Embrace Your Inner Sex Goddess

Please help me welcome the lovely and talented Anna Alexander. Anna makes her home in the Seattle area with her two daughters and her overactive imagination. She writes contemporary and paranormal romances that raise the temperature on those grey, rainy Northwest afternoons. Or maybe that’s just the heat coming off the oven as she bakes her infamous cranberry-white chocolate chip cookies. Follow her writing journey at AnnaAlexander.net, Facebook- Anna Alexander, or Twitter- AnnaWriter.

HERE'S ANNA: Family gatherings. No matter whose family it is, the conversation follows a similar pattern. “How’s work?” “What grade are you in now?” “How’s the remodel going?” The question I’m always asked is, “Are you published yet?”

“Not yet,” I respond. “But I was recently named a finalist in the Between the Sheets contest.”

“Great. What is that?”

“Well, I entered a ten page love scene and I was one of the five best.”

“Love scene? Oooo. What was it about?”

“Uh…well…” I can feel my ears burn as my spoonful of vanilla ice cream melts onto the top of Optimus Prime’s chocolate head.

I know for certain that this will not be the last time I encounter such a question. My books contain some fairly racy scenes, and very little is left to the imagination. I foresee a time in the future, after I’ve received the call (see, me being optimistic), when I will be standing in a lovely bookstore chatting with nice people, and someone will approach me and say, “So, you like to tie men up and shave their private areas.”

Regardless of whether I personally enjoy that or not, I wrote that scene, and it will be tied to me forever. Now, do I hang my head in shame and run and hide in the self-help section, or do I lift my chin, smile and say, “Thank you for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it.”

The answer is smile, of course. Even if my cheeks are on fire, and my eyes glaze over in horror, I will still smile.

So if you are like me, a naturally shy person who is able to describe in explicit detail several uses for extra-virgin olive oil that do not involve cooking, how do you overcome that gut clenching, sweat producing, please-world-swallow-me-whole reaction? The key to that is understanding you as a person, and your reader.

The number one rule is write to your comfort level. This, I believe, is most important. Read out loud the sexiest scene in your manuscript in a strong, clear voice. If you can’t do it in the privacy of your own room, then how can you be comfortable promoting all aspects of your novel in public? Listen to your heart, and your internal embarrassment thermometer. If the thought of describing steamy oral sex makes you break out in hives, don’t do it.

Even though it’s the 21st century, people as a whole are still very sheltered when it comes to sex. I can’t understand why it is more publically acceptable to have a movie where someone is violently decapitated over a moving, emotional, explicit love scene. What may be vanilla to you, may be exotic and unimaginable to another. That person may lash out and make juvenile or negative comments to cover their own embarrassment or fear. Smile, nod your head, thank them for their opinion, and move on. My job as a fiction author is to entertain, not to teach, argue, or psychoanalyze their response to my book.

Be proud of your work. Conveying the nuances, both physical and emotional, of a sexually intimate relationship is a talent that takes incredible hard work and skill. The authors who are masters at love scenes cultivate enduring readerships for that reason. Their readers want that experience. If you can deliver that then don’t be afraid of embracing your inner sex goddess. The world can handle a little sexy.