SexRead

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say that they don’t want to watch or read anything they couldn’t watch or read with their children. I dunno. I’m not really into the same things as my kids. We overlap on our love of The Simpsons, Chowder and The Regular Show (Have you watched that yet? Hilarious.) I still get a kick out of reading Go, Dog. Go! , Olivia and pretty much anything by Roald Dahl. But I can’t stand Phineas and Ferb or the dreaded Barbie Movies my girls beg to watch, which I let them watch because I’ve got stuff to do, even though I feel horrified the whole time as I  can’t ignore the gender issues that are packed into each and every samey movie — always a smart and brave but super nice and beautiful, Barbie (also klutzy — Manic Dream Pixie Barbie — it’s her only adorable flaw), an evil older woman, and a Ken as featureless as his famous anatomy. Barbie, through her resiliency and smarts, always saves the day-these are modern-times, she doesn’t need Ken to save her! But she can’t really be happy until she marries Ken. Yet, she always worries — can  a man with no discernible personality  really like a gorgeous, smart, competent girl like her? The answer is yes. Every time. Anyways, I don’t like most of the stuff my kids are into and my children have no interest in politics, feminism, weird documentaries or French movies. My four-year-old is illiterate — she can’t even read.

Given our interest in different things, I don’t feel much pressure to model my reading or watching after my children. And, since I pretty much like tackling any topic through reading, it should be no surprise that I like reading about sex. Like many Mormon girls, I married young (barely 20) and a virgin. So my hands-on experience with sex is pretty limited. I don’t regret this, nor do I feel like I’ve missed out, but sex is a huge part of human existence and I’m naturally curious about what it’s like for other people, and, of course, how it’s the same or different from my own experience.

I’ve found that most Mormons are surprisingly open to reading and giving how-to sex manuals. What Mormon woman of a certain age didn’t receive The Act of Marriage at her bridal shower? (They probably give something different these days, but I’ve been married for awhile now.) My copy was a second-hand job with a picture of a blonde who looked like she had been photographed through a dreamy Virgin Suicides filter. I also remember that it was pretty vague and not terribly helpful. Much more helpful was  The Guide to Getting it On, which my husband and I were too embarrassed to buy, but read cover to cover during one of our marathon browsing sessions at Borders shortly after we married (Oh, the good old days before children when we could spend four hours at a bookstore! At least we wouldn’t be embarrassed to buy that book anymore.)

Despite the pleasing openness to how-tos, I’ve found most of my Mormon friends squeamish when it comes to reading about sex in fiction. To be fair, this might be partly due to the paucity of good sex. Writing about sex is notoriously difficult; we are constantly bombarded by sexual imagery and information, but we live in a moment that is more pornographic than erotic.    My first experience with literary sex came at the courtesy of the Kalamazoo Public Library, where I huddled between the stacks wide-eyed and transfixed by Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. I was 15. At 16 and 17, I read a lot of sexy Milan Kundera. I would like to say that I got what was going on in those books, but, honestly, other than intense curiosity and being a little aroused, most of it went completely over my head, kind of the way my kids don’t catch all the jokes or innuendos in The Simpsons.

As a grown-up reader, I want to read books that confront the physical realities of sex, but I also want to explore the emotional dimensions of desire and how complex and varied sex is. To that end, I can only think of a handful of books that have really shed any light on the subject for me. Anais Nin and Erica Jong’s famous Fear of Flying were disappointments. (Speaking of Nin, she is really the only author I’ve read that could be classed as a writer of erotica. In theory, I’m not against it, but I generally find discussions of sex much more compelling in the context of broader themes and real life, but, you know, to each his/her own.) I quite like the sex scene at the end of Cold Mountain and I think A.S. Byatt is a genius at describing the embarrassing and awkward moments that can come with sex. I also like the humor and warmth of Zadie Smith’s sex writing. I recently read Haruki Murakami’s gorgeous mood piece South of the Border, West of the Sun, which I loved for lots of reasons, but especially because it has one of the best sex scenes I’ve ever read. It was very frank, but I didn’t find it crass or clinical — it was very erotic, but almost seemed strangely innocent. I still don’t quite understand how he did it.

Do you have any rules about reading about sex? Is it anything goes or do you try to censor wisely? And, if you are like me and you don’t do much censoring, what writers treat the subject with sensitivity and insight?

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