Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Sticky

by Olivia Knight

She stepped shyly through the doorway, the diaphanous stuff of her white negligee barely concealing the pure lines of her body. He stepped towards her... she caught her breath… His hands gripped the gossamer thin fabric. As his mouth descended on hers it seemed all the stars of the sky fell around her. Sweet music of angels thrilled through her body as she succumbed to him… at last. Through the brilliant heavenly lights, she heard the music of the spheres… and they were one.

“What did you think?” My friend breathlessly awaited my reaction to the Barbara Cartland novel*, the first I’d read, the first to go beyond a chaste kiss or marriage vows all the way into the marital boudoir.
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “I always thought sex would be a bit more sticky than that.”

Stickiness: secretions, juices, fluids, mucuses, jets, spurts and drops: what would sex be without it? And what, for that matter, would erotica writing be with it? Try a few excerpts of more imaginary novels:

He withdrew his fingers slowly, a long strand of transculucent silky fluid dangling from them… He pounded into her, the rythmic slap of their bodies counterpointed by the juicy squelch of each thrust… He savoured the sight of his cock pulling out of her, slick with thick white cream… She lay beside him, still gasping as the last aching twinges of bliss subsided and their mingled juices began to drip from her saturated slit, soaking into the sheet.

Real sex is sticky from beginning to end and then some. The aftermath – creamy streaks of juice down your thighs or a little latex bag of gloop that you check for holes – is as much part of sex as the initial slipperiness and ultimate spurt. In both erotica and romance, we’re usually describing sex in considerable detail – so how far should verisimilitude go?

The Cartlandesque approach avoids stickiness assiduously. You’d be forgiven for thinking every attempt at sex is interrupted by divine intervention - hardly useful for a pubescent girl in search of solid information. At the opposite extreme are Fanny Hill’s “copious emissions”. The spectrum from romance to erotica might well turn out to be simply one of stickiness – but even hard-core no-holds-barred fearless erotica writers like us can suddenly start skittering like high-bred fillies around female juices.

Male juices are less problematic. From the ubiquitous gleaming drop on the glans to the squirt of the money-shot, this is familiar territory. Semen, spunk, cream, jizm, and even the occasional sperm (some of these characters have amazing eyesight) present no problem. With women, it’s a little coyer. You can’t start with a few Latin terms – “mucus” is the preferred medical term and sounds like snot. “Vaginal discharges”, meanwhile, sound like pus. Nouns are awkward: her juice, cream, love-juice, female juice, female honey… you soon start to cringe. The heroine’s always wet, obviously (just as the hero's always hard) – creamy, slippery, moist, damp, and juicy are all essential adjectives. The actual nature of her wetness is something we’d usually prefer not to go into.

In fact, the actual nature of a woman’s wetness in general is still bizarrely misunderstood. So, just for the record… in the four or five days before ovulation, a woman gets sticky first. Then, she gets slippery and creamy, and it looks like hand lotion on your fingers. Then, for a couple of days it’s that super-squelchy, gloopy, feels-so-good-to-plunge-into stuff that looks – frankly – like egg white.

Without preamble, he shoved three fingers deep inside her. “You’re so wet,” he gasped. “You want me so much…”
“No, you numbskull,” she retorted, “I’m bloody ovulating. It’s nothing to do with you.”


“I want you so much…” she groaned. As his fingers pressed into her knickers, she realised to her mortification that despite the rising lust that pounded in her ears, her love-petals were bone-dry. Damn, she thought. I shouldn’t have got so pissed last night – I must be dehydrated…


Obviously, all the sticky/creamy/eggwhitey stuff often coincides with horniness, plus of course there’s the independent juiciness that comes with being very aroused (or, sometimes, doesn’t). For the curious, you can tell the difference by dipping your finger in and out: arousal juices dry very quickly in the air. The other ones don’t. Like Garfield on his first visit to the farm, where he discovered the origins of eggs, bacon and milk, you might prefer not to know. In the current state of play, even if you did know, most erotic books would be enough to confuse you for life. In real life, sticky sex is the best. In books, how sticky do you like it?

And as a special sticky treat, we’ve persuaded the lovely people at Good Vibes to give you a present – so drop a comment to be entered in the draw for a hamper of slippery lube.

* Obviously to avoid plagiarism not an excerpt from Cartland’s work, which to avoid libel I must refer to as a fine body of literature providing a telling and incisive insight into normative gender paradigms which are toujours dĂ©jĂ  inscribed, et cetera.

42 comments:

Ally said...

Oh how I like to be wet! I find it fun trying to find words to describe it.

