The Poetry of Sex
A letter written in the 1940s by writer Anaïs Nin explains in a few words what I consider the vital secret to great sex and a satisfying erotic life.
I’m a huge fan of the Letters Live project. Since 2013, Letters Live has hosted events at which outstanding talents from all walks of life read remarkable letters in front of a live audience.
If you haven’t checked out Letters Live, I recommend doing so. It’s wonderful.
One of the most recently posted videos of one of these letter readings is the esteemed actress, Gillian Anderson, reading a letter written in the 1940s by Anaïs Nin. Anderson read the letter during the 10th anniversary show of Letters Live at London's Royal Albert Hall in November 2023
Nin’s letter was written to a mysterious client known only as Collector for which Nin and other writers were writing erotic fiction for only the Collector’s personal consumption. Evidently, Nin had become frustrated by the Collector’s repeated requests to “leave out the poetry” and instead “concentrate on sex” in the erotic works Nin wrote for them.
You can also read the entire letter here.
When I heard Anderson read the letter, it resonated with me in a profound way. What Nin was talking about in the letter is what much of my life’s work has been about, creating fulfilling and meaningful sex lives for everyone. While Nin’s letter pertains to sex and sexuality generally, my mind immediately connected the dots to the kinky and adventurous types of sex I often write about. That said, it does indeed apply to sex of any kind.
For example, when I heard this part of Nin’s letter, an onslaught of thoughts instantly percolated in my brain.
Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships which change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities.
When I engage in any type of erotic play and it feels like it’s simply an exact repeat of something I’ve done before, it can indeed become a bore. Without lust, emotion, and the rest of the modifying attributes to which Nin refers, sex and play become a bore. At least they do for me. Based on conversations with others, I’d say that’s universally true.
Let’s say someone enjoys tying up their play partners with rope. Tying the exact same ropework on the same person or different people becomes monotonous without constant variation. Even if the ropework is identical session to session, those variations are enabled by the injection of deep connection, cooperative lust, or other things that take the sameness of the activity and imbue it with the poetry of the moment and the uniqueness of the personal bonding taking place.
This is why sometimes I bristle at what I perceive as rote BDSM or other kink play. I have observed many a scene at a play party or elsewhere that has bored me so deeply as simply an observer that I can only imagine what the participants are feeling. It doesn’t matter what type of play it is or the people involved, lack of poetry in the moment can reduce it to simply unerotic flounderings, a going through the motions. Ask any longtime experienced kinkster and I bet they’ll recall observing one or many such instances.
Yet, the simplest activity can be elevated to a moment of magic. I’ll offer an example that sticks starkly in my mind because of its effect on me at the time.
I was judging a leather contest many years ago and part of the contest required the contestants to enact an erotic scene on stage. Most of the contestants had fun scenes to watch, but when one contestant did his, the room stood still and many of us held our breath.
What was the scene? A man was sitting in a chair facing the audience. The contestant entered and straddled the sitting man facing him. The contestant proceeded to intensely kiss the man while he slowly lathered the sitting man’s face and then sensually shaved him with a straight razor as they continued to look into each other’s eyes and kiss passionately throughout.
The judge next to me, a famous porn star, tapped my leg and said “Is this as hot to you as it is to me?” Everyone had that same reaction. It was intimate. It was connected. It was simple. It elicited a level of sensuality that permeated the entire room. While some other contestants had mounted the sexual equivalent of an opera on stage, this was nothing more than two men entirely into each other doing something as simple as shaving and making out. It was magic. It was hot.
We can only attain such magical moments by remaining forever curious. I’ve written before about “Keeping Erotic Curiosity Alive” and Nin alludes to the same in her letter.
The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion.
We need curiosity about types of play, but far more importantly we need to be curious about the person with whom we’re playing. That’s the passion part. That’s the spark that elevates the banal to the magnificent, the boredom of sameness to the unrepeatable poetry of the connection in that moment in time. Those are the erotic encounters you always remember.
Two (or more) people, or even one person engaged in solo sex, are never the same people moment to moment. You and I are not the same people now that we were five minutes ago and most certainly not the same people we were last year.
Add to the internal changes we constantly experience the other people, specific situations, types of play, locations of play, and so on, and the stew produced by their mixture together becomes something we cook but once, something we taste but once, hopefully savoring the meal of sensuality we’ve produced.
How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you could enjoy a harem of discrete and never-repeated wonders? Not two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on a description of hair; not two odors, but if we expand on this, you cry “Cut the poetry.” Not two skins with the same texture, and never the same light, temperature, shadows, never the same gesture; for a lover, when he is aroused by true love, can run the gamut of centuries of love lore, What a range, what changes of age, what variations of maturity and innocence, perversity and art, natural and graceful animals.
Watch Anderson read the letter if you haven’t already. Her interpretation might land on you like it did on me and encourage you to seek the endless variety of sexuality and sensuality available to us all if we open our minds, remain curious, and allow ourselves to revel in the poetic magic.
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