and sometimes it’s that violent explosion that rocks your world. No one can explain it.
Personally, I like the “rocks your world” type. I love writing characters who are thrown off their stride by unfamiliar emotions and unexplainable desires. Their passions flare, and no matter how many times their minds tell them to walk away, their hearts tell them to stay. And really, that’s the heart of the story, no matter how much sex the characters have.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Jessie,
I agree with you that the heart of the story is when the characters follow their hearts.
As a reader/writer I believe that to have satisfying/fulfilling sex in a story there has to be strong sexual tension that leads up to the act. This engages the reader into the story, getting the mind involved with the written word, thus pulling the reader into the story and feeling the emotions as if they were the characters.
Leanne Tyler
I love the quote from House. :-) Good blog, Jessie!
Dear Jessie:
I was impressed by your astute analysis of erotic attraction, especially by your description of the cataclysm that can be suddenly unleashed between two people. Believe it or not, my new novel, “Getting Enough, illustrates your view. My heroine, however, goes off in a different direction towards the end of the story when she falls in love with her own husband after 26 years of a very acrimonious, sexually unfulfilling marriage.
Congratulations again on an excellent text. I look forward to reading you again.
Best regards
Leonard Rosmarin