In writing, as in life, there’s nothing like great sex. Unfortunately, after we’re done, we often have to admit…that was nothing like great sex. This is especially true in crime fiction, in which the sex is desperate or unseemly, if not outright criminal.
In an essay for CrimeReads, Amita Murray takes on the Case of Sex in Crime Fiction, and has a few words for some of the worst cliches. For Murray, the most annoying characteristic of sex in crime fiction is that is inevitably presented from a male POV: the unhappy celibate, the femme fatale, the hot woman who can’t be trusted. Almost as bad, in some sub-genres, there’s no sex at all. “I worry that the simplistic formula—thriller equals thrilling, illicit, often controlling sex and cozy equals no sex—reflects the age-old maxim that bad girls (whoever they are) have sex and good girls (I’m still confused) don’t,” Murray writes.
Sex doesn’t have to be all fun and games or picture-perfect romance. “My female characters do enjoy sex and they’re not afraid to admit it. But it’s not all magical, soulmate sex,” Murray says. “They get it wrong. They get turned down. They get confused between love and sex. Sometimes they have sex with people they love, other times it’s just sex for sex.”
Sounds like real life.
Murray calls on crime writers to try some real life in their fiction. “Heart break provides the best sexual tension there is,” she says. “Relationships not working out, people missing each other, the timing being terribly off, other important things getting in the way. The answers are all there.”
