You don’t need to go too far up or down the bestseller chart to find desire, erotic awakening, sexy romance or a good old-fashioned bonkbuster. Miranda July’s All Fours centres on the sexual reawakening of a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman, while plenty of complex relationship sex was threaded through Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Yael van der Wouden’s sex-soaked debut The Safekeep won the Women’s Prize for Fiction earlier this year. ‘Romantasy’, as exemplified by Rebecca Yarros’s wildly bestselling novel Fourth Wing, is thought to be a genre on the rise, thanks to BookTok.
It seems inescapable for anyone wanting to explore meaty characters, relationships or simply the human condition. And yet sex in fiction writing often feels like something that is so easy to get wrong (the Bad Sex in Fiction Award doesn’t exist for nothing).
So how to divine the balance between getting it right We asked a number of Irish authors about whether they see writing sex scenes as an occupational hazard, or one of the more fun or interesting parts of the job.
Rob Doyle: ‘I describe sex clearly, in a way that’s almost “pornographic”’
Rob Doyle. Photo: Awakening/Getty Images
“I enjoy writing sex scenes and my books are full of them. The sex in my first novel, Here Are the Young Men, was largely neurotic and humiliating, as is often the case for very young people. There’s been all kinds of sexual content in my subsequent books, including in my autobiographical novel Threshold.
I don’t at all consider sex scenes a necessary evil, nor am I particularly sparing about including them. As a rule, I write only about what I feel like writing about – whatever animates me and kindles my imagination – and sexuality is a huge and compelling part of human life, so it’s natural for me to examine and depict it.
Sometimes I feel a little embarrassed knowing that people who know me will read this stuff and have an insight into a part of me, my psyche and my desire and my sexuality, that usually we keep hidden and private. But generally I take that discomfort as a positive sign: it means I’m saying or describing something lively, fresh, interesting, vital. It suggests there’s an element of risk involved, and writing without risk isn’t very interesting.
I don’t like when writers are too coy or euphemistic in writing about sex, or when the writing is too flowery. I tend to describe it clearly, in a manner that’s almost ‘pornographic’ – not in the sense that it’s meant to be arousing to the reader, but in the sense that nothing is hidden or obscured, it’s all there in plain sight.
There are numerous sexual scenes in my forthcoming novel Cameo that I like a lot, including graphic scenes of group sex in which I went all in on descriptive colour and detail. There’s also a section narrated by a highly sexed, middle-aged gay character, which is necessarily salty and frank in its discussions of sex: that’s how that character would talk and that’s what’s on his mind, so that’s what goes on the page.”
Rob Doyle’s next novel, Cameo, will be published in January 2026
Lisa McInerney: ‘The last thing you want to do is describe a mechanical act – it’s not an instruction manual’
Lisa McInerney. Photo: Brid O Donovan
“I think sex scenes are necessary when they’re necessary. Good writing doesn’t pull away from characters at their most vulnerable if that vulnerability teaches us something. A sex scene, like all scenes, needs to earn its place. I think ‘to provide an erotic buzz’ is probably the least valid reason to include one.
I think there’s something very revelatory (pun intended) about intimate moments. I’m interested in what the character divulges about themselves during sex, whether that’s deliberate or accidental. Are they performing in some way, or are they being honest? Are they in love or going through the motions?
As with any interaction, the question becomes: what does each player in this scene really want to get out of it? There’s so much fun to be had in the answering. The last thing you want to do is describe a mechanical act – the characters may be going through the motions, but you’re not writing an instruction manual.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s like writing about food. Tell me how it tastes; don’t tell me how to chew.”
‘The Rules Of Revelation’ by Lisa McInerney is out now
Catherine Prasifka: ‘Often I am writing sex in a way that is not particularly pleasant to read’
Catherine Prasifka. Photo: Joanna O’Malley
“I write about the internet, specifically I write about the way the internet has changed the lives of the young women who grew up with it. It brought porn into every household – the first way most people learn about sex these days.
I feel like it would be an injustice to the subject matter to not interrogate how young people feel about sex in my work – it is a sphere where all of these things are coming to a head. It means that often I am writing sex in a way that is not particularly pleasant to read, but I suppose it isn’t always positive when you are a young woman.
