Kissing Frogs

Writing about sex is boss level difficult. The Playhouse is about sex. It’s about how fucking fabulous it can be, how it can be a weapon, abuse, how it can be used to control. It’s impossible to write about because it’s about bodies and feelings and it is non verbal – if you don’t count moans and groans of pleasure. There is no lexicon for it and what name do you give the parts involved? Vagina, pussy, cunt, cock, prick, dick, penis? And describing orgasms, well, that’s a whole other minefield, women have so many erogenous zones, and are capable of so many types of orgasm. How to describe them?

Writing about sex is hard because it’s messy and emotional and it involves vulnerability and funny noises and a lot of bodily fluids and awkward positions. To write about it without sounding clinical or like cheap porn or titillation, requires a lot of thought about how to use words to make the experience seem real for the reader. In The Playhouse it’s essential. The male protagonist is obsessed by it and the female protagonist is held hostage by his obsession and increasingly her own addiction to it. Not in a 50 Shades of Grey way, but as a substitute for emotional connection and as a coping mechanism.

Whether the sex is well written or not will no doubt be examined by the critics. but trying to get it right has taken many hours and a lot of thought about how women and men experience it from the quick fuck against a wall to nights of experimenting with what bodies can do to each other and the simple act of lovemaking.