It's All About the Scissoring – Or Butt Sex Scenes 101
Jul
5
2005

Beware: this entry is going to discuss anal sex in a graphic and very snarky way. If you don’t like butt sex and/or snark, this is not the entry to read.

So last month a friend of mine who also writes erotic romance said to me that she hated the use of the word “scissoring” in anal sex scenes and basically, she skipped over anal scenes. First I promised her to use a code word from now on to let her know that butt sex was, er, around the bend. Then I said that scissoring was necessary because if you don’t scissor, it hurts. (scissor in this case means the insertion of fingers and the spreading of the fingers to loosen the anus before penetration of the penis)

There’s a certain amount of suspension of reality when you write a sex scene. Another author friend of mine and I joke that we should write an “ow you’re on my hair” reality sex scene book. Sex in most erotic romances is nicer, cleaner and not quite as awkward as it is in real life. Not that reality is totally suspended, but the “ow you’re on my hair” stuff, along with the mechanics of certain acts that require preparation like anal sex, is glossed over for ease of reading.

But there’s certain realities that I feel should be there, condoms in my books with human to human sex (in paranormals it’s different if I write it that way as in vampires or werewolves don’t carry STDs and can’t get humans pregnant). Also, preparation of some kind with anal sex.

I hate it in books where there’s an anal scene and the hero just jams his cock in there with no preparation! OUCH! IMO, just don’t put an anal scene in the book if you are going to portray it so unrealistically. Unless you’re a porn star or you have loads of anal sex, you can’t just thrust into someone’s anus without a bit of prep first, even some lube for goodness sake!

And our writing should reflect reality on some level! Yes yes, I write about vampire, wizard, witch three ways and that’s not real, but at the same time, some level of reflection of the real world energy it takes to have sex should be there or it’s just not that interesting because you can’t put yourself in her place.

So yeah, scissoring! I honestly did think about other words, I’ve used other descriptors but really, scissoring is the best short word that does the trick. So sorry, Sparkles, I’ll keep using scissoring, but I promise to use our code word to alert you of scissoring ahead in my next book.

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