Sometimes, when I’m writing, I stop and think about the fact that I am writing something that will be read, which brings on the embarrassment. But ultimately, I have to feel like what I am writing is important enough that my feelings about it don’t matter.
I am attempting to accurately portray relationship dynamics, power dynamics, body dysmorphia, self-loathing, among other things. The scenes serve a purpose. There are so many things to balance when characters come together. Obviously, there is the chance that it just comes off cringe but it’s very possible to write something that is actively harmful to how we view sex.
My advice? Write with intent. Know why you are including a sex scene and what its purpose is in your narrative. Think about what a reader will take away from the scene as well (this is useful writing advice outside the bedroom too).”
‘This Is How You Remember It’ by Catherine Prasifka is out now
Elaine Feeney: ‘I had to remove one sex scene I had written because it was so bad’
Elaine Feeney. Photo: Julia Dunin
“I only managed to write a full sex scene in my third novel, and even then, I warned my son when he was reading the book. He said he completely missed it in his reading – it was that underwhelming!
I had written a sex scene in my second novel that I removed because it was so bad. I couldn’t agree on a word for the character’s arse, and I got completely derailed by how unsexy a word ‘arse’ is. But it would be so outrageous for me to write, ‘She grabbed his bottom.’
I was conditioned to a particular kind of sex from the US 1980s on the TV; bouncy hair, man as boss – that was my first pitfall. The reality of sex being so different to the version that I grew up familiar with being represented in ‘art’. It was damaging, perfect women on the TV, heteronormative and misogynistic nonsense.
I went to a convent school and there was a damaging secrecy around sex. I think when it goes right (the writing), it goes unnoticed, and this is a good thing. I also think when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong, and I’ve considered why.
Language is so tricky, and constantly upgrading itself, and we all refer to secrets in different ways. For a long time, we have all had a weird relationship with our bodies in Ireland, and we are only beginning to name things. Yet, there seems to be something madly intimate about naming it on a page. All those years in confession boxes have had an effect on me.”
‘Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way’ by Elaine Feeney is out
Anne Tiernan: ‘Do your characters shag or bang or make love?’
Anne Tiernan
“As a reader, I love sex scenes and I’m always surprised when I hear people say they don’t. I was a child of the 1980s so the only place I could get my kicks was from books. Thank you, Judy Blume, Danielle Steele, Virginia Andrews!
I quite enjoy writing sex scenes. I think they can be a fun way to explore your character’s psyche, but they are challenging. Deciding on the language to use can be a bit of a head wreck, because one person’s ick can be another person’s yum.
Do your characters f**k or shag or bang or make love? Do you go full-frontal porno or do you go for anatomically correct words, and risk sounding like you’re writing a deeply unsexy medical textbook? Or do you go hard out Regency bodice ripper and describe your character’s throbbing manhood?
I suppose it’s all down to genre and context and where in the scene the words appear. I read a book recently, which was a huge bestseller/award winner about 15 years ago, and every single sex scene was very male gaze-y. It left me cold. I think that was probably the (male) author’s intention because the men in this book are not good guys. Still, it had me longing for a bit more tenderness and subtlety.
I’m conscious that when people read something that I’ve written involving sex, people will confuse me with the character. People assume a lot of what female authors write is autobiographical anyway. One of my husband’s older clients who read my book The Good Mistress said to him in a meeting recently, ‘Gosh, your wife’s a bit raunchy, isn’t she?’ Morto. My advice for writers? Write like all your family are dead.”
‘The Good Mistress’ by Anne Tiernan is out now via Hachette Ireland
Andrew Meehan: ‘I try to slow down, be patient, and observe what’s actually going on’
Andrew Meehan. Photo: Douglas O’Connor
“I used to approach writing sex scenes in a comic way – characters shouting ‘Timber!’ and counting down from 10 to one at the point of approaching orgasm – but lately, as I’ve been looking towards a more truthful representation of sex, I try to slow down, be patient, and observe what’s actually going on in the room I’m imagining. And I do know that answer is an invitation to a myriad of puns. In my novel Best Friends, I felt obliged to show the main characters’ tentative forays into lovemaking in older age.
