Let’s admit it; writing sex scenes is difficult, and realistic sex scenes even more so.

I’ve read my share of webnovels and it’s not rare to stumble upon weird and unrealistic sex scenes, those aren’t wrong per se, an author might actually be going for such a scene and it’s completely fine if that’s the case, but it’s more common that they are the result of a lack of personal experience and too big an influence of porn and hentai.

Today I’d like to give a few hints to all those who are struggling with their first sex scenes.

Let’s start with something easy: kissing. Everyone knows what kissing is about, right? Lips touch, there could be some tongue here and there, easy stuff generally speaking, right? Apparently no.

The internet is full of web novels in which tongues explore or invade the mouth of the partner with spit going everywhere, ending the kiss with a bridge of saliva and two people panting like dogs in heat.

Your tongue is neither a British soldier in pre-colonial Africa nor a conquistador. Tongues don’t invade mouths, unless you are an awful kisser. Tongues greet each other, dance around one another, they tease each other, play. A good kisser is one who can stimulate every part of their partner’s tongue without ever seeming insecure or overwhelming, interrupting the dance at the right times for things like a light bite on the lips or looking in their partner’s eyes. During all this the hands aren’t still, they are the ones that should explore but also hold, embrace. About the saliva, yes, kisses are wet and can be messy, this doesn’t mean that you transform into an irrigator as soon as you lips touch those of your partner and, while those infamous saliva bridges can and do happen, they are rare, not the standard.

Now let’s move to the real topic of this guide: sex. Sex isn’t only about mouths, breasts, vaginas and penises. While a quickie is always good now and then, it doesn’t really make for good writing material. As writing is not a visual media most of a scene will have to revolve around foreplay and the reactions of the people involved. Let me say this immediately, taking the clothes off, touching a breast for a bit and going straight to cunnilingus is not good foreplay.

The human body is full of erogenous zones to the point it’s almost impossible not to touch one, thus you should take advantage of them in your writing and, most of all, remember to go slow, no woman likes going straight to the point and neither do most men.

Start far away from the ‘hot zones’, make your characters stimulate various parts of each other’s body, while the more famous neck and thighs are already a better start than going straight for the breasts, go even farther. It’s incredible what a single finger starting from the hand and tickling its way up the arm, indulging on the inner side of the elbow, just to continue towards the armpits can do to a woman. The same is true for a hand that starts under the knee to caress the leg, then the thigh, slowly reaching for the crotch.

See? Those hands now seem in the right place to focus on the breasts and private area, right? You could now go for them but it wouldn’t be much different from the initial situation. Instead make the hand that was on her armpit trace her collarbone to her neck, maybe then go to her ears and the other one tease her sides, only then reach for the breasts and from those move down again, moving the hand onto the belly, pausing for a moment around the navel before finally reaching the crotch. There you can keep teasing for a bit before stimulating the outer parts with the hands or the tongue.

Even this small example is already much better than kiss->fondle breasts-> stick dick in, isn’t it? But it was just that, an example. Everyone reacts differently to the stimulation of different parts of their bodies and the different methods of stimulation, some may like being touched by hands, others may like oral stimulation, others still biting or, why not, slapping. These differences in reaction have to show in your writing, your characters will have things they like and things they don’t, things they are good at and things at which they aren’t. Don’t be fooled by this example in thinking only women get pleasure from those though, men have the same erogenous zones and if one your characters is an experienced woman she will exploit those zones when having sex with a man.

The reactions of your characters will have to feel real, people don’t shout “I’m coming” during an orgasm, heck they might even forget how to even breathe properly in that moment. Before that moment though people think, sometimes they speak and certainly they don’t think things like “I want his dick to drill me like an oil well” or “I’m going to split her apart like a kitkat bar”. What do people think during sex? It depends, according to their mood, how comfortable they are with each other, how their day went and many, many more things. A young couple at their first time might really be anxious and focused on what they are doing, while two people who already had sex a lot of times together might be thinking of what they’d like for dinner or talking about the color of the new curtains they are going to buy for the living room.

While we are at it we should focus for a moment on first times. First times are awkward, people are filled with anxiety and nervousness. No one excels at their first time; no one has awesome sex at their first time. Guys have a high probability of having problems with getting it up or finishing too soon while girls almost certainly will not get an orgasm and for most of them it will be like that for a lot of times after the first in their youth. If you have to write about a first time, write it awkward, innocent. It won’t be awesome sex, but it will still be amazing because it’s the first time. Show this in your writing.

Speaking of orgasms… It seems like every protagonist is a master of the multiple orgasm and the simultaneous orgasm. While women can have multiple orgasms while having sex it isn’t such a common occurrence, heck many women have to learn how to even have an orgasm, certainly they won’t have them with the same frequency of a minigun’s rate of fire as soon as something touches their private parts for the first time in their lives. Simultaneous orgasms on the other hand are like a double rainbow, to a lot of people it won’t happen in a lifetime, if it happens once every few years you can consider yourself lucky. A simultaneous orgasm after multiple orgasms? It’s a double rainbow on a field of four-leaf clovers.

The type of language you use will also greatly influence the scene. First of all, avoid scientific terms like penis, vagina or sternocleidomastoid. You’re not writing an andrology academic paper, those terms are just going to turn readers off and break the flow of the writing and if readers are not turned on even a bit or feel involved in the scene, it’s a bad sex scene. Depending on the type of scene vulgar terms can or cannot be acceptable. If you’re writing about a dirty, rough BDSM scene even saying that your character slapped someone with his dick can be fine; if you’re writing a more tender scene just saying something like “pussy” will break the flow and ruin a part of the scene, if not all.

I hope this little talk will be at least a bit useful for your future writings and remember: use protection.