Thursday, October 08, 2015

The best LGBT sex in literature

Kirsty Logan, winner of the Polari first book prize, picks her favourite “sensual, honest, uncomfortable, glorious sex scenes”

Elaine Cassidy (left) and Sally Hawkins in the 2005 TV adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith.
Lesbian love story primer ... Elaine Cassidy (left) and Sally Hawkins in the 2005 TV adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith. Photograph: BBC/Sally Head Productions
A confession: I wanted this to be a list of literary smut. I wanted to choose the 10 hottest, most realistic, most beautifully written queer sex scenes ever published.

Another confession: despite being both a massive reader and a massive gay, I struggled to find 10 such scenes. I stood for ages, staring at my overstuffed bookcases, and I realised that there was a terrible lack of queer sex. Every piece I’ve chosen for this list is a great read, and every one changed my life in some small way. But this list is not quite as smutty as I’d hoped. So where are the books I was looking for? Where are all the sensual, honest, uncomfortable, glorious sex scenes? Many seem to have escaped me, but I know they must be out there. If nothing else, making this list has encouraged me to search even harder for honest depictions of LGBT love.
More

No comments: