Sex scenes in your novel
Sex scenes are notoriously difficult to write well. I’d like you to consider what William F. Buckley called the “O.S.S.”—the Obligatory Sex Scene. Of course, scenes that include sexual acts aren’t obligatory at all, but many writers include them anyway. You have included one that’s quite graphic.
Having two characters make love is natural and may be a wonderful part of your reader’s experience. My feelings on this subject are that less is more and that a writer can depict steamy activity without being explicit. I think a sex scene can be rendered effectively if the writer keeps the five senses in mind and aims for the sensual, the tactile, and the passionate, all of which targets the heart. And that’s what a writer should always do, because emotions are much more significant to a reader than ideas—or the detailed description of sexual acts. If a writer can do no more than offer a standard-issue portrayal of these acts, all of which are familiar to mature readers, then I’d rather see him drop the curtain and go to a scene break, leaving the details to the reader’s imagination.
Here’s what Jane Smiley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, says about writing sex scenes:
Sex scenes are not about getting aroused. They are about showing how a particular character goes about having sex, what it means, and what happens next. They might be arousing, but what I really want the reader to do is keep reading, so the scenes have to be narratively interesting and meaningful, as idiosyncratic as any other scene. That means that you have to think about and investigate sex and relationships as frankly and intently as you would anything else that you are writing about (say, changes in the banking rules). The more you treat it as just another thing, just another interesting thing, the better your sex scenes will be.