People have been writing about it since writing was invented - but for most of history writing was done almost exclusively by men. Virginia Woolf points out as much. In ‘A Room of One’s Own’, she writes that not only was the bulk of fiction (before the 20th century) written by men - by extension, the bulk of fictional female characters and the fictional relationships they had were also created by men – but that when it came to writing about the act of the horizontal mombo, the mores of every age dictated that it had to be fictional.
“When a subject is highly controversial - and any question about sex is that - one cannot hope to tell the truth,” she wrote, adding that because women lacked both financial independence and sexual freedom, what was needed for female fiction to emerge, was the latitude for women to write, in other words, for women to create a “ room of their own.”
Almost a century after Woolf wrote those words, women have created that room. Fiction is no longer a male pursuit. Nor, for that matter, is non-fiction. At least in some parts of the world, women have begun to turn from writing about nookie as fiction, to writing about it as fact.
Possibly the first erotic novel written by a woman was Anne Desclos’ ‘The Story of O’, which she published under a pen name in 1954. Inspired by de Sade and just as scandalous at the time, it took the form of a series of love letters about sexual dominance, which she wrote to please her partner, Jean Paulhan. Desclos wrote the book as a challenge to Paulhan, who thought that women could not write in “that way”. Still, it took Desclos 40 years to reveal her true identity. Erica Jong’s ‘Fear of Flying’ in 1973, which indulged in the fantasies of a married woman is also semi-autobiographical, with references to her sister and her Lebanese husband apparently, causing some controversy in the family.
But the book that finally shattered the taboo associated with women writing about going all the way - and easily the most provocative by far - was Catherine Millet’s wholly autobiographical 2002 memoir, ‘The Sexual Life of Catherine M’.
Art critic, editor-in-chief and founder of the well-reputed French cultural magazine, Art Press, Millet wrote about her exploits including her Parisian orgies. Graphic and no-holds barred - Millet is on record as saying that she feels more shy with her clothes on than she does with them off - let’s just say her husband doesn’t feature in it much. To date, it’s been translated into 26 languages.
Millet opened the floodgates. The critical and commercial success of The Sexual Life gave rise to a slew of sex memoirs. The following year saw the release of another scandalous tell-all, ‘The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl’. Written by Belle de Jour, the nom de plume of Brooke Magnanti, a doctor of forensic pathology, it detailed her exploits working as an escort, a job she had taken pay for her degree. By 2004, pseudonyms were being dropped. Former ballerina Toni Bentley made no attempt to hide her identity in ‘The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir’, despite its graphic revelations about anal sex and while Melissa Panarello did present her extraordinary teenage sexual exploits in semi-fictionalised form – the matter-of-fact stories in ‘One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed’ were passed off as diary entries. More recently, Monique Roffey’s 2011 ‘With The Kisses of His Mouth’ is a detailed account of her bedding adventures as a middle-aged woman.
With so many books about laying cable now being written by women, it’s not much of a surprise that Eroticon 2012, the UK’s first conference for sex bloggers and writers earlier this year was overwhelmingly female. Not that women are sexual pioneers in the field of writing about sex, or even writing sexual diaries –‘The Orton Diaries’, written by British playwright Joe Orton in 1967 are remarkably candid – although it’s questionable that he intended them for public release. What women are pioneering is a brutally honest way of writing about sex. These books are not attempts to titillate, to turn people on or to hide behind fiction. They are, in a sense, confessionals. The women present themselves and their lovers, warts and all. Daring and truthful, sex has never been so brazen.
