The joy of sex writing

Two bold collections of essays about the most intimate of acts prove that good sex makes a great memory, but bad sex makes a great story.

By David Amsden

Read more: Books, Sex, Health, Erotica, Reviews, Book reviews

Jan. 1, 2006 | All good sex is the same; each instance of bad sex is bad in its own way.

This, at least, is the message I came away with after reading two recently published anthologies, "Best Sex Writing 2005" and "The World's Best Sex Writing 2005."Despite titillating covers featuring, respectively, a topless brunette straddling an anonymous lad and a pair of nylon-clad legs slipping into stiletto heels, it turns out that both collections are governed by a somewhat curious philosophy: that the best sex writing focuses on the worst of what sex has to offer.

Of the 47 pieces between the two -- an eccentric mix of memoir, reportage and essay -- only a few are concerned with presenting sex as a human experience from which pleasure and happiness can bloom. The rest are a compendium of what could be called anti-erotica: taking readers on an endorphin-depleting tour of bruised egos, thwarted submissives, destroyed friendships, deceased feminists, reluctant porn stars, sketchy sperm donors, mutilated genitals (by the hands of both plastic surgeons and malicious tribesmen) and murdered transsexuals, among other topics that, for this reader, amounted to a compelling case for the return of the chastity belt. From time to time I had to put the books to the side, close my eyes, and flash on some archival footage of lustful collisions to remind myself that sex remains an activity that people enjoy for a variety of righteously dizzying reasons.

I hope the editors take this as a compliment, not a complaint, because both have put together fresh collections that are far more complex and compelling than their saucy covers let on. "Analyze any human emotion," wrote Freud, "no matter how far it may be removed from the sphere of sex, and you are sure to discover somewhere the primal impulse, to which life owes its perpetuation." This is the dictum being explored at the heart of these collections, both of which take a vaguely academic approach to sex, presenting it, as Susan Sontag may have put it, as a cultural metaphor. "These stories are daring, exciting, harsh, and relevant," writes Violet Blue, the excellently monikered editor of "Best Sex," in her introduction. "They open a revealing window into the human condition, and into our sexuality as a culture." Mitzi Szereto, the editor of "World's Best," echoes this outlook, positioning her anthology as "an engaging critical commentary on the sexual culture of our times -- on where we are today, and if we should even be here." (Full disclosure: A piece of mine was picked for "Best Sex 2006," though after this review was written.)

This turns out to be a wise approach, given an unfortunate irony that the best sex, like the happiest families, has a tendency to come off as dull and saccharine on the page. Why? In part, I suspect, it has to do with the nature of writing and reading: They are the least instinctual of activities and therefore less than ideal for expressing our most basic instincts. And then there's the nature of those who choose to write about sex: Thanks to some Darwinian law, they tend to be of the hyper-curious, exhibitionistic sort that make for good drinking companions, and even better lovers, but not necessarily the subtlest of prose stylists.

Or perhaps the power of sex to render language temporarily obsolete is simply a testament to how splendid it can be. The critic Anthony Lane put it best: "One of the great glories of sex is the difficulty of talking about it -- no other human activity, not even love, is so resistant to the assaults of language. Talking during it has never been easy, either, especially if you were brought up not to speak with your mouth full, but nothing can quite match the verbal shortfall of erotic anticipation and remembrance; struggling to say what we feel, we plod from the lachrymose to the smutty via the obstetric, and never seem to get any nearer."

Other, more visceral, art forms, come closer. Photography, painting, cinema, hip-hop: These are mediums that, in the right hands, manage to be both carnal and clever without coming off as pat. Writing, though, is inherently cerebral, introspective, neurotic, more professorial than prurient. After all, part of what makes "Lolita" so scandalous after 50 years in print is that it remains a great piece of writing that, to the discomfort of many a blushing intellectual, is genuinely arousing. Generally speaking, writing is not about indulging in one's desires so much as questioning them, over and over, until the onset of vertigo. And so the very hang-ups and insecurities that can ruin a good romp between the sheets are, paradoxically, the very ones that make for excellent writing.

Let's turn to the texts. For first prize I nominate, from "World's Best," a hilarious essay titled "Performance Anxiety," in which Steven Rinella tells of going to a strip club to watch a friend's wife strip; coming in at close second is, from "Best Sex," Timothy Archibald's comically dreary journey through a sex-machine factory ("Sex Machines"). Are they explicit? Very much so. Sexy? Not in the least. Essential? Certainly. Written with wit and precision, both are cautionary tales about the commercialization of sex and the extent to which we can become depersonalized in our never-ending search for connection and escape. This is far from sunny subject matter, which makes it all the more impressive that the essays are so entertaining. Both writers manage a deft little stunt: coming across as lewd, absurd and detachedly knowing all at once.

Rinella's first paragraph -- slapstick, erudite, a touch melancholy -- is a pitch-perfect approach to the topic: "There's an old saying: 'You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.' I've never tried to pick a friend's nose, but I recently found myself in a situation that brought the saying to mind. Afterward, I tried to update the saying with a more adult theme, but sadly, my revision lacked the lyrical quality and poetic tidiness of the original. But here goes anyway: 'You can pick your friends, you can watch your wife masturbate, but you shouldn't watch your friend's wife masturbate.'" And here he is staring at his friend's wife, while his friend is seated next to him: "I was glaring into the moistened passage where Bruce had undoubtedly found countless pleasures. I assumed the facial expression of someone looking at a painting in a gallery: unequivocal appreciation, but also objectivity." It's one of these essays that you want to read to your friends, which, as it happens, is just what I've been doing for the past week or so. In the end, the awkwardness of the situation is too much, and a fledgling friendship meets an early demise, making the piece, exposed breasts and spread legs and delicious wisecracks aside, a quirkily modern morality play.

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