Correspondent: A friend I’ve been flirting with lately
Date: A few days ago
Our late night chats took a turn for the salacious recently. This is probably my fault — such things usually are. Early this month, you asked about my favorite kinds of sex. I was tired and I gave a terrible three-sentence answer about narrative sex that probably did nothing to convey the idea. This, several weeks later, is my attempt to do better.
I’ve been studying storytelling pretty intensively this year, and it’s fun to look at everything through that narrative lens. Let’s try it for sex.
Stories have elements: characters, goals, obstacles, tension, climax, resolution…
Oh look, that list is already looking fairly promising.
The best stories feature a character who really wants something. When we translate that over to sex, sometimes the thing that they want is very simple: they want to plow into the other person (or get plowed) repeatedly until they have an orgasm. Of course! That makes sense.
But in my version of “narrative sex,” the protagonist’s underlying want is often more complicated than that. Maybe he’s been in a power struggle with his partner, and this is his chance to conquer them. Maybe he wants to feel wanted. Maybe she doesn’t know any other way to let her tension go. In some sex therapy training I took once, I think I saw a list of many dozens of possible motivations for sex (I wish I’d kept that list).
Whatever that motivation is, it means there’s something personal at stake that goes beyond a purely physical release. And in the best stories — and the most intense narrative sex — the stakes are high. It matters whether the protagonist gets what she thinks she wants… or what she actually needs, instead, if that’s different. There are implications, there’s meaning. The course of the relationship turns on it, maybe, or even the way the protagonist makes sense of his life.
If it’s a good story, the outcome is in doubt. There are obstacles, ambiguity, tension. More than halfway through, you still don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
Sometimes the narrative climax and resolution mirror the physical ones; sometimes they’re entirely distinct. Of the two, the narrative ones matter much more.
To put all this another way, narrative sex is sex that has meaning but that also has motion.
Wait, I think there’s something else I should explain before I unpack that.
Here are some kinds of sex that are NOT narrative sex, according to me:
Sex that is primarily about the emotional and the relational, but that is highly repetitive with past sex. This sex might be saying something, but it is not saying anything new, it is saying the same thing that it said all of the other times. Most often it is saying something like, “I love you, I cherish you, you matter to me.” These things are important and worth saying many times over!
Sex that is primarily about the physical sensations and how good they feel, but that is not really hooked into the emotional, the cognitive, or the meaning-making part of the mind. This sex isn’t saying anything at all, except maybe “Oh, yeah, baby, just like that. Fuck yeah.”
Sex that is primarily about enacting a particular kink, but again that is highly repetitive with past sex. Yes, that kink is hot, but there’s no plot arc here, or even if there is you’re reading the same page out of the same book for the hundredth time. It’s a very good page, that’s why you keep reading it! What the sex says depends on the kink; writing the dialogue is left as an exercise for the reader. Feel free to write back and tell me what you got. ;)
I do not mean to denigrate any of these kinds of sex! They can all be beautiful, important, fun, and nourishing. They are just not what we’re talking about at the moment. The first kind, the emotional/relational sex, is absolutely meaningful, but none of these kinds of sex have motion. They don’t take the people in it to a new place, to a new state of being.
I think at this point I should just give some examples of narrative sex.
A couple have been happily enjoying recreational sex for years, but today they attempt procreative sex for the first time. They are so excited to be starting their family. Maybe they kink on it. Maybe they’re enraptured by potentially creating life. Maybe they feel closer than they ever have before. Will this be the sex that makes a baby?
A young couple are leaving for colleges on the opposite ends of the country right now, and this might be the last sex they have, because their lives are about to change. Will the sex give them the resolve to stay together, or will it be bittersweet goodbye sex? What if they get different answers to that question?
Experimental, scientific sex. One partner is anorgasmic, and the other has asked permission to try several different techniques to see what will happen. Will any of them feel good? What will happen to their relationship if they create orgasm? What will happen if they don’t? Are they going about this entirely the wrong way?
A kinky couple are playing with consensual non-consent for the first time. They’ve talked about it advance, but they’re both nervous. How will it feel, to really do this? What will it be like, to say “no” and have that no ignored? What will it be like, to hear “no,” to hold her arms down and plunder her while she cries? Will it be hot, will it be terrible, will their relationship be damaged or will it be strengthened?
As you can see, there are a lot of firsts and lasts here. There are phase changes, for the individuals or for the relationship. There are unanswered questions, there’s motion. No matter which way the questions are resolved, something will be different after this sex. This sex moves the plot forward.
I think a lot of people can have narrative sex as pretend play — they can simply imagine that one is a sailor and the other an innocent virgin inexplicably strolling the streets near the docks. I’ve tried that sort of thing and I can never manage to keep a straight face. Maybe it would work better with a better scriptwriter?
For me personally, it works best when the narrative arc is present in my real life, when I don’t have to fake anything because it really does matter and I really do care.
So then the question arises, where does all that plot come from? How many phase changes can one individual or one relationship actually generate?
Honestly I think being polyamorous helps a lot here. It is easier to get genuinely plot-advancing sex in a new relationship purely because there are new characters and new character combinations. But you’re not limited to “first sex,” “first kink,” etc. with a new partner – you also get to have “reassuring, totally still crazy about you” sex with your old partner(s) – and if you’re playing with fire I guess you also get to have jealousy sex and envy sex but I advise using those with caution!
That said, you can completely have plot-advancing sex in long-term relationships too, even stable ones — even monogamous ones.
Sometimes the sex life itself evolves; one of you finally admits to something you’ve always wanted to try, or you get new inspiration from an outside source.
Sometimes the relationship evolves. I heard about this sometimes as a sex therapist: couples who had previously been avoidant finally admit their terrible truths to each other, and discover that they have more capacity to tolerate the truth than either of them realized. They feel a rush of emotional intimacy, and then they have shockingly good narrative sex tied to their new closeness.
Sometimes things happen outside the couple’s sex life that they respond to in bed. One of them gets a promotion, or gets fired; one of them gets sick, or gets well. They almost die in a car crash, but don’t. They attend the funeral of a high school classmate and they feel lucky and guilty. Almost anything that generates emotion can generate narrative (though some of those story lines have more plot tension and open questions than others).
It “helps” — if you’re really into narrative sex — to have an eventful life. It helps if your life is very rich in plot arc anyway, and you’re just expressing some of that plot in your sex life. Someone with a very steady, stable, repetitive life is not going to be able to pull off very much narrative sex, unless they happen to be able to do it with fantasy.
My life is pretty eventful, as it turns out! (This is not a coincidence.) And because I prize narrative sex so much I can often locate it even when the plot shift is pretty subtle in the grand scheme of things. I don’t need anything as huge as “first procreative sex” to kink on — tiny events, like being stuck on a project at work and needing my emotions forcibly adjusted are plenty for me to go on.
I’m really grateful that you asked. I think by writing, and to write this letter I had to think. This concept matters a lot to me but my thinking about it was fuzzy. Talking to you is good for me, in a selfish way, because we talk about real things, and we ask each other questions, and I feel inspired to think.
Thank you.
See you online when we should probably both be sleeping!
xoxoxo
Will this correspondent and I manage at least a narrative kiss at some point? We’ll see!
This explains very well why I find most sex in romance novels (and basic porn) boring