Sex makes books fly off the shelves

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When two people are in love, sex forms a basic element of their interaction. Can we then isolate sex from the intimacies of the mind and heart that set in when they bond? Mills & Boons’ second Indian author Aastha Atray recently said her book couldn’t skip sex because it’s by an Indian and India is not a sexless country. So you can’t have an Indian novel without that element.
Sex is no more a ploy to titillate. It not just adds to the saleability of books, it makes the reading experience more real and exciting for the young urban reading palate. However, it cannot be an isolated aspect of writing. It needs to be interspersed with emotions and should find occasion in the plot, says author Vikrant Dutta, who explores the intricacies of modern day relationships in his upcoming novel The Dark Rainbow. “When a book delves into the lives of the protagonists in love, sex is a part of the exchange of emotions and feelings and to assume that sex would not be a part of their relationship is to leave it incomplete. True often enough sex is used to induce some excitement. And yet when it is weaved logically into the plot, it does add to the feel of the book and makes it real,” he says.
Ever since the commercial fiction stormed the Indian literary market, there have been a slew of writers who have started experimenting with sex. Both the authors and publishers have tasted commercial success due to this customary sex scene formula.
Faraaz Kazi, author of Truly Madly Deeply, says, “I know of publishers, who ask authors to elaborate on sex and authors who have an insane following due to the quantity of sex in their prose. Physical affection in my novel was symbolic and quite metaphorical in the draft phase when the publisher intervened asking me to ‘rephrase’ certain passages. From the commercial point of view, yes, sex can make it interesting for novitiate readers. It will increase the sales. But then the question to be asked is at what expense?”
Sex is an act as old as animal-kind, which is why it will be, either overtly or covertly, a part of any novel that deals with how humans interact with each other, reasons Arnab Ray, who has just come out with his second novel The Mine. “I find the florid passages of sex immensely cringe-inducing and that is why I avoid them in my work. What I do find immensely interesting, and love to explore, is why characters have sex, fall in love, cheat, lie and engage in ‘risky’ behaviour,” adds Ray.
Kunal Bhardwaj’s Love was never Mine doesn’t have a single sex scene. “It is selling purely on the basis of the sketching of emotions. Similarly, Johnny Gone Down, Married But Available etc. are a few other examples which went on to become bestsellers without using any sex stunts. So clearly there is a lot more than sex, which readers can relate to. It just depends on what we are providing them, and how it’s shaping their reading habits,” sums up Kunal.