Why Straight Male Authors Are Shying Away from Writing About Sex
Are straight male writers genuinely scared of writing about sex? If you examine contemporary fiction, it is challenging to reach any other conclusion. Perhaps there is a pervasive worry that including a sex scene might come across as exploitative or gratuitous. Alternatively, many may feel that their gender has already said enough on the subject, prompting a self-imposed silence.
The Contrast with Female Authors
In contrast, female authors writing about straight relationships do not appear to share this nervousness. For them, sex often serves as a central narrative element, offering nuanced portrayals of masculinity. From the slow-burn tenderness and awkward intimacy in Sally Rooney's works to the surreal celebrations and lamentations of the erotic in Diane Williams's short stories, these depictions enrich the literary landscape.
The Bad Sex in Fiction award, which concluded in 2019, is not particularly missed by many. Its primary offence lay in conflating comically bad writing about sex with great writing that simply happened to be bad. Nevertheless, the most excruciating winners were typically straight men attempting to write sincerely and exuberantly about sex, only to land somewhere between ludicrously metaphorical and shoddily pornographic or exoticising.
Historical Examples and Modern Avoidance
Past winners included James Frey, with lines like "Blinding breathless shaking overwhelming exploding white God I cum inside her ...", and Didier Decoin, who wrote "Katsuro moaned as a bulge formed beneath the material of his kimono ...". It is perhaps no coincidence that in the 21st century, straight male authors seem to have largely abandoned writing about sex altogether. This is a significant loss, as writers are naturally obsessed with relationships—how we treat, fail, or fulfil each other, and how we connect despite our ultimate unknowability. Omitting sex neglects both the minutiae and excesses of human experience.
The Importance of Including Sex in Fiction
Luke Kennard, author of Black Bag, emphasises that he tried not to shy away from writing about sex in his latest novel because it is integral to character formation. In a sex scene, every detail or desire is described for a reason, revealing where a character stands in relation to their own sexuality and their treatment of others and themselves. Nobody wants to emulate the pathological misogyny and coldly itemised conquests of Henry Miller or Charles Bukowski, nor adopt John Updike's waspish, suburban proto-polyamory as a blueprint. Whether urbane or grotesque, such voices often feel like those of a priapic pub bore.
Current Trends and Insecurities
Many straight male writers are uncomfortable, leading them to decorously fade to black and rejoin characters after the act, preferably the next day. This echoes the sentiment in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over." Examples include Keiran Goddard's Hourglass, where physicality is sublimated into long-distance running, and Joe Dunthorne's The Adulterants, which presents a sexless open marriage. In Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, characters feel they should have adventurous sex to match their lifestyle but find they dislike it. Kennard himself avoided sex in The Answer to Everything by making characters too exhausted to consummate emotional affairs.
Power Dynamics and Queer Fiction
David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men features subjects who condemn themselves by discussing their hatred of women but love for sex with them, often lacking human emotion. This marked a bitter revelation and an apology for the era of Roth, Updike, and Bellow. As Luke Brown noted in 2020, heterosexual male desire has long been linked to abuses of power, making the two seem inextricable. Traditional campus novels often trope this imbalance, as seen in works by JM Coetzee, David Gilmour, and Percival Everett.
Kennard is not advocating for uplifting novels about how wonderful sex is but argues that writing should involve discovery. Straight male authors have serious hang-ups, such as viewing sex as a competitive sport with performance anxiety, and these insecurities are too embarrassing to admit. The risk of failure is starkly embarrassing because men are often insecure about sex but fear admitting it as unsexy or un-masculine.
Examples from Queer Fiction and New Approaches
In contrast, queer fiction offers innumerable examples of good writing about sex. Brandon Taylor's self-loathing protagonists seek release, while Djamel White's All Them Dogs sets authentic intimacy against hyper-masculine gang culture. Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times plays with power dynamics, noting: "There was something Shakespearean about imperious men going down on you: the mighty have fallen."
In Black Bag, Kennard inverts the traditional campus novel by having an out-of-work actor in a relationship with a professor, where he is encased in a leather bag. Their sex life involves constant edging and interrupted stories, allowing him to find joy in submission and a relationship that removes him from the equation. When done well, sex in novels can be transformative, as fantasies are private like reading, without shame, and imagination is as important as the physical.
Conclusion and Call to Action
Researching Black Bag, Kennard read Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, which, though overwritten, gave its name to a kink. The best lines involve power dynamics, such as when Wanda von Dunajew says: "'Know that henceforth you are less than a dog, something inert; you are my own thing, my toy, which I can break merely as a pastime. You are nothing and I am everything. Do you understand?'" Much human behaviour stems from seeking that "kind of shudder," making it crucial to try to put it into words, however complex or strange.
