12 Steps to Good Sex…Scenes: (Guest Blog) by Bree LeMaire

My problem was that I wanted to put a sex scene in my murder mystery but didn’t know where to start. Clarissa (my protagonist) had to mention the murder on some level while being intimate with Hord, the investigating detective.  So, there were two challenging goals: crime and sex.

That is when I tapped into the skills of Desmond Morris a behavioral scientist and his twelve steps to intimacy. My solution was to integrate the discussion with Morris’ 12 steps. I started with Clarissa taking a sip of orange juice and Hord watching her or eye to body action and step one. This was followed by Hord asking Clarissa a question of how the murdered man behaved in group therapy.  Simultaneously they had eye to eye contact or the second step. This was followed by a discussion of what others had said about the murdered man and then voice to voice contact or step three. Then there was more orange juice more talking and hand to hand contact or step four. So you get the idea of how the scene progressed.

Here are the steps from Desmond Morris as listed in Wikipedia.

Eye to body

Eye to eye

Voice to voice

Hand to hand

Arm to shoulder

Arm to waist

Mouth to mouth

Hand to head

Hand to body

Mouth to breast

Hand to genitals

Genitals to genitals

Writing great sex needs good plotting. Desmond Morris has already laid out the play-by-play action in his 12 steps to intimacy. This is the same Desmond Morris who wrote The Naked Ape. He also studied couples and found similarities across species. He found that the action is most often sequential.  He also said that the speed a couple moves through these steps is a prediction of longevity for the relationship.

Writing a sex scene can vary greatly from one to another. One class I took on writing erotica emphasized that in this genre the challenge pivots on having a good setting as the plot was pretty much established.

So, my suggestion for a fail-proof sex scene is to hook up with Desmond Morris. He knows just the right moves.

About the author: Bree LeMaire lives in San Francisco. She is a founding member of the Book and is working on her second mystery novel, Murder in the Rehab Unit or just plain Rehab. When she talks of writing she says, “I have to get back into Rehab,” for incentive.