Mystery publishers hate sex.
That’s what I’ve been told, at least. I once wrote a funny little mystery novel, “Naked Lies,” in which a stripper causes trouble for the main character’s client. Hilarious hijinks ensue.
At one point it is very important for the stripper and the main character to have sex. It is equally important for that sex to be lovingly described because later the main character undergoes torture to protect the girl (woman? OK. Woman.)
What do you think caused the most consternation with the publisher? The description of how the bad guys inflicted the torture of a thousand cuts on the protagonist? The detailed description of drug dealing in nightclubs? The chicken dinner the protagonist is fed at his ex-girlfriend’s house?
No. It was the sex.
“Most mystery readers are women and women don’t like to read about sex,” they said.
Right. And Fifty Shades of Gray was a children’s book.
My ex-wife and mentor for all things womanly, Rene, tells me this is bullshit.
“Women love to read about sex,” she says. “The steamier the better.”
The sex in Naked Lies is very steamy. Purposely so. Merely saying “so we had sex” doesn’t even begin to tell the tale. I wanted the reader to experience the mutually enjoyable event so that later the reader would understand why the protagonist is so stubbornly foolish about giving up the location of the woman to those who would do her harm. Plus, it was fun to write.
Try to tell this to agents. Or publishers.
Weird thing? If I was a woman and the protagonist of the novel was a woman, and the sex was described in exactly the same way, it would be OK with the agents and publishers. why? Because, that’s why.
Men are perceived as sexual deviants and monsters. Women are angels. At least so far as the mystery world is concerned.
I might add–again–that the sex described in the book is mutually enjoyable. It’s not forced on anyone. It’s not rough and tumble. It’s nothing like the acts in the aforementioned Fifty Shades of Gray.
But since I am a male and males have such an ugly history writing about sex in mysteries, I’m screwed.
And not in the good way.
Mark Bruce, Writer 