As I’m of the generation that finds talking about sex to be embarrassing, I tend to gravitate towards fictional characters who feel the same, and behave accordingly. Sex can be surely about physical abandon and dissolving with and into another person, and that’s a lovely thing to capture in language. But it can also involve feeling shy, and scared, and distracted and lots of other things, and I enjoy the challenge of capturing those multiple feelings on the page.
Good sex, so I’m told, is about losing yourself in a moment. But so much of it is mental as well as physical. I don’t know if enough writers pay attention to inner as well as the outer expressions of love. The thinking part of feeling. Or how we capture what’s just below and beyond language.”
‘Best Friends’ by Andrew Meehan is out now via Muswell Press
Louise Nealon: ‘Writing sex scenes is just as difficult as writing anything’
Louise Nealon. Photo: Darren Kidd
“I find writing sex scenes just as difficult as writing anything else. I don’t make that much of a distinction between sex and non-sex scenes. I do find some people’s reactions to reading about sex in fiction interesting.
In January 2018, I had my first short story published in a national newspaper. It was published under the headline, ‘You’ve read Cat Person, now read this Irish bad-sex short story.’ There were comments underneath the article offering me, the writer, advice on my sex life. I screenshotted the comments and saved them to keep for when I’m old and grey, and possibly in need of some sex advice from the 2010s.
As a writer, you are always only another edit away from redemption. Paper is unbelievably patient. I can empty out all of the embarrassing stuff inside my head onto a blank page – things I wouldn’t dream of telling even my closest friends, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever read it unless I choose otherwise.
DH Lawrence’s Women in Love has great sex scenes. I’m obsessed with Luke and Rachel in Marian Keyes’ Rachel’s Holiday and Again, Rachel. Eimear McBride’s The Lesser Bohemians. And Nuala and Naoise in Olivia Fitzsimons’ The Quiet Whispers Never Stop.”
‘Everything That Is Beautiful’ by Louise Nealon will be published by Manilla Press in April 2026
Edel Coffey: ‘There are very few people who can write sex well’
Edel Coffey. Photo Julia Dunin
“The best sex scenes I’ve ever read are contained in Susanna Moore’s novel In The Cut, later made into the movie starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo. The scenes manage to be both explicit and sophisticated, never once inducing a cringe.
I have written many more sex scenes than I have published for the simple reason that most of them get deleted, or at least cut back so much that they might end up consisting of just one word — ‘afterwards’.
I like the advice of the writer Jeffrey Eugenides, who once said something along the lines of the art of writing good sex scenes is about staying in the character’s head and writing about what they are thinking and feeling rather than what they are doing.
There are very few people who can write sex well. Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins, obviously. Sally Rooney too — the scenes in Intermezzo were brilliantly written, because the physical action felt true to the characters. I like how Anne Enright and Eimear McBride write about sex too. I also loved the sex scenes in Tia Williams’ Seven Days in June and Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty.
For me, a sex scene well done always offers greater understanding of and insight into a character – how they respond and react to an intimate moment.
I can’t say I enjoy writing sex scenes, yet… but everything gets better with practice.”
‘In Her Place’ by Edel Coffey is out now
Anya Bergman: ‘Sex should not be gratuitous, but equally it should not be ignored’
Anya Bergman
“All my novels are character-driven where relationships are key, and sex is an essential part of their human experience. Therefore, writing sex scenes in my novels has always felt a very natural thing to do. I haven’t overthought it too much (until recently), and I certainly don’t see them as a necessary evil.
Like violence, sex should not be gratuitous, but equally, it should not be ignored. I find it quite frustrating as a reader to witness sexual chemistry building between two characters only to have the door slammed in my face and we jump to the next scene afterwards!
Stylistically, I think that approaching a sex scene almost cinematically can be very helpful. So, for instance, you could begin with a ‘long shot’ of the whole scene, and then close in on something like lips or eyes. When wordsmithing, consider all the senses – smell, sound, textures and taste can be just as sexy as what the reader ‘sees’ in the scene, maybe even more so. Some of the most sensual writing I have read has been the description of a meal (involving no actual sex!)
