Creativity and Libido

The drive to be creative artistically is closely tied to the sexual drive. Creating babies and creating works of art are similar quests in that they attempt to produce something that will last outside of us after we die. Perhaps not every artist or skilled technician feels this way, but for me, the two are linked more clearly because I love to explore sensual feelings in my writing. I have spoken to other writers who balk at crafting the kind of blushingly frank sexual prose that I engage in when I am at the height of a creative cycle.

There is a self-consciousness there, where if I put these fantasy-based things on paper and other people read them, I have made myself very vulnerable indeed. Some writers (and perhaps readers) find such content distracting, or disturbing, or even cringe-worthy. Some might think I am interjecting too much of my personal stuff into the work.

I like to think that if I show characters interacting sexually with each other that it is done in service to the narrative. Could I accomplish the same thing in a more subtle, mainstream, commercially acceptable way? I guess I could and I sometimes do. The suggestion of intimacy is a very powerful thing, too. But in some of the manuscripts I have written, the revealed intimacy tells us something about the characters that the mere suggestion wouldn't.

There is something really compelling to me about showing what happens in an intimate moment between two people. There are things you just can't learn about a person in another way. Small, vulnerable things, predilections and kinks for example, say a lot about a person. I like the pillow talk and little bits of conversation that lovers exchange while working towards a goal of shared pleasure, and how isolating it is when one partner withholds part of themselves even as they give their body to it.

Again, could I reveal these character traits in another way? Sometimes I can and I do, but the interplay in those scenes gives me a lot of enjoyment, and not just in the sensual way one might imagine. The problem for me creatively comes up when libido gets stifled. My ability to write any content is closely linked with the sorts of things that turn me on sexually so to speak. So, conversely, sex-stifling things like stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, and lack of sleep really affect my ability to work.

On the flip side (or the third hand?), lack of writing stifles my desire for sumptuous food, pleasures in bed, and stimulating conversation. I feel less interesting when I am not writing. Not in the cocktail party "I'm working on a novel" type of way, but on a deeper level where if I am not writing I am denying a part of who I am, and therefore become a withholding lover, lacking intimacy in my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I skim the surface without tasting the core of my life.

If I can't make my writing as exciting to me as having a lover's flesh responding to my touch, why bother doing it? If I strip away all the things that raise my pulse, who would want to read such a sanitized, denuded thing? I don't write friendly, chicken-soup-for-the-soul type of stuff. Nothing taken away from people that do. They are making money off of their inspirational stories, and I am not at present selling anything.

It is just that for me, writing without the cathartic release is more frustrating than anything else. If that makes me an exhibitionist of ideas, then I can live with that. I just need to tap into that audience that, in secret or not, gets a thrill out of being voyeurs.

In the meantime, I'll be between the sheets of my latest projects, lingering over the way the simple act of opening one's eyes during an intimate moment can take the narcissism out of it and focus the intention on what is really important: namely the feelings one has about the beloved object of desire.