Sex and literature (part 2)

Under the reign of Queen Victoria, England underwent several changes too. The literature created during this period is therefore called Victorian literature. The quality of literature was worse than the works written in previous periods. Most of the erotic texts were written by anonymous authors, such as The Lustful Turk and The Romance of Lust.The last novel protagonist is Charlie Roberts, who tells the story of his sexual experiences, adolescence, anal sex, pedophilia, orgies, and masturbation. The only publishers of erotic novels of that period were George Cannon, William Dugdale, and John Camden Hotten. Two more famous erotic novels by foreign authors were Gamiani or Two Nights of Excess , and Venus in Fur. The first was written by the Frenchman Alfred de Musset, the second by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, after whom masochism was named.

Twentieth-century and contemporary literature

In the first half of the twentieth century, two novels were published, Joyce's Ulysses, which also describes sex in its own way (Molly's famous monologue), and Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. The latter was not published until 1960, as it describes the sexual relationship between an aristocrat and a working-class man.  

After World War II, Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita, Lolita, attracted the public's attention. The story describes an erotic relationship between a minor and an older man. Due to this topic, Nabokov was only able to publish it in France, two years after the manuscript was first rejected. The novel still creates agitation today, perhaps even a little more than in the past - mainly because of the reader's greater awareness of child sexual harassment. Based on this book, Stanley Kubrick also made a movie with the same title.

In the twentieth century, describing sexual scenes in literature was more common. This applies not only to erotic literature but also to the prose and poetry of classical authors. My favorite is a somewhat unique fictional language describing sex in the novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar:

“As soon as he began to amalate the noeme, the clemise began to smother her and they fell into hydromuries, into savage ambonies, into exasperating sustales. Each time that he tried to relamate the hairincops, he became entangled in a whining grimate and had to face up to envulsioning the novalisk, feeling how little by little the arnees would spejune, were becoming peltronated, redoblated, until they were stretched out like the ergomanine trimalciate which drops a few filures of cariaconce. And it was still only the beginning, because right away she tordled her hurgales, allowing him gently to bring up his orfelunes. No sooner had they cofeathered than something like a ulucord encrestored them, extrajuxted them, and paramoved them, suddenly it was the clinon, the sterfurous convlucant of matericks, the slobberdigging raimouth of the orgumion, the sproemes of the merpasm in one superhumitic agopause. Evohé! Evohé! Volposited on the crest of a murelium, they felt themselves being balparammed, perline and marulous. The trock was trembling, the mariplumes were overcome, and everything become resolvirated into a profound pinex, into niolames of argutentic gauzes, into almost cruel cariniers which ordopained them to the limit of their gumphies.” (Cortázar, 496)

The following examples are slightly more specific:

Ian McEwan – On Chesil Beach::

“"She found his testicles first and, not at all afraid now, she curled her fingers softly round this extraordinary bristling item she had seen in different forms on dogs and horses, but had never quite believed could fit comfortably on adult humans. Drawing her fingers across its underside, she arrived at the base of his penis, which she held with extreme care, for she had no idea how sensitive or robust it was. She trailed her fingers along its length, noting with interest its silky texture, right to the tip, which she lightly stroked;" (McEwan, 80)

Roberto Bolaño – Antwerp::

"His fingers burrowed between her cheeks and she didn’t say a thing, didn’t even sigh. He was on his side, but she still had her head buried in the sheets. His index and middle finger probed her ass, massaged her sphincter, and she opened her mouth without a sound. (I dreamed of a corridor full of people without mouths, he said, and the old man replied: don’t be afraid.) He pushed his fingers all the way in, the girl moaned and raised her haunches, he felt the tips of his fingers brush something to which he instantly gave the name stalagmite. Then he thought it might be shit, but the color of the body that he was touching kept blazing green and white, like his first impression." (Marías, 222)

Elena Ferrante – The Story of a New Name::

"I washed her with slow, careful gestures, first letting her squat in the tub, then asking her to stand up: I still have in my ears the sound of the dripping water, and the impression that the copper of the tub had a consistency not different from Lila’s flesh, which was smooth, solid, calm. I had a confusion of feelings and thoughts: embrace her, weep with her, kiss her, pull her hair, laugh, pretend to sexual experience and instruct her in a learned voice, distancing her with words just at the moment of greatest closeness." (Ferrante, 14)

Haruki Murakami – Wind up Bird Chronicle::

"I saw her fake eyelashes and curled hair tips moving. Her bracelets made a dry sound against each other. Her tongue was long and soft and seemed to wrap itself around me. Just as I was about to come, she suddenly moved away and began slowly to undress me. She took off my jacket, my tie, my pants, my shirt, my underwear, and made me lie down on the bed. Her own clothes she kept on, though. She sat on the bed, took my hand, and brought it under her dress. She was not wearing panties. My hand felt the warmth of her vagina. It was deep, warm, and very wet. My fingers were all but sucked inside." (Murakami, 195)

Paulo Coelho – Eleven minutes::

"‘Sit with your legs apart.’

She obeyed — impotent out of choice, submissive because she wanted to be. She saw him looking between her legs, he could see her black pants, her long stockings, her thighs, he could imagine her pubic hair, her sex." (Coelho, 152)

Ugh, good, right? It seems downright fantastic to me. And I am not even talking about the authors of erotic literature but about the classics on our bookshelves. Literature has always been a source of good sex; we forgot about it a bit with the flood of pornography. Now, at the time of the pandemic, we have the opportunity to pick up a book by one of the authors listed above, crawl into bed, and read; read until our panties get wet.

Sources: