Talking “Writing Intimacy in Literature”

Welcome to the intro video and an excerpt from the sixth post of my weekly serial, “Sketches from the Café Confictura.” If you’d like to share a comment, please use the comment option at the end of this excerpt. To follow the mystery of Applewood, and get recipes from Mrs. Creaverton, writing advice from Roscoe Belesprit, and fashion tips from the Fastionista, please visit www.ClarissaJeanne.com for new posts every Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. EST.

(Uh, just a note here in case you’re as surprised as I was the first time I overheard how blunt the salon can get: as Roscoe put it to me, when discussing literature, especially that borne by the discussion’s very participants, the soul is revealed. It’s like a scaled-back group therapy session, if you’re doing it right. They share their secrets, their fears, their desires. They give appreciated advice. They give unwelcome advice. They cut too deep and hit nerves and then have to heal together. In my opinion, if anyone wanted to write about an intimate situation, forget sex and just take minutes at one of these meetings.)

Roscoe said to Portia, “Let me get this straight. You think that because you’re controlling the message, the sex scene is not degrading, but empowering. Even though, by your own admission, it’s essentially the same as what a man might write.”

Portia shoved her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She paced up the right side of the table, and then nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. As a woman, I can write just as raw as a man. You know, equality. Ever hear of that? Hello, feminism?”

“You’re throwing around your words again,” said Roscoe. “Feminism was never about women being the same as men. Just the opposite. It was about respecting the different attributes women contribute to society, and seeing those different attributes as equal to what men bring to society. It was about giving women the same right to choose that men have. Paying them equal amounts of income, not just for doing the same job out in the workplace, but for doing the equally important work of keeping a home, raising a family, if that’s what they chose to do.”

“And how can a man lecture a woman on what feminism is?” said Portia.

“I listened to my mother,” said Roscoe. “She was a teacher and an activist. She went to jail for her rights. I’m offended that the voice she fought for is being used not only to throw yet another poorly written sex scene on the pile, but to do that in the name of feminism. You’re twisting the concept, so much so that you’ve wrung every last drop of meaning out of it.”

“I’ve written a scene where a woman is in control,” said Portia. “She’s calling the shots. Like you said, she’s controlling the message.”

“But this is my point: what is that message?”

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