Do you think it's sexy?

Word count: 326                               Reading time: 1-2 mins

In her blog Discover Your Inner Geisha Leslie Downer advises that the kimono should be worn low at the back, to reveal the nape of the neck. Because almost every other part of a woman’s body was concealed, the nape of the neck was held in high regard in the Japanese culture. In this portrait, Powdering the Neck, by Utamaro the poem in the upper left corner compares the graceful line of the courtesan’s neck, her hairpin and her white powdered face to snowy, moonlit landscape[1].  It’s an erotic work from a pre-eminent artist of the Ukiyo-e movement.

Years ago I scuba dived with a guy who always walked behind me as I clambered up the beach with my tonnage of gear. We dived together in spring and summer and I invariably wore clunky European sandals because they were like 4WD at the end of my legs. On our last dive together my buddy confided he had a foot fetish and I had a particularly good pair. Shortly after that we went our separate ways but the foot fetish comment stayed with me for a long time. For one thing it made me realize how varied sexual preferences can be.

Then along came E L James and her admitted mid-life crisis which she turned into the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. It’s billed as erotic romance. I’ve also heard it called bad writing with lots of excellent pornography. Maybe this fetish-based literature is just the 21^st century equivalent of the nape of the neck, one of the last few taboos that remained, and has now been revealed to mainstream readers.

If your work involves characters over the age of thirteen, you probably need to know something about their sexuality. How do you know if your character has a nape-of-the- neck tastes or salivates at the sight of certain body piercings? Does he or she have a chest in their bedroom full of ropes and riding crops?

Print: Utamaro

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[1] Wendy Shore, Ukiyo-E, (Shorewood Fine Art Books 1980)

What do you know?

Word count: 240           Reading time: 1 minute 

Write What You Know. A one-second Google search attributes that quote to Mark Twain. WWYK is such an absolute Writing Truth that if you haven’t heard it from a teacher or read it somewhere, you probably can’t call yourself a true writer.

A couple of weeks ago the LM* and I went to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Washington State. Photos don’t do it justice. Walking the acres of vibrant flowers is a sensual experience. The colours infuse the air with an energy that cannot be captured in a flat medium. I’ve seen it, felt it, smelled it, and touched it, so now I can entertain the reading public with a story about it, right? Maybe – if that story involves vampires, quirky S&M relationships or other forms of high fantasy.

WWYK would be a limiting truth if it meant writers should reduce themselves to simple, physical experiences. I interpret it to mean: write honestly, write from the heart. Physical details can be researched and discovered but an open soul is what makes writing resonate. If you’re writing about life in a parallel universe and you bring strong emotions to the page, it won’t really matter whether you’ve visited Planet Xenos or not; readers will be too captivated to notice.  

Do you limit yourself to the things you’ve seen and done or do you leap into new worlds and go where they lead you?

* Leading Man

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Photo: Alan Bolitho, LM