When I was writing my literary erotica trilogy Valentina under the pen name Evie Blake, I read a lot of literary erotica. My favourite was the novel The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell which is raw with longing and desire.
More recently, two novels stand out. For sapphic sex scenes, Hungerstone by Kat Dunn is sensational, while Caroline Lea’s Sex, Love & Frankenstein is a stunning depiction of Mary Shelley as a conflicted young woman brimming with sexual desire.”
‘The Tarot Reader Of Versailles’ by Anya Bergman is out now via Manilla Press
Sophie White: ‘Awkward sex scenes are the ones I get more feedback on’
Sophie White. Photo: Mark Condren
“I really like writing awkward sex scenes, especially because I think we don’t have enough awkward sex scenes in things. One-night stands are always hot and amazing in films and books, but sometimes they’re just so awkward – you’re stuffing things into other things.
Those [awkward] scenes are the ones I get more feedback on. People don’t tend to reference the scene that you’ve written with the intention of it being actually hot. ‘Hot’ sex scenes are not my favourite thing to write – I don’t dread them actively, either.
My friend Esther, a voiceover artist, did the audiobook of my new book and she kept sending me messages throughout the day she recorded one of the big scenes of the book. It was just her and a producer, and the two of them were absolutely dying at the awkwardness of being one-on-one in this situation. Obviously, you never go into writing these things thinking that a person is going to read it to another in this weirdly intimate moment.
If ever I’m writing something in a first draft, something like ‘her nipples are hard’, there’s a very Irish voice in my head going, ‘Oh, this is embarrassing. You’re so shit at this.’ The only way to get the ball rolling, as it were, is to just write the first draft with legitimately no fear of anyone ever reading it.
Recently, through my podcast The Creep Dive, I got into reading a very niche kind of erotica, which is Centaur porn/fiction – once you’ve read a sex scene where someone has cantered across the room to have sex, anything else is completely fine.”
‘Such A Good Couple’ by Sophie White is out now via Hachette Ireland
Caragh Maxwell: ‘The thought of relatives reading a sex scene I wrote makes me cringe’
Caragh Maxwell
“I think sex in literature has immense power outside of pure titillation. It can be used to depict power imbalances and emotions that otherwise are hard to nail down in words. However, I come from a small town and have a big family, and the thoughts of any of my relatives reading a sex scene I wrote makes me cringe myself into oblivion. That might just be the lapsed-Catholic shame in me though.
I think, when written right, a sex scene can be the pivotal point of a story. As a reader, however, when it goes wrong, it really destroys my immersion in the story. A gratuitous sex scene elicits an eyeroll or two from me at best, and a closing of the book at worst.
“My favourite sex scene in a novel? This is definitely a leftfield answer, but the scene between Offred and Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale, for me, is one that added to the story rather than distracted from it, written not for titillation but for plot advancement. Attwood’s writing is always a masterclass in the dichotomy of gender and that scene will always stick with me.”
‘Sugartown’ by Caragh Maxwell is out now via Oneworld Publications
Disha Bose: ‘Sex scenes can go wrong very easily’
Disha Bose. Photo: Clare Keogh
“If I examine my writing experience, I enjoy writing sex scenes in the same way I enjoy writing about anything else. I don’t view it as an ‘evil’ or a burden. I am, however, aware that not a lot of readers like reading too much of it in the one book, and that brings up the question – who are we writing for?
The way someone has sex can be very telling of their personality, state of mind, the circumstances; just as dialogue or plot. Sex scenes, if written well, can help propel a story, and I find that very fascinating to work on. [And yet] sex scenes can go wrong very easily, I find, if a writer uses it for the wrong reasons. For instance, to fill a gap in the story, or repetitively when they serve no purpose, or when they seem disingenuous or written from a place of discomfort.
There are plenty of bad or cringey sex scenes in books, and most of the times when I skim through those pages is when I’m not invested in the characters, or when I can tell that the author was having a hard time writing it.
My approach to writing sex scenes is to view them the way I view dialogue, characters, backstory and plot – with intention and purpose. In the same way that I’d cut out a scene or character if they don’t serve a purpose, I would do the same with a sex scene or parts of the scene.”
‘I Will Blossom Anyway’ by Disha Bose is out now via Ballantine Books
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