These are a few, um...
juicey, sticky, excerpts, just tidbits from a collection of my smutty poems.

**************
With juices flowing over,
like that of a orange
in a juicer,
only sweeter.
He drank her
treat-so-sweet,
**************
Entering her unfumbling,
into her tumbling river,
of slush in a rush.
**************
she found
he had mounted her,
and was making butter
of her cream.
**************

Describing whats for dinner to a chef in his kitchen...

Oysters for an appetizer,
slathered in cream sauce,
followed with a plump,
ruby red raspberry
so fresh,hard,
yet hot and soft,
playing with his tastebuds,
on the tips
of his deviled tongue.
Her cherry pie bubbling,
about to spill
over its brew,
she grabs his angel hair,
presses it into her
lickmysplit,
and her hot sauce
marinates his moustache.
**************

Mmm sticky,
wet dreams tonight.
Thank you Olivia.

Anonymous said...

Is this off topic? I like it when men are described as wet. Some men do get very wet.

I have a real aversion to any word that sounds like a dairy product - i.e. cream. I don't like dairy anyway.

Wet, I do like. Hot I like too. If you're in her POV I think it *feels* more like hot than wet. You don't really feel yourself get wet.

Great post. Great topic

Angel said...

Mmmmm...sticky!

I've never understood those who have a problem with the "wet spot." If I just fucked the man, I'm sure not going to have a problem with any stickiness we left over...it's just part of the delightful process.

I too love it when a man gets wet -- something about that is so primal, so flat-out sexy, it makes me hot just thinking about it.

Anonymous said...

and her hot sauce
marinates his moustache.


Wow, Ally! I've never before wished I had a mustache, but that image is hot enough to make a mustache sprout instantaneously from a clean-shaven guy's face. Complete with waxed tips. (How does it look on me?)

Great post, Olivia. I like the way you combine literary analysis and biology.

Megan Kerr said...

Ally, what beautiful poetry! I wish I'd had your images to hand when I was choosing images - the orange, the river, the butter - mmm...

The singular drop on the glans definitely underplays delicious male slipperiness - when a rubbing hand gets sticky and slidy. I can imagine all Lust Biters works-in-progress suddenly blooming with the joys of pre-come!

Jeremy - combining literary analysis and biology is all in a day's work for a good feminist post-structuralist. waving the Kristevan flag Thx for the compliment, though...

I'm starting to regret not titling the post "The inside scoop on gloop".

Jo said...

Two horrrible things I've read are Jilly Cooper having her heroine joking self-deprecatingly (as always) about locating the European butter mountain (butter surplus in case anyone wasn't sure)in reference to her own slipperiness, and on a story-crit site someone posted their first attempt at a domestic spanking story where all the women in the family would soak the carpet whilst being spanked - the grandfather and grandmother joke about their daughter's emmissions and how they'd have to scrub the carpet afterwards to get rid of the smell!! Bleh!

So I'm not sure how liquid I like my sex scenes, myself.

This may be inapproriate here, but real egg white actually is an aid to conception if you're low on cervical fluid! I've tried it myself, it worked a treat! Cheers to Toni Weschler!

Megan Kerr said...

Hurrah and huzzah to Toni Weschler! For those not in the know, find the goddess here. Incest and old stains would be enough to put anyone off sticky stuff, I reckon - but the butter mountain makes me giggle...

Kristina Lloyd said...

Omelettes will never be the same again.

Gorgeous post. And yes, how sticky do you like yours? For women, I like wet, slippy, juicy and descriptions that are very fluid. I'll occasionally use sloppy but it has to be placed just so. I like melt and dissolve, suggestions that cunt is liquefying in the heat, that flesh is sliding and spreading into something else. It's that paradox of the physicality of horniness actually feeling insubstantial, disembodied, blurry - there's so much sensation that you lose the sense of flesh and you lose your sense of self. Dissolution. Ha - dissolute.

Men. I like it when they are wet from top to toe.

I may have to go lie down now.

A hamper of lube from Good Vibes. Wow, they are nice people.

Anonymous said...

I'm jet lagged, and my brain isn't working properly - is it ever?- so sending a sensible response to this isn't easy.

I agree with Kristina, sexy without getting too practical. I think my writing tends to err on the side of feelings rather than just physical descriptions.

Maybe I'm just a little squeamish about going too far. I suppose that all you can really guage it upon is by writing turns you on and therefore hopefully the reader as well.

Janine Ashbless said...

LoL!
Brilliant, Olivia!

I like to read about the spunk etc too. Dry sex just doesn't seem authentic.

