This is one of the weirdest things I’ve read in awhile–and I’ve been reading Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin lately. Leave it to Steyn to find the sex in climate change. My favorite part comes at the end. (That entire sentence was a double entendre.)
But don’t worry. Every sex scene in the book is peer-reviewed. Alas, like the IPCC report, not all of them live up to advance billing:
Sadly for Sanjay, writes Dr Pachauri, “the excitement got the better of him, before he could even get started”.
Oh, dear. There are times when even a climate expert can’t “hide the decline”.
Setting aside the weirdness of this entire thing, why do people insist on writing ridiculous sex scenes? It can be done well, but that takes actual talent. I picked up my yearly copy of Cosmo this weekend–I love Anna Faris–and paged through what seemed to be acres of cheesy sex advice and attempted bawdy talk. First of all, girls don’t do sex talk well. We tend to giggle and shy away from the proper names of things. Anyway, the back pages are reserved for excerpts of romance novels, and being unfamiliar with that particular genre, I had to read it. I don’t understand how women read those things without laughing. All that talk of “his length” and “member” and “ravishing her” is just terrible. I’ve read good sex scenes and that ain’t it. I know that if I could only swallow (ha! ha! “swallow”–I’m a 16 year old boy at heart when it comes to these things) my pride, I could make a lot of money writing that crap. But there are some fates worse than death, and writing (or reading) “romance” is one of them.
And besides, does that romance-y crap really turn women on? The hot young longshoreman is obviously lying to get into the heroine’s pants (or bodice or pantaloons), so why even pretend? I find it much more interesting when men are honest about what they want. I’m pretty honest about what I want, so I feel the favor should be returned. But that’s just me. I’m not all that sentimental.
You’re never gonna make the back pages of Cosmo
Nick’s right — too many big words.
(“Sophisticated” my hindquarters.)
No, Wakey, that’s all you. Plunging into the Cosmos is just an enthusiastic space walk.
PS to Cathy–SO unfair! Shorting like that with the elipses indicates to the reader that one minute the guy was having sex and the next he was ejected in to open cold space…*sigh*
Yeah…Cosmo..
In their 100 month of handy lists like:
“!00 sex tricks that well have him begging like a whimpering puppy in the sack”
Sure, brother.
LOL
LOL.. that’s right, Cathy.
Anyone else on the committee wanna chime in here?
And Nick, what can I say? It’s not like the literary agents keep me on the phone all day! At least I kept it relatively clean and didn’t mention the old West salves they had made of pig lard for the virgin girls, or how “Caleb could no longer containt his contentance, and spills thusly in three shuddering gasps, as his lady signed a contented release and yelled his name for all time’s sake!”
Come on Cath, Cosmo readers are a sophisticated bunch, clearly are in need of something a little more substantial.
It’s all in the interests of advancing literature.
Oh dear heavens…
Sex scenes written by committee.
Forget about it Wakes. You’re never gonna make the back pages of Cosmo with that “heaving oneness in motion” stuff. You’re probably gonna need more ‘throbbing manhood’ to give the piece more of a linear direction in the narrative.
Eww.