“Sex is simply one more way of interacting, of communicating.
That the act of it involves physical bodies is an aside.”
Disclaimer: This is not a how-to essay, nor is it a historical or literary review. Rather it’s just my accumulated thoughts of many years.
With Regard to my books
I promised myself that the key characters in my Osley College academic mystery series would each have their own on-page sex scene(s) before the five books were over. What exactly that would involve would depend on the moment in the story.
In Book 1, it’s all heterosexual: a consensual seduction; a business-like transaction; and a few trysts within the self-satisfaction of an affair. Book 2, the draft of which is nearly complete, includes a mix of hetero- and homosexual: an academic dalliance between professor and student; an ambitious misuse of sex; some decided conjugal bliss; a gradual connecting between two women during a tango; and something I can only describe as metaphysical though it involves real bodies.
The third book sees a shift in tone, from trauma and healing to a brighter, fuller place: a careful courtship between two academics; another involving the attentive and deeply caring discoveries and understandings between a non-binary person and a person with life-long disabilities; a possible return to the doings of the college raven keeper and his irascible husband; and, very likely, a connecting of two standoffish ravens.
Books 4 and 5 are still in development on this interpersonal level, though the basic plots are set. In Book 4 the couplings are fraught: a broken marriage is revived when someone else’s child is born prematurely and a lecherous man’s actions lead to his death. In the final book, memories are brought back and new pairings found: two persons connect with past loves, one with their first-ever lover and the other with the raffish, gay elder who respected a younger man’s straight preferences; a lover-turned-friend finds love of her own; a most unexpected gay connection between a one-time celebrity and a modern dancer; and a near-death that leads to a double wedding.
And all of this, mind you, in the narrative context of murder mysteries!
What Exactly is a Sex Scene?
Answer: Someone or multiple ones engaging in an activity of some sort that explicitly involves bodily pleasure or implies such. (In the context of my essay here, I am referring to consensual activity. Further comments on this at the end.)
Sex is central to all of these scenes above but not the point of them. Still, writing sex well matters. In my books, it means capturing the mood, the setting and the descriptive language in a craftsmanlike manner.
Not all stories demand sex scenes, but some do for the story to be true. And in some instances, a simple kiss is sufficient. A few items from my notes:
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- Mood is vibe. Sex is intimacy manifested. The how and where is not as vital as the sensibility. I recall the wonderfully lascivious scene in the movie Tom Jones where Albert Finney and Joyce Redman turn a multi-course tavern dinner into ravenous foreplay. No bed, just a table, some food, and two people eating.
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- Setting is not simply a bed. It can be, of course, but not a requirement. Setting is location but its appearance may nor may not foster horizontal action.
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- Language is the literal telling. And this is critical. Word choice, sentence structure, descriptions, and pacing of the action. Redundancy of phrases reduces the impact, worse if the phrases are trite. I.e., he set his hand on her/his waist or she looked deeply into his/her eyes or similar. Repetition deadens the scene. Pacing is all. Pacing isn’t simply noting what happens next. It’s how the pacing is presented via phrase and sentence length.
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- Sex isn’t merely Tab A into Slot B, or anatomical imagery, or using the vocabulary one sees elsewhere (i.e., slang, clinical, political, or sociological). The Tab A into Slot B approach reduces sex to anatomical parts and reduces the characters involved to objects. It’s also boring to read unless the mechanics are your jam. Take a moment to search penis synonyms online. I did and was surprised at how few words there are for penis, and most of them are slang. Searching vulva synonyms brings back more terms but not that many more, and again many are slang or simply coarse. It’s not just fucking, though that word might be used if the characters see it that way. And that’s my point: it’s the characters’ perception of what they are doing, not the reader’s.
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- Sex vis-à-vis characters
- Sexual behavior manifests a character.
- Sexual action manifests character relationships (good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, etc.).
- Sex vis-à-vis characters
Sex and Plot
If the plot requires sex, then how much? In Book 1 of my academic mystery, there are 3 sex scenes. One lasts maybe thirty minutes in real time but one sentence in the book: “Daniel had massaged her feet, sore from standing for much of Saturday’s events, which led to other things and now she and her husband lay in an after love embrace talking quietly.”
The second is two paragraphs tucked in the midst of a two-chapter scene that describes the start of a seduction. The third is three short paragraphs in which a character, who is about to discover her lover’s infidelity, recalls the sex they just enjoyed.
Book 2 (forthcoming 2027) has rather more sex. The notion of how different characters use sex selfishly or ambitiously or cautiously drives the overall plot. It has to be there. (It’s surprising how much sex happens in academe.) How extensively, to what level of detail, I am still sorting out.
Sex and the Author
Not too long ago I came across a comment on social media from a writer. They could not imagine writing a sex scene: “I would just be so embarrassed,” they said. I thought it was very good that they knew that, but unfortunate too. If writing about sex embarrasses you then I wonder, all sorts of things. Should you be writing sex scenes at all. And if the mere notion of describing sex is so difficult, I feel a kind concern, too, for the state of their psychosexual well-being.
But I get their concerns and their feelings about it. I doubt very much I could easily write certain kinds of scenes involving sex (though if the story demanded it, I would). That is, if it’s a BDSM scene (which isn’t my thing) or a rape or a child assault. Not because this sort of scene should not be in fiction just that if it is, there’s a reason for it, that the actions aren’t gratuitous or objectified.