Although, I admit I'm not that keen on reading about women 'spurting' on orgasm... Maybe because I've never come across it in real life. Anyone know how common it really is?

Alison Tyler said...

Fabulous post, Olivia! I read lots of different descriptions of stickiness in sex stories. I think I may be guilty of some embarrassing ones myself.

But recently I received a letter from a reader with a sticky sort of question. Since I'm not naming names, maybe if I post here someone more informed will answer:

A couple of weeks ago, I had my boyfriend tied-up and blindfolded. I was doing a lot of teasing, and when I finally touched his cock, he spurted some clear fluid yet still maintained an erection.

He told me that it had felt like I had brought him
over so gradually that he was still there. After some fellatio, he then climaxed fully.

What happened? What was that fluid? Where did I go right so that I can do that again, if it was a good thing to have happen?


Anyone?
Anyone?

XXX,
AT

P.S. Ally, what a way to start the day.

Kristina Lloyd said...

Deanna - before anyone gets the wrong idea or sues me, I have to say my writing often is quite raw, dirty and practical! I think I'm trying to say I like wet meltiness because it has a dual function - it's the physical stuff plus the feelings of arousal and coming.

Sticky and creamy doesn't work for me in the same way. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense today.

Alison, is Tilly still sending you those letters? Oh dear.

Alison Tyler said...

Well the email address was

Tilly@TillytheHug.com

God, how could I have missed it?

Megan Kerr said...

Your resident expert on stickiness and HTML bounds in again... (I find if you say anything in a sufficiently authoritative tone of voice, people believe you, so here goes!)

That spurt had to have been pre-come - which is not come (but might contain a few spare sperm) and is there to clean out anything acidic before the real stuff follows. (A bit like flushing the pipes when you change a barrel in the pub, I guess. Another great image you can't wait to forget.) The thing about women spurting in orgasm - no idea where that comes from. It's all over Fanny Hill and other much older erotica... Did women stop doing that, or did the men writing that stuff stop getting away with inventing nonsense when women started reading erotica? I can't believe it's real. Then again, I have a hard time believing that ping-pong-ball thing too, so...

Right - lunchtime - Kristina, you've inspired me. A nice frothy omelette with lots of slippery melted cheese... Mmm...

Anonymous said...

Kristina,

You know me, I'm ever the romantic at heart so I don't often go down the gritty road.

However, not that long ago I had some stickiness edited out one of my books just because I had it sliding down the inside of my heroine's thigh.

Must go know, have just seen a man with dark flowing hair galloping towards my house on a white horse.

Alison Tyler said...

Look at you, Olivia! Resident Expert on Stickiness and HTML. I'm printing up business cards as we speak. (It's a sideline from my job in the tee-shirt factory.)

Anonymous said...

Speaking of ping-pong balls, that is so true. Didn't you see it on Graham Norton? Coincidentally we were discussing that particular programme in the bar one evening at the RWA conference, so there are other Lusties who've seen it as well..

Kirsten said...

I like melting. And male wetness. I once read a description of cunnilingus as 'like licking honey off a spoon', which I rather like.

Also, Ally, I love those poems.

Angel said...

However, not that long ago I had some stickiness edited out one of my books just because I had it sliding down the inside of my heroine's thigh.

That's the sexiest moment...when there's evidence of what you've done, of what you've made him do, slipping down your thigh just like his hand did moments ago...

-shiver-

Alison Tyler said...

I was curious, so I went through Love at First Sting to see how authors describe, um, sticky situations. From Shanna Germain's story, "Into the Woods":

Gerald dropped the pole away from her body and reached around with his empty hand. He dipped one finger inside her. She was surprised how easy he went in, up to the first knuckle.

"Wet already, I see,” he said into her ear.


From Vida Bailey's story, "Torn":

She had been going to send him home. She couldn’t, not now. She stepped back, raised her skirt inch-by-inch and then reached for the back of his head. It made so much sense to guide his face to her cunt. She held him there while he kissed the cotton of her wet panties.

From Rachel Kramer Bussel's piece, "Silence is Golden":

“You make me so wet,” I told him, because it was true. He did, even when I wasn’t with him, just thinking about him had my pussy halfway to the moon.

But the only reference to the word "sticky"? It's in Kristina Lloyd's sexy "Fruits of the Forest," and the man's hands are sticky with pulped raspberries. And, god, what a sexy scene...

My clit was a raspberry that wouldn’t dissolve but he tried his damnedest, licking, sucking, flicking, rocking. His hands made sticky prints on my thighs where he gripped me, and he nuzzled deep, all greedy, slurpy and shameless.

