Writing About the Smells and Sounds of Sex

Why do writers often ignore these senses?

This article was first published on Medium If you are a member you can read this article in full here.

In her article, The Basics of Writing Toe Curling, Clit Tingling, and Dick Throbbing Erotica on Medium Sonja Rae advised writers to concentrate on smell, sight, touch, taste and hearing when writing about sex. That’s good advice when writing about almost anything.

I read a lot, but so many writers, especially when writing about sex, seem to ignore smell, taste is limited to salty (I’ll let you work out the context of that one) and all characters hear is dialogue and the odd moan.

Smell is the most potent trigger of memories and emotions. The smell of blancmange tinged with disinfectant still takes me back to my first day at school and that was nearly sixty years ago. We hear all sorts of small sounds that inform us about the world around us.

Sonja’s advice set me thinking about writing about the smells and sounds of sex so here’s a scenario.

Imagine you are tied to a bed and blindfolded. What are you going to hear? Your lover walking around the room? Are they barefoot in which case there might be the slight slap of feet on a wooden floor or the click of high heels? Maybe there is a rug near the bed, so the sound of their footfalls disappears or becomes the faintest brush of their feet on the material as they approach.

In At the Edge of Dreams one of the heroine’s lovers is from another dimension and only partially slips into her world so he glides silently across the room (a large part of him does materialise in her dimension so she does feel him slip into her). Silence can be as evocative as sounds but the reader needs to be told about it.

Background sounds

Back to you tied to the bed. What else can you hear whilst you are tied and blindfolded?