In the case of child assault, well . . . unlike the aforementioned writer, I could write it, but won’t. I was assaulted as a child, multiple times. It wouldn’t trigger me to write it, I’ve done considerable therapy, but while I am willing to discuss it—in this post for instance—with the exception of a necessary mention of a pedophile in the final book of my academic mystery series, it’s not a topic that suits my stories. But as I said, if I had to write it, I could. And that willingness to write the difficult content is something a writer needs to have.
I don’t read romance or erotica much and do not deliberately seek out smut. My imagination about such things is sufficient. And if I do run across it, I am only turned off by it if the writing is clumsy (the writing, not the people doing it), if it is gratuitously positioned in the narrative, or if it is simply yet another tritely-presented scene.
For that reason, I decided to include content warnings in my books. Personally, I don’t need or want them, but I realize that it often matters to others. My warnings about sex specifically are not to titillate but to advise. Some folks would prefer not to see sex described and that’s fair enough.
One thing I am very committed to in my mystery novels, however, is not to put a child or minor-aged person in sexual harm’s way. I have been on the receiving end of assault, stalking, and abusive harassment as a child and teen (and later, as an adult). At one point in my professional work as an information specialist, I indexed research articles for the American Psychological Association’s PsycINFO database. Studies or discussions of child and teen sexual abuse were a regular part of the subject matter. A professional indexer can objectively handle such content, but I, the person not the professional, did have to read it as part of the work. Having seen and experienced these things, however, I am not interested in providing content for a prurient pedophile. To my mind that is unethical and immoral.
In the end, it is the work that matters: the story and the people. Sex is simply one more way of interacting, of communicating. That the act of it involves physical bodies is an aside.
If you have a question or comment for me, drop me a line via my Contact page.
© J.A. Jablonski 2026. All rights reserved.
How to cite this post
Jablonski, J.A. (2026, Nov 2). The Craft and Vision of Writing Sex Scenes. Blog post. J.A. Jablonski (website).
https://jajablonski.com/2026/11/02/writing-sex-scenes/
IMAGE CREDITS
Header montage via images from Unsplash.
SELECTED SOURCES
Language Reference | Dictionaries & Thesauri (Online)
“Glossary of Japanese Sex Terms.” (Last edited 18 Feb 2023). Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_Japanese_sex_terms
“Lascivious Synonyms.” (n.d.) Thesaurus.com. https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/lascivious
“The Language of Love, Lust, and Sex.” (2016). Sex-Lexis.com. https://www.sex-lexis.com/
“Sex Terms – Definition of Sex terms.” (n.d.) The Free Dictionary. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sex+terms
Articles
“Erotic Synonyms” (26 Feb 2002). Literotica.com. https://www.literotica.com/s/erotic-synonyms (Accessed 2 November 2026).
The Gender and Sexuality Campus Center. (n.d.) Glossary. Michigan State University website.
https://gscc.msu.edu/education/glossary.html (Accessed 2 November 2026).
Kreisa, Meredith. (Last updated 15 August 2017). “Trendy Sources to Learn Slang in Different Languages and Keep You Current.” (Blog Post). Fluent U. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/sland-in-different-languages (Accessed 26 July 2023).
wyo_girl. “Word Choice.” (20 March 2004). Literotica.com. https://www.literotica.com/s/word-choice (Accessed 2 November 2026).
Saint Thomas, Sophie. (2018, Sept 20). “17 Sex Terms You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask About, Defined.” Allure. https://www.allure.com/story/sex-acts-defined (Accessed 2 November 2026).
Physical Logistics | Anatomy
Caster, Wendy. (1993). The Lesbian Sex Book. Illustrated by Julie May. (Los Angeles, New York: Alyson Books). ISBN:1-55583-211-3.
Silverstein, Charles, Dr. and Felice Picano. (2003). The Joy of Gay Sex. Fully Revised and Expanded this Edition. Illustrated by Joseph Phillips. (New York: Harper Collins.) ISBN-10: 0-06-001274-9; ISBN-13: 978-0-06-001274-9.
Westheimer, Ruth K., Dr. with Pierre A. Lehu. (2019). Sex for Dummies. 4th edition. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons). ISBN: 9781119596561.
Physical Logistics | Body Shapes and Movement (not sex movement)
Art In Context. (25 October 2026). Pose Reference: Free Timed Figure Drawing Practice. https://artincontext.org/pose-reference/ (Accessed 2 November 2026).
Johnson, Maureen and Douglas Johnson. Art Model Poses. A 107 book series, many of which include a CD or DVD. Series description: “Artists can easily access the human form outside of the studio with this solid pictorial reference. More than 500 crisp photographs portray a diverse set of models in 100 poses—ranging from the classical to the everyday—and show the positions from a variety of angles, including overhead. Exquisitely detailed photos of particular body parts and precise lighting reveal otherwise hidden areas of the models while providing rich shadowing and tone. The inspiring photographs in this collection are ideal for both students and more advanced artists who are looking for material to supplement a live model class or to hone their skills from the comfort of home.”
Sok, Anna. “Best 9 Free Pose Reference Sites to Practice Figure Drawing Online. (Published 14 June 2018; updated 15 December 2023). https://yourartpath.com/best-9-free-pose-reference-sites-to-practice-figure-drawing-online (Accessed 2 November 2026).
Winged Canvas (Virtual Art School). “Figure Drawing Resources.” https://www.wingedcanvas.com/figure-drawing-resources (Accessed 2 November 2026).