Shameless, she said.
Nailed me. This isn't a shameless plug for Love at First Sting. Not at all. I swear.

Anonymous said...

Ahh, yes... the wet spot. I don't have a problem with it but I'd like for once for it to be on his side of the bed. *grin*

Angel said...

Just do it on the floor. That way, it's a fifty-fifty shot on which one of you steps in it when getting up to get a glass of water.

Unless it's a hardwood floor. Then somebody might end up on their ass, and that wouldn't be good...

Ah, hell. Just do it up on the pillows. -grin-

Angell said...

I can honestly say I never thought about the difference in aroused and horny as far as wetness goes, but now that I know, this could prove to be very interesting.

Like for instance, I'm wet now, but is it horny or is it simply aroused?

Don't think it would be a good idea to ask my boss, even though he looks damn good in those jeans....:P

Thanks for the edumication....

Unknown said...

All wet is good.

The first romance I ever read, it must have been an American one, contained 2 interesting phrases which I immediately asked my mother what they meant:

'burning tinderbox of love'-(not wet at all and sounds very painful, especially for the guy)
and
'phallic'
My mother came up with some complete untruths which satisfied me for years until I finally went "Hey!"

so yes, I'm definitely all about the wet, particularly the slick, sticky, drippy sound of it

Anonymous said...

okay some of those novel excerpts are hilariously funny.

i can tell you from my own experience writing porny things that the level of stickiness is dictated by the raunch level of the story. if they're fucking against a wall in the back of a bar it's fucking and cocks and cunts and sloppy wet messes.

if it's some kind of romantic tale then it's member and centre and some kind of scent or something.

and i don't really know why that is except that somehow the dirtier the fucking the dirtier the words and vice versa.

and oh what i wouldn't give for some sticky right now!

Madeline Moore said...

Oh My Gawd my girlfriend is visitng and I cannot read post and comments and comment wittily right now. No, i can't. So will say - i've been looking forward to this post all week and when I can today I will read and comment and be glad I did. xoxo

Ally said...

What a wonderful way to start my day, Oops I just slid off my chair...LMAO.

Oh my! Jeremy how that handlebar moustache suits you, so sexy it makes me want to take you out for a spin. You can pop my wheelie anytime.

Kristina, Cunt liquefying in the heat.
Hmm..."Throb"

Tilly, I finished your book Equal Opportunities last night.
Absofrickinlutely Amazing.
Those are the only words to discribe it. You made me want to go shopping for kinky toys instead of this weeks groceries. Oops, slides off chair again.

Female ejaculation, spurting, what have you is an interesting subject, google it and look up the Wikipedia link.
For a more defined medical explaination go to,
http://www.the-clitoris.com
/f_html/ejacula.htm
(type this, don't copy and paste)

Up until a year ago I thought that I was just peeing during sex. It happens when I am in the right position for my G-spot to be thoroughly stimulated, (doggy style or on top.)and how aroused I am at the time. Occasionally when recieving face while my G-spot is being stroked it will happen then also. But oddly enough it does not happen to me during my actual orgasm. Perhaps female pre-cum...LMAO I've been told by partners in the past it has a different taste as well. So as you can imagine I often place a folded thick towel under my arse, cause I certainly don't want to sleep in that wet spot!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Ally.

That book was very personal and it means a lot to me when people like it

Alana Noel Voth said...

Olivia, succulacious post. Thank you. First time in a while I got turned on reading something here: must be the biological definitions pressed within the context of luterary dollops. And also the picture of milk. For whatever reason, I find that sexy, pouring milk, its whippy whiteness.

Peace.

Kristina Lloyd said...

Oh god, milk. That bit in Bataille's Story of the Eye where she sits in a saucer of milk. I don't even have the book here so I can't check or quote. It's really hot. Can anyone quote it? I have the urge to read it.

Milk and milky work nicely for me. But cream, no - double, single, whipped? No ta. Just milk. But not in my tea. I have that neat.

Alana Noel Voth said...

I'm with you, Kx. Milk. Not cream. I don't take cream in tea either or in my coffee. Like it straight up. Damn. You think anyo one wil find Bataille's quote? Would be cool.

Peace.

Vincent Copsey said...

I'm not sure I spend much time describing how wet people are (well, I mean I have lots of thunderstorms but that's not quite the same thing!) Though I do remember one Emma Holly book where she describes the sticky, squelchy noises associated with said wetness, and boy, that was hot!

Oh, and I have to say spunk and jism are just unsexy words. Unless it's seriously sleazy, or rough sex they make me go, urgh!

