What do you know about sex?
I’m putting together an anthology—short, sinful, and sweet.
I know you know something, but where did you get that information? Where did you learn it?
What kinds of books did you read that had sexy bits?
Did Catcher in the Rye turn you on? Shakespeare’s sonnets? (And if so, which ones?) Did you turn down the page on the bridesmaid and Sonny passage in The Godfather, perhaps? Are there sections you reread in Notes on a Scandal? Did I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell seem to be the most accurate reflection on sex you’ve ever read? Was it Ginsberg who inspired you, or Yeats? Molly’s monologue in Ulysees or was it Margaret Mitchell’s description of kisses and swoons in Gone with the Wind? How about Fear of Flying?
Who made you laugh about sex? Who made you never want to touch another human being again?
What works took you by surprise?
Here’s my surprise story: Thirty-one years ago I picked up a copy of Anais Nin’s Little Birds, thinking it was simply a book of short stories. Imagine how shocked I was to discover that I’d chosen, at the railway station bookstore, a selection of erotica that made my fingers tingle and my face blush. That wasn’t the worst or the best of it, either. I was on the way back from seeing my boyfriend in London, on my way back to New Hall, Cambridge, where I was a graduate student, and I don’t think I looked up from the Nin book even once.
There has been no train since that ride I remember with such a sense of deep shame or such a deep sense of unexpected and enormous pleasure.
The two were often twinned in my experience of sex and the page.
It still embarrasses me slightly to talk about the “dirty bits” that I like, so it’s probably very healthy for me to throw myself into the compiling of sexy material.
But I need your help. I’m looking for suggestions. What are your ten favorite pieces about sex?
Okay, so here’s what I want: poems, stories, plays, passages, essays, or scenes from longer works describing sex, embodying sex, revealing sex. Offer a list, please. To be even more specific, I’m looking for pieces that will incite discussion about sex, that will provoke readers—even sophisticated, erudite, jaded, knowledgeable ones such as ourselves, to think, to smile, to blush—to respond.
crossposted with PT
16 Responses to What Are Your 10 Favorite Sexy Selections?
literarytype - April 21, 2010 at 9:54 am
1. My Secret Life2. The Story of O3. Lolita4. Lady Chatterly’s Lover5. “To His Coy Mistress”6. Tropic of Cancer6. Parts of Zola7. Parts of Durrell8. Billy Collins’ poem about Dickinson9. Parts of Tennessee Williams10. Whitman’s “We Two Boys Together Clinging”
phildept - April 22, 2010 at 6:21 am
Thanks for doing this. I’m curious to see the suggestions, and to find whether, as I fear, I am an outlier or am a boring nerd (or both).The speech of Aristophanes from Plato’s _Symposium_, about Zeus splitting people in two so they will yearn for their other half and not be so uppity; Anne Sexton, several will do: Love Song, Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator, To My Lover Going Home to His Wife;Theodore Roethke, “I Knew a Woman;” Henry Miller, a page and a half from _Tropic of Capricorn_ which begins, “She was the best . . . I ever had, . . .;” The letter to the collector Anais Nin wrote in the intro to one of those collections, beginning “We hate you;” The Robert Herrick Julia poems;The brutal assessment of the autonomy and subjectivity of love in McCullers’ “Ballad of the Sad Cafe;”a couple of pages claiming love is subjective and ineffable by C.W. Du Pont–I have not been able to find the source and it may be a hoax, but it’s a good one–there’s a copy athttp://www.humboldt.edu/~jwp2/304subb2.htm ;Leslie Marmon Silko, “Lullabye” (about a five page short story); Ezra Pound’s “The River Merchant’s Wife; A Letter;”The couple of pages from _When Harry Met Sally” beginning “You know we could never be friends.”I’m sure I’ll think of more. Good luck, and thanks again.jwp
22086364 - April 22, 2010 at 9:49 am
ee cummings’ “i love my body when it is with your body”.
iris411 - April 22, 2010 at 9:51 am
If you do not limit your research on Americans only, I could help a little:1. Buddhist Vinaya (a complete guide to sex education, accurate, scientific and exhaustive)2. flesh cushion 3.Story of the West Chamber 4. Story of the Peony Pavillion 5. decameron 6. Jin Ping Mei 7. Dream of the Red Chamber
bas_librarian - April 22, 2010 at 10:51 am
1. John Donne – “The Flea”2. John Donne – “The Ecstacy”3. Boccaccio – “The Decameron” (“Young Alibek …” particularly)4. Catullus – “Who Loves Beauty”5. Sextus Propertius – His Elegies regarding Cynthia6. Ovid – “The Art of Love” (particulary Elegy V)7. John Marston – “The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image”
thelarcenist - April 22, 2010 at 11:59 am
Sex and Music. read more at http://www.losgrilloscollective.com/
jmg06005 - April 22, 2010 at 1:54 pm
My own list overlaps a great deal with this one:http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/dec/11/bestbooks.fictionI would add Lolita and Never Let Me Go.
11159859 - April 22, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Men of age would include Sears and Roebuck catalogue.
smclanton - April 22, 2010 at 3:32 pm
The Miller’s description of Alisoun, the wife of John the Carpenter, in the Miller’s Tale in Canterbury Tales. Donne’s “The Flea” has already been mentioned, but I would add his “The Sun Rising” and especially “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” which, which transcends mere sex.
researchguy - April 22, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Gina, Gina, Gina: Excellent idea! I sniff a best-seller coming here. (If you need a field research assistant, I’m your guy: I know it would be a stiff assignment, but I’m up for it.)My personal fave is Lady Chatterly where the wife is opening up to a more earthy and openly human level of sexual understanding and appreciation through her interactions with the game-keeper. That’s because for me it places coitus absolutely at the nexus of so many human conflicts – class/gender/generations/war/Victorian morals, etc. She has to take all these differences on in order to commit the sex act, and in so doing she transcends them, reduces their significance, and thereby reaches a more fully human level of being. To me that’s more than sex: it’s eros.And the book itself made an analogous achievement by being the focal point of the famous legal case that for all practical purposes ended book censorship in the UK and ushered in more modern attitudes.I realize you asked for ten and this is only one, but I’ve never felt the need to curl up with so many partner books at one time. To me, that’s kinda… well, slutty. But each to their own.Let us know when your book appears.
wallywood - April 22, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Robert Wright, The Moral Animal.It explains the birds and bees from Darwinian psychology.
jbone - April 23, 2010 at 11:14 am
researchguy…”I know it would be a stiff assignment, but I’m up for it.” Classic!
22228715 - April 23, 2010 at 7:03 pm
From all these academics… how about the Hite Report? (and sequel?)
oscarw - April 25, 2010 at 11:43 am
Not exactly eroticism but THE SONG OF SOLOMON is in an unlikely place. And seductive as a recitation.
janetberger - April 26, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Not sexy per se, but provocative about sex is the opening scene (I think) from The Good Mother w/ Diane Keaton, and then later the scene in the art gallery w/ Liam Nisson
deanette - April 26, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Sons and Lovers, the scene where Paul and Miriam first make love.