Sex? Yes, please – we’re human!

Any allusion to intimate interaction between consenting adults invariably provokes a reaction. Whether it’s positive or negative is really moot, as numerous brands (and not least their marketing agencies) have discovered to their advantage. Hey – you can sell anything from beer to cars to language courses with a bit of sex. And if it results in the ire of militant feminists or religious fundamentalists, so much the better. The company offers a contrite apology: ‘Sorry about the ad, we realise it was insensitive and have now removed it’, which usually pacifies the nutters while it makes everyone else look for that particular commercial on YouTube and ultimately increases the sales. Brilliant!

Why am I writing this? Because on the few occasions when I post another chapter from my novel, or a poem, with a vaguely titillating subject or photo, I get three-to-four times as many readers as any other week.

I don’t have anything against erotica as a genre, I honestly don’t. As long as it’s credible and… well, erotic… and comes with an intriguing plot. Unlike a certain infamous trilogy whose writer, I firmly believe, was still a virgin even as she finished the final part. Still hoping for some of the action that she described in minute and boring detail, and repetitively to boot. No imagination whatsoever. Or experience.

But let’s be serious for a moment. When you attempt to dissect the human condition (as one is wont to do as a writer) it’s nigh impossible to neglect our sexuality. After all, it’s one of the mankind’s basic drives and emotions, at least as powerful as hate, greed and envy, and any of the other dubious sins that religions warn their followers against. Yet it seems to be summarily dismissed by most great authors. Is it the publishers? Or are the agents to be blamed?

Remember Lawrence and Miller trying to be honest about sex? Causing scandals in their day, now they are revered as much for their frank language as their astute understanding of human nature. Imagine, then, what le Carré could have done in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold if he’d been allowed to freely describe the desperate couplings between Alec and Liz, both of them hungry for love and trust and belief in something intangible.

Why are candid depictions of sex, whether in writing or images, still such a big issue?