As someone who is writing a gay romance, I’m reading a lot in the genre. Writers are told to read widely but they also must know their niche. They are expected to list two or three comparable novels that have already been published to some success. Not Danielle Steel kind of success—that comes off as arrogance—but titles with enough sales that a publisher can envision having a reasonable shot of turning a profit. It is a business, after all, and the bottom line looks better when black instead of red.
I was excited to read Adib Khorram’s I’ll Have What He’s Having since I’d previously enjoyed his young adult novel Darius the Great Is Not Okay. I like when authors write in different genres, something I am also trying to do. The story is set in Kansas City, arising from a case of mistaken identity as Black sommelier David Curtis meets Iranian-American, career-hazy Farzan Alavi. As this is not a review of the book itself, I’ll skip plot specifics. This post is instead about the sex scenes.
Ooh! Sex!
As a kid, I stumbled on sex in books my mother read. When she’d go out, I’d skim in search of smutty passages. Yes, Mom and Dad, this is what happens when you don’t have the sex talk with your kid. This is also what happens when sex ed in school is limited to a speech about abstention and posters showing the ravages of venereal disease. My mom’s books weren’t very practical. There was a lot of reference to bosoms and the knight or prince’s engorged “member.” Reading proved only slightly more helpful than my father’s explanation that babies came “from love” and TV sitcom mentions of “the birds and the bees.” Obviously, storks delivered the babies but what did bees have to do with my privates? (I’d never heard of anyone getting stung there.)
Fortunately, for a younger generation that somehow hasn’t stumbled on porn, romance novels have become more helpful. “Sweet romances” keep things “lite,” sex defined as lots of hand holding, kissing and then abrupt openings to new chapters where characters suddenly feel like they might be in love. But, aside from a particular bottle of rosé and a homemade cake, I’ll Have What He’s Having is neither sweet nor lite. It serves sex on a platter. Had my mother had any interest in man-to-man romance and this novel been lying around while I was growing up, I might have taken notes. Khorram is more than generous with the details.
And, as an older reader who no longer searches for sex riddles in bird or bee talk, I don’t read sex passages in books to learn something new…though I did learn a few new terms (e.g., taint and bussy). (RIP, bosoms and engorged members.) As a teen, I was intrigued. Now, I’m squirmier. I’m okay with characters having sex. I just don’t need all the details.
Khorram provides plenty of details. So many that a readerly couple could use his sex scenes as scripted role play and there wouldn’t be any gaps to ad-lib.
Color me red. But that squirming isn’t solely from discomfort; I’m bored, too.
I’ve heard many times that, unless someone is going for erotica, a sex scene shouldn’t be gratuitous. It should take the plot forward, somehow changing one or both of the characters and their relationship. (Thankfully, Khorram’s sex scenes only involve couples.) And, yes, I see how things evolve as a result of each scene but, for all the bravado in trying to make the reader blush, Khorram’s scenes are too balanced in terms of turn taking. It made the sex scenes predictable.
There are two more problematic points, however. First, prolonged sex scenes require the reader to play out some form of visual Twister in their head. It becomes rote. First, A placed his hand here. Then, B put his mouth there. Including all the choreography in a sex scene becomes needless work for the reader to imagine. It’s more tedious than titillating. The first sex scene in I’ll Have What He’s Having plays out over TWELVE pages spanning two chapters—that turn-taking thing. I really didn’t need that much sex Twister. I wish to assert a Donut Rule for sex scenes. Sure, a dozen pages of sugary sweetness may be tempting, but one or two is all I need for a sugar coma. I’ve gotten enough flavor and calories. Anything extra has bad consequences.
My Donut Rule is actually a more specific version of the wise, oft-quoted advice for writers: Less is more.
Much less, in this case.
Again, I’m not trying to be the prude police (though, yes, I can be prudish). All the choreography only slows down the novel’s pacing.
The second issue is that sex scenes can be overwrought in terms of how a writer describes the emotions. This is especially true in the romance genre where writers are building to a happily ever after. There seems to be an assumption that sex should be The Best Ever and, in reaching for that, unhelpful clichés emerge between the sheets. I’ll pull a few excerpts from pages 272-273 since, at this point, I’d had enough of the sex scenes and found myself distracted, picking them apart:
His skin was on fire, despite the room’s chill; his core was even hotter.
Electricity shot along his core as he relaxed…
Farzan rocked beneath him, thrusting slowly, making David see stars. “Oh, babe…”
Oh, no. Electricity. Seeing stars. I’m pretty sure Khorram uses fireworks somewhere in a sex scene but I didn’t care to skim to find the reference.
It’s telling that the title of the book harkens to the most famous line from rom-com movie When Harry Met Sally. There, a fake sex scene plays out with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal fully clothed in a delicatessen. When the characters finally have sex, we skip quickly to the Awkwardly Ever After as Harry lies wide awake in the bed, one leg draped over the edge as the character contemplates a quick exit.
I never thought I’d say this in terms of sex but, as played out on the page, here’s to quick exits.
