How sexy?

I used to cringe at writing sexy. Absolutely cringe. I’d think:

“Oh what will my father think if he read this?”

Now I realise. He wouldn’t have. He never read anything of mine. He couldn’t care less. He only ever wrote things written by men. (I don’t think he realised that this is why some women write with initials only.)

And then I’d think:

“Oh what will my mother think when she reads this?”

She wouldn’t. She only ever read what my father read. (My father was a mini-dictator.)

This brings me to this sexist thing. My father was a great believer in the ‘women can’t write’. This was a man’s domain. Anything written by women nestled in the trivia section. I complained about this to my sister. And she pointed me in the right direction, so I’ve been able to live with this belief of my father’s comfortably enough not to bong him on the head with a rolling pin.

She said, “Have you ever looked at what he does read?”

Well no I hadn’t actually. She had been mini-dictated to on certain books that had to be read. She’d done it like an obedient daughter. They were man books. Murder. Mystery. Nothing exceptional. Some of them would be the big blockbuster courtroom ones, but mostly they were extremely formulaic by names not normally bandied around on the New York Bestseller lists. ManLit I call it.

How sexy?

Today I think I must be getting old. It doesn’t faze me at all. As long as my sex scenes are in context of a full-length novel, and warrant the story, as one would see the same thing in a quality movie, I will write it. And enjoy writing it because it makes my characters more loving and more real.

Do you cringe?
And why?