The perils of writing about sex: 'Your partner will think it's about them. Or – even worse – someone else'

The Guardian - Thursday 11 February 2016 

Should you use exotic euphemisms or anatomical detail? Should it be comical, tender or shocking? And what if your mum reads it? Three generations of writers reveal the pitfalls – and pleasures – of writing about erotic encounters

Photograph: Ghislain & Marie David De Lossy/Getty Images                                                   There’s a great moment in Slavoj Žižek’s A Pervert’s Guide To Cinema where he describes an “unfortunate experience, probably known to most of us, how it happens that while one is engaged in sexual activity, all of a sudden one feels stupid. One loses contact with it. As if, ‘My God, what am I doing here, doing these stupid, repetitive movements?’”                                                                                   The realisation that sex can be at one moment ecstatic, and the next absurd, is rarely acknowledged in literature. That seems a shame, particularly for descriptions of teenage sex where heightened expectation and limited experience can make the delusions more real, the failures more profound.    MORE