I think a big problem with writing about sex is that it's so personal. I've noticed that I find it hard to take a sex scene seriously if the terminology used is too different from words I myself would use. I love Anne Rice's The Witching Hour to death, but there were times when I just paused and went, "WTF? Cleft?", and snorted. In general, her (non-erotica) books have suffered from the sex being made more graphic.
Sometimes less is more. Use of setting and emotional context can make a huge difference by making the reader feel like they're there. In Ricardo Pinto's The Chosen, an erotic coupling in an Eden-like setting (I don't want to say who, as it's spoilery) is the more powerful for culminating in the very simple "They made love."
And the scene in Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now where Daisy and Edmond discover each other is very powerful because of the context of the war and their way of life crumbling around them. It's one of the best-written coming-of-age, sexual-awakening things I've read, and the fact that it's in a YA novel, a genre which many people would push aside as insufficiently literary, says a lot.
The Time Travler's Wife also has a very well-written sex scene (Clare's first time), which is beautifully grounded in the characters themselves and the nature of their relationship - it's not one of those books where the author just slapped on some naughty words and cliched metaphors.
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Sometimes less is more. Use of setting and emotional context can make a huge difference by making the reader feel like they're there. In Ricardo Pinto's The Chosen, an erotic coupling in an Eden-like setting (I don't want to say who, as it's spoilery) is the more powerful for culminating in the very simple "They made love."
And the scene in Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now where Daisy and Edmond discover each other is very powerful because of the context of the war and their way of life crumbling around them. It's one of the best-written coming-of-age, sexual-awakening things I've read, and the fact that it's in a YA novel, a genre which many people would push aside as insufficiently literary, says a lot.
The Time Travler's Wife also has a very well-written sex scene (Clare's first time), which is beautifully grounded in the characters themselves and the nature of their relationship - it's not one of those books where the author just slapped on some naughty words and cliched metaphors.
I'm sure there must be more, but these