Control

I was fairly young the first time I read an explicit sex scene. The book was a retelling of a celtic folktale and probably a good inch and a half thick. I wasn't expecting there to be sex in it when I picked it up, in fact I was rather naive at the time and I don't think it had even occurred to me that you could get books with that kind of graphic sex scene from the library.

I was enthralled by the description of the book, and, though it was in the young-adult/teen section and most of what I read at the time was still from the outer wall of the children's room, I began reading it immediately. There were seven brothers in the story who were cursed and turned into swans. Their sister was the only one who could save them, but in order to do so she could not talk until she had made them each a sweater from nettles and they wore the sweaters. She retreated to the woods and worked with determination to save them.

While she was in the woods a group of men found her and raped her. She couldn't scream or tell them to stop because that would mean her brothers would stay swans forever. Since she didn't scream the men said she was a nymph and must like it. Though it was only a small part of the book, the scene was described in vivid detail. I was both horrified and fascinated by the written image. It made me sick to think of grown men pinning down and raping a girl without even a scream to defend herself, but at the same time I was in general curious about sex and had never read anything so vividly descriptive. I wanted to know exactly what it meant when one of the men was described as being bigger than the others and too big for her, but I was embarrassed by my own curiosity.

I didn't even talk to anyone about having read a sex scene, let alone a rape scene. Though I don't remember much else about the story, I do remember the book was well written and aside from shocking me with that scene it was a good book, but I didn't even tell anyone it was a good book. I was too embarrassed to admit I had read a detailed sex scene, especially it being a rape, and I found myself guarding the book protectively against any interest my younger sister might show in it. If I told anyone the book as a whole was good they might read it and then they'd know what I'd read in it.

I'm not quite as naive as I was then, but I've found since then that I have quite a few control issues when it comes to sex. I'm intrigued by dom/sub roles and violent erotica, but unless the woman is ultimately the one in control I often have a hard time really enjoying stories that play off those roles. In my own writing I tend to find it easier to write scenes where the man is leading the action, but I find it very difficult to take it beyond a certain point with the man in control.

Even in my own encounters, I find myself initiating things that I don't even know whether I want, just so that I can be the one in control. The more I try to write my own erotica, the more I realize that's not such a healthy way to look at "control," but I expect as I continue writing I'll continue to explore different types of sexual relationship and control.