Too much anatomical play-by-play i. Pornographic Twister makes for a gratuitous and repulsive reading experience and too much flowery description is downright comical. Words like turgid, heaving, and throbbing are a clear indication — at least for me — that a cheesy sex scene is quickly approaching. I can almost smell the Velveeta now…. Many readers tell me that they would rather have no sex scene at all than a badly written or awkwardly choreographed sex scene — but I disagree.

Literature about sex, no matter who has written it, is almost always terrible, and everybody knows it. This is widely known and acknowledged — even on this very site, by both the great Sonya Chung and Julia Fierro. An imperfect depiction of sex is far worse for some reason than an inept description of someone entering a room or having a marital spat or whatever other things a book might get wrong without anyone disapproving quite so mercilessly. There is sufficient scorn for bad sex writing that the Literary Review famously awards an annual prize for it.

My heart is beating in time with the pulsing need in my sex as I root through the box for the lacy bits I seek. I make a mental note to always buy two pairs of panties with every set of lingerie I purchase as I hook my thumbs underneath and slip them off. I fasten the garter around my hips and as I bend to slip the silk stocking over my toes I catch sight of the perfect red hand shape on my rump in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors of the closet doors in front of the bed. The image darts straight to my core and again I have to bite my lip to stop my impatient moan from escaping. A hot flush races over my skin, almost matching the hot pink of the handprint.