Neighbours think I’m a NYMPHO just because I write sex scenes
Propositioned at parties, subjected to prudish gossip — a bestselling novelist’s very frank lament...
DINNEr parties can be difficult these days. recently, a man sitting next to me was droning on about local politics — bin collection days and council meeting protocol — when another man shouted over to him.
‘shut up, steve,’ he said, ‘ you’re boring this woman stiff. All she wants to do is talk about the clitoris!’
The table fell silent. middle- class eyes burnt into me and I wished the ground would swallow me up.
The ‘witty’ jibe referred to the fact I write psychological thrillers for a living — ones peppered with spicy sex scenes.
It seems you can write about murder, drug taking, war or terminal illness, but nothing will put you in the firing line as much as writing about sex.
If my latest novel, Envy, had begun with the protagonist cutting off someone’s head, and dissolving it in a vat of acid, no one would have batted an eyelid. But the mention of a certain female body part is a very hot topic.
When I write about intimacy, it’s never gratuitous and always pertinent to the plot, but my life has certainly changed since I started publishing novels two years ago.
Now, people assume I am a nymphomaniac, simply because one of my characters is. I hear them as they walk past our house, look up towards our bedroom window and comment knowingly about what is going on.
One of my husband’s friends even announced, threading his arm around me: ‘ Now I’ve read your book, I want to go to bed with you even more!’
I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been coming on to me for years. But surely he realised I hadn’t written a book to play to his fantasies? Now I have taken to avoiding him at all costs.
And I have to be careful at parties, especially when my husband is away on business. Almost as careful as when I was a teenager. There has been a sharp rise in men hitting on me. Yes, even in my late 50s.
I’ve been grabbed while dancing, something that hasn’t happened to me for decades. I can only assume it’s as a result of my racy writing.
I must admit it’s all taken me by surprise. I write novels about crime, yet no one assumes I carry a knife with me, so why the correlation between the fictional steamy scenes and my supposed real life?
EMBARRASSING
my family has been another issue. my 86- year- old mother was most alarmed when she read the proof copy of my debut novel. she rang me to say, ‘You’ve sent me the wrong version. You said you’d toned the sex down.’ I had. But I didn’t tell her that.
At the end of our ‘little chat’, she immediately rang my brother to complain my novel was ‘worse than Fifty shades Of grey’.
mum was still in recovery a year later. Now, she only recommends my books to friends who have strong constitutions. Preferably younger people who she
feels are more able to cope without having palpitations.
Then there are my sons, both of whom are in their 20s. On reading my first novel, one son’s girlfriend told me she thought it was best if he didn’t. And as far as I am aware, he’s taken her advice. my sister-in-law was too shocked to come to my launch party, but she wishes me all the best.
so much for our so-called permissive society and supposed openness. sex is such a natural part of everyday life, integral to our very existence, and yet, even in this day and age, we judge a woman who dares to write about it. I first started writing psychological thrillers back in 2015. my first novel, Obsession, describes a rampant affair which devastates two couples’ lives. I decided to write graphic sex scenes in order to depict the raw physicality of the adulterous pair’s relationship; its lack of emotional grounding.
This contrasts with the rest of the novel, in which the emotional support between the characters is gradually torn apart. my subsequent novels, guilt and Envy, only contain a few sex scenes, again pivotal to the plot.
most novelists write from the power of their imagination, so everyone assumes their sexual writing must be based on their personal experience, or at the very least on their fantasies. I think that’s what people find uncomfortable when they meet me.
my husband and I have been married for 35 years. He is completely relaxed about my writing. He treats other people’s attitudes with wry amusement. He usually laughs and tells them: ‘It’s all fiction — apart from the sex!’ This gets the eyebrows shooting skyward.
Writing about sex is difficult, not just because of people’s attitudes, but because of its mechanics. Finding a way to write about climaxes and genitals is tricky.
many sex-related words are used as swear words or abusive insults. Hence, some writers use obtuse and rather weird imagery. given so many people’s sensitivities, can you really blame them for resorting to that?
The annual Literary review’s Bad sex in Fiction Award has become a shadow over my life; I tremble at the thought of being shortlisted. The embarrassment would crush me.
set up in 1993 by Auberon Waugh, the then editor of the Literary review, the intention was to gently dissuade authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in modern fiction.
There are far worse literary crimes. Boring, flat plots. Onedimensional characters who make flaccid conversation. This award needs to be turned on its head — let’s celebrate the most enjoyable sex passages instead.
MANY
past winners have been highly esteemed authors. John Updike was awarded a lifetime achievement award. How catty is that? sebastian Faulks and melvyn Bragg are prize winners — top writers so highly regarded that I expect they were able to be stoic about it. But the snobbery surrounding fictional sex in literary circles is rife. The first time I was invited to my publisher HarperCollins’ summer party, one such person asked: ‘ Is the imprint of HarperCollins that publishes your book the dirty imprint?’
‘Dirty?’ What an oldfashioned expression.
my books are released under the HarperCollins imprint called Avon. It publishes crime and women’s fiction. Dirty really isn’t their intention.
This person was trying to crush me when I was so excited and proud to have been invited to the very special summer party: a party all HarperCollins’ authors eagerly look forward to.
It turns out I am also too raunchy a writer for my local readership at the richmond upon Thames Literature Festival. strange, given that I am a sunday Times bestseller. Are the readers of the London borough really so fuddy- duddy that they cannot abide the occasional sex scene?
People’s attitude to sex in literature is very different to their attitude to sex on screen.
TV dramas such as Doctor Foster, The Affair and Fleabag — all of which contain their fair share of action between the sheets — are watched with compulsion rather than criticism.
It seems the fictional depiction of sex is more palatable from behind the lens. A cameraman can step back and use soft focus, the production team then confuse our attention with mood music. But words are precise and graphic.
sometimes I wonder if I am really so immune to society’s prudishness. Although I did not consciously plan it this way, I have recently noticed something about my books.
The only characters who have graphic sex are those being unfaithful, in search of sexual gratification. The married couples just mysteriously melt together, because it’s personal, intimate. Even in my stories, the ones who love each other close the curtains.
Envy by Amanda Robson (Avon, £7.99) is out now.