Writer Emily L. Byrne's Blog: June 2014

Pronoun Hell

There is a special torture for writers of same sex erotica and romance which doesn’t affect writers of heterosexual romance. Pronoun hell.

It’s hard enough writing sex scenes as it is. Keeping track of whose hand is on what body part, whose fingertips are walking, strumming, dancing on whose breast, thigh, belly. More than once, when I’ve been editing my own story, I’ve realized that one of my character’s hands is in her lover’s hair, the second is smoothing the skin of her lover’s thigh, and the third hand is running over her lover’s shoulders. It reminds me of that scene in Galaxy Quest where the alien tentacles come bursting out of the human skin to engulf their lover in passion.

But if your lovers are the same sex, you have to allow for the ambiguous “her”, especially if there are more than two participants in the scene. Consider this heterosexual love scene.

A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then he grasped her bottom with both hands, pulling her cunt down on his mouth. She gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the dexterity, how damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around his head and more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into, clinging stickily to her neck. His tongue must be getting tired, but her lover didn’t let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her folds, every crease and valley.

Even though it’s only “he” and “she” there’s no confusion about what body parts belong to whom. Of course it’s easier too when the participants have different parts where it matters. But if they are both she, if they both have pussies, then that scene won’t work as written:

A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then she grasped her bottom with both hands, pulling her cunt down on her mouth. She gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the dexterity, how damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around her head and more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into, clinging stickily to her neck. Her tongue must be getting tired, but her lover didn’t let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her folds, every crease and valley.

Holy moly, that’s both confusing and laughable—not necessarily in that order. I wish I could lock my thighs around my head and lick myself where it mattered. Okay, I wish I were a cat. ;)

When you’re writing same sex erotica, you have to be more specific. Yes, it means using names more often which doesn’t flow as smoothly, but it’s better than having your readers howling with laughter because they’ve interpreted your character as a mutant contortionist.

An alternative to using names is to use labels: “the blond pilot”, “the nurse”, “the older woman”. Used sparingly this works well; used too frequently and it’s annoying and cumbersome.

A friend has a collection of little rubber people figures. She acts out the sex scenes in her writing, like a plasticine twister: blue man’s right hand on red woman’s left hip; red woman’s right foot on back of blue man’s thigh. That might be further than you want to go, but her characters never have the wrong number of extremities.

Right now, I’m sifting through submissions for my upcoming anthology “Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire”. And yes, even in the most polished, professional manuscripts pronoun hell can rears its ugly head.

Here’s the final version of the example scene earlier. It’s taken from “Outback Christmas” which appeared in “A Christmas to Remember” published by Ladylit last December.

A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then Casey grasped Simona’s bottom with both hands, pulling Simona’s cunt down on her mouth. Simona gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the dexterity, how damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around Casey’s head and more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into, clinging stickily to her neck. Casey’s tongue must be getting tired, but her lover didn’t let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her folds, every crease and valley.

“Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire” edited by Cheyenne Blue will be published by Ladylit in late August 2014,

Cheyenne Blue’s erotica has appeared in over 90 anthologies including Best Women's Erotica, Cowboy Lust, Best Lesbian Romance, Lesbian Lust, and Frenzy:60 Stories of Sudden Sex. She lives and writes by the beach in Queensland, Australia. Visit her website at http://www.cheyenneblue.com

Writer Emily L. Byrne's Blog

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Guest Blog Post: Author/Editor Cheyenne Blue on "Pronoun Hell"