Once had a fascinating discussing about lubes with a woman in a shop.

Madeline Moore said...

Great post Olivia, and funderful comments. Ally - erotic poetry, too? So talented. Yes indeed, the 'wet' question. I like wet, I like cream, I like juices and I don't mind honey although it's quite a bit stickier than the real thing. I haven't seen female ejactulation touched on here, is that a different topic? Perhaps there was more of it happening in the good ol' days. One theory about it is that women only ejaculate after they've been celibate for awhile. I believe it originates from the Bartholian gland, and is the consistency and flavour of water - maybe it is water. Anyway, describing that requires a whole other set of words, none of which, come to think of it, are sticky... well ...
Olivia covered sticky very well, so to that I have little to add.
Thank O, LB needed this.

Kristina Lloyd said...

Alana, owners of Bataille ... it's quite early on in the book from what I recall.

Damn, why don't I have a copy anymore?

Slightly off topic, I have another book in the European Surrealist Modernist Porn section of my library (from which I have just emerged, dusty, damp and a budgerigar swims past on a bike) called Irene's Cunt. I very much enjoyed buying it in a bookshop once.

It's really badly punctuated though.

Anonymous said...

Resident Expert on Stickiness and HTML. I'm printing up business cards as we speak.

Are you printing them on postage-stamp paper, Alison, so we can lick them and make them sticky? (Or did you use up all that paper on the UK-US Lust Bites Monster Woman commemorative postage stamps?)

Alison Tyler said...

Now in the corner of a hallway there was a saucer of milk for the cat. “Milk is for the pussy, isn’t it?” said Simone. “Do you dare me to sit in the saucer?”

“I dare you,” I answered, almost breathless.

The day was extremely hot. Simone put the saucer on a small bench, planted herself before me, and, with her eyes fixed on me, she sat down without my being able to see her burning buttocks under the skirt, dipping into the cool milk. The blood shot to my head, and I stood before her awhile, immobile and trembling, as she eyed my stiff cock bulging in my pants. Then I lay down at her feet without her stirring, and for the first time, I saw her “pink and dark” flesh cooling in the white milk. We remained motionless, on and on, both of us equally overwhelmed . . . .


That it, KL?

Ally said...

Thank you everyone for the compliments.

And thank you again Olivia for the fun topic.

>^,,^<

Kristina Lloyd said...

Fuck, yes. Thank you Alison!

There's even a bonus cat ref in there. I'd forgotten that part.

Heck, it's lovely. I am melting.

Really, thank you for finding it. I'll sleep better tonight ... well, maybe not actually.

Alison Tyler said...

Suddenly, she got up, and I saw the milk dripping down her thighs to her stockings. She wiped herself evenly with a handkerchief as she stood over my head with one foot on the small bench, and I vigorously rubbed my cock through the pants while writhing amorously on the floor. We reached orgasm at almost the same instant without even touching on another.

Just the end of the thought, since I couldn't resist! And it's your fault, KL, that I got next to nothing done today. First looking for The Eye, and then rereading it!

Anne Tourney said...

Wow, what a juicy article! It always surprises me (and saddens me, a bit) when I have a lover who's put off by the "stickiness" of sex. There's so much pleasure and beauty in the mingling of fluids. And don't you love it when you go on those dates where you're aroused all night, and just constantly, deliciously wet?

Thinking of a variety of terms for lubrication is one of my toughest challenges, but you've given me a whole host of ideas, Olivia. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

this was delightful and fun to read! especially being one who has read the toni weschler book and done the whole bbt and cf thing. i can talk cervical fluid for days *giggle*

and about that wet spot - the problem with it, for me, isn't that it's there. i am delighted that the sex was fun and fantastic and that we were both sticky together. the problem is when i'm wanting to go to sleep and there is a large puddle always - ALWAYS - where i sleep. it doesn't seem to matter if we've been on his side of the bed, the wet spot is always on MY side of the bed. how does that happen. hmmm, perhaps the moral of that story is that we should not be having sex on the bed...ah well. we will work on that a bit more.

now to read more of the comments

oh! and what outstandingly cool schwag from good vibrations!!! Fizz sounds pretty fabulous and fun!!!!

*beam*

Anonymous said...

janine - re: squirting female ejaculation stickiness - one of my very best friends has this. she was telling me about it once and how glad she was when she finally heard of someone else having it (not me - i think she read about it - or perhaps it was talked about on "real sex whatever number it was back in the late 80s/early 90s"

so, yes, it really can happen.

(still reading comments)