The birds and the bees in your memoir

We all do it. We all think about it. Yet to write about sex in an imaginative and unusual way remains a challenge. How do we write about the birds and the bees in our memoirs?

AS NATURAL AS BREATHING, SLEEPING AND EATING

Famous sex symbol Marilyn Monroe once said: “Nothing lasts forever. So, live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the drama, take chances, and never have regrets, because at one point everything you did was exactly what you wanted.”

Sensuality and sexual relationships form an inextricable part of your life story. You absolutely have the choice to elaborate on it in your memoir, should you feel comfortable doing it.

IMPLIED MEANING VS EXPLICIT EXPLANATION

Consider the following poem by Leonard Cohen: he sets the scene and introduces the two characters. The reader understands exactly what is implied by the two of them being together that night. But instead of being explicit, Cohen implies, which makes his writing evocative.

“Suzanne takes you down

To her place by the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she’s half crazy

But that’s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

And just when you mean to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

That you’ve always been her lover”

YOUR EXPERIENCE IS SPECIFIC AND ORIGINAL

“Sex almost always disappoints me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that’s what I often find: everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity,” says Anatole Broyard.

Why is this important? Because there is a difference between erotic writing, which is mostly without a plot and has a generic feeling, and the situation you are exploring, which is unique and specific. So, write your sex scene, and when you rewrite and revise, ask yourself: have I included the emotions around this scene? Did the sexual experience change my story, my trajectory? Can I stand back and review this objectively and then, does it still make sense? Will it touch my reader as it has touched me?

METAPHOR TO TALK ABOUT THE BEES AND THE BIRDS IN MEMOIR

Graphic explanations can be hugely disappointing. Focus on sensory and spatial awareness and incorporate those into your descriptions – metaphor is an excellent way of creating immediate, vivid imagery.

You can also explore the subtle difference between metaphor or simile (typically using words such as “like” and “as”) when you convey emotional language. Emotions are varied and multiple – such as anxiety, gratitude, emotional pain, sentimentality, passion, lust, and loss.  

YOUTHFUL EXPLORATION

As we live and read, we gain wisdom from other people’s stories. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt relates his youthful sexual awakening. Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart, paints a poignant, haunting coming of age in a harsh and unforgiving setting.

LOVE AND SEX AS A PHILOSOPHY

“Why” questions are in order, should you prefer to explore your philosophies around physical intimacy.

Love is not only mistletoe, roses, and romance.

In the novel The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera, for example, the ‘unbearable lightness’ also refers to the lightness of love and sex. “Kundera portrays love as fleeting, haphazard and possibly based upon endless strings of coincidences, despite holding much significance for humans.”

Another trend is an upsurge in women writing about sex, exploring feminism, the freedom to choose, protesting patriarchy and claiming back their bodies.

THE BIRDS AND THE BEES IN YOUR MEMOIR

Remember that, as an author coach, I am available if you want to discuss your writing.