{"id":1565,"date":"2017-02-06T01:41:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T01:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catherinebrown.org\/?p=1565"},"modified":"2022-12-13T14:38:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T14:38:17","slug":"what-is-good-sex-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinebrown.org\/what-is-good-sex-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Good Sex Writing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Russians and Britons discuss literature \u2013 especially British fiction, especially if written since the Lady Chatterley<\/em> trial of 1960 \u2013 a difference often emerges in attitudes towards sex. Russians, it seems, prefer sex to be done but not described, known but not displayed \u2013 which is one reason for the Russian distaste of Gay Pride marches, which the West misinterprets as principally\u00a0homophobic.<\/p>\n

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For what it is worth, I think there is much to be said for this attitude. I too think that sex isn\u2019t a spectator sport. Historically, of course, it was that to a far greater degree than at present. Whether one were a Russian peasant living with one\u2019s family in a one-roomed hut, or a courtier in a corridor-less Petersburg Palace, one could easily find oneself witnessing sex. That is no longer the case for either oligarch or muzhik. Sex, if seen, is seen in \u2018art\u2019 – from filmed or staged pornography to literature. The difference is of course one of intention. Whereas neither royals nor peasants displayed <\/em>their sexual activity – it was just hard to hide \u2013 today\u2019s directors and authors choose to display sex, to be consumed at a distance.<\/p>\n

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An alternative to the Russian attitude is voiced by Patrick, editor of the novelist Michael Owen in Jonathan Coe\u2019s 1994 novel What a Carve Up!<\/em> He ventures the criticism of Owen\u2019s work that it lacks sex: \u2018I\u2019m saying that there\u2019s a crucial aspect of your characters\u2019 experience which is simply not finding expression here.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Now, it is crucial that Owen is a novelist rather than a film-maker. The distinction between film and narrative is one to which the novel is deeply wise. Although the sexual element in Pat Jackson\u2019s 1961 film What a Carve Up!<\/em>, obsessed over for decades by two of the novel\u2019s central characters, is a crucial element of the novel (a still from the film is the cover image on several of its editions), the novel as a whole is sceptical of scopophilia. Obsession over sexual images in film is connected, via Owen and Thomas Winshaw, to physical and emotional impotence. By contrast, since the publisher attributes Owen\u2019s failure to write sex to the very same impotencies, the novel as a whole is supportive of the publisher\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

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I would agree that there is an important distinction between sex on the page, on the one hand, and on screen or stage on the other. D.H. Lawrence, that pioneer of explicit literary depictions of sex, would have abhorred the adaptations of his novels, and classified actors\u2019 acceptance of money in order to appear naked as literal and metaphorical prostitution. He may also have classified the interaction between them and an absent film audience as an ersatz<\/em> connection bearing a similar relationship to the real physical encounter on which he placed such value as did First World War warfare to sincere hand-to-hand combat. Lawrence himself argues that the visual medium is intrinsically more shocking: \u2018It is easy in literature [\u2026] You can get some of the lusciousness of Hetty Sorrell\u2019s \u2018sin\u2019 [in George Eliot\u2019s 1859 novel Adam Bede<\/em>], and you can enjoy condemning her to penal servitude for life. You can thrill to Mr. Rochester\u2019s passion <\/em>[in Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s 1847 novel Jane Eyre<\/em>], and you can enjoy having his eyes burnt out. [\u2026] But in paint it is more difficult. You couldn\u2019t paint Hetty Sorrell\u2019s sin or Mr. Rochester\u2019s passion without being really shocking.\u2019 Here he implicitly admits why it is harder for a film adaptation to achieve the aims of Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover <\/em>\u2013 to render sex as clean, natural, and unsensational – than the novel itself. Michael Owen\u2019s description of the actor Shirley Eaton getting changed in What a Carve Up!<\/em> adds an additional layer of modesty to that offered her by Kenneth Connor\u2019s character (who tries not to look), and the film\u2019s editor. When Thomas Winshaw, whose bank is investing in the film studio, tries to witness the filming of this scene, he and the reader are thwarted in seeing more than the film shows; but even had he succeeded we would still only have seen words<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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