Writing Sex at 40-below
Working and Playing in the Extreme Cold
Those who follow me regularly know I work (and play) in a pretty tough and cold environment. And it is beautiful. Those clear cold days in the arctic or sub-arctic make you feel as if you could see eternity. When there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the sun is reflecting off a blanket of white so pristine if you stare too long without dark goggles, you’ll hurt your eyes. At the same time, even with cold weather gear, it chills to the bone. At seriously cold temperatures exposed skin can freeze in less than 5 minutes. The coldest temperature I have ever worked in was -65 with a windchill of -80.
Frostbite Charts
I’ve included the NOAA Windchill Charts for your reference. Once the wind starts blowing, it definitely starts to feel brisk.
https://www.weather.gov/media/unr/windchill.pdf
I’m always amazed how much I can eat after working in the cold all day, not only that, just how tired I am. All I want to do is take a hot shower and curl up in a blanket with a gallon of hot soup, hot chocolate and donuts to dip in it.
Building Up a Not-So-Sexy Sweat
Not to mention the sweating. You would think at those temperatures you wouldn’t sweat, right? Nope, there’s a reason why there’s a huge market in cold weather environments for moisture wicking under-gear. When I have been out in the cold, either working or skiing/snowshoeing, my underlayers are drenched with sweat. The first thing I always do when I get home or back to camp, is change out of my underlayers so they can dry (or wash them if possible). When my husband climbed Denali in 2007, there was no way to wash those layers for the three weeks on the mountain, they just had to change out every night, let them dry then put them back on. By the time he got home, there was no amount of washing that would get that smell out—he had to just throw them away.
Not entirely sexy—right?
Layers
Then there’s the sheer number of layers. When I’m geared up for work, my outer layers, comprising my arctic bibs, boots, jacket, balaclava parka and gloves weigh upwards of 30lbs. That’s not counting my regular clothes and underlayers I wear.
It makes writing a realistic cold-weather romance, a little tough. That’s a lot of barriers for a couple to plow through to get to a little skin.
Could you imagine the scene?
She removed her dark goggles and threw back the hood of her parka. The heat in her eyes was enough to melt the ice on the lake. Overcome with passion, he threw back his hood, wolf fur tickling his face. Fumbling through thick gloves, he unzipped her parka and fondled her full breasts through her under jacket and four layers….
Layer removal
Layer removal
Layer removal
Finally, with the heaps of outer clothing piled around them, they had almost reached nirvana. Shivering as hypothermia set in, she looked at the clothes piled in the snow and asked, “What were we trying to do?”
Yeah, realistic sexy time out in the elements just isn’t going to happen in my novels. It’s just too damn cold. In some of my stories set in the summertime in Alaska, I can pull it off without a problem (ok—minor problem, if you’ve ever been to Alaska, you know about our state bird—the mosquito). Believe it or not, it does get warm here, even in the arctic.
But for those of you writing about Alaska or other northern climates in the winter and want to pull off a sexy scene, here’s how I’ve made it work for me.
Body Language Outdoors
Intimate moments can happen outside, like conversations/glances. I feel they are part of what helps the romance and sexual tension build to make it more believable later. But keep in mind if they are someplace extremely cold, they are going to be wearing full facemasks and possibly goggles. Seeing a look in someone’s eye or reading a face expression would be impossible. Emotions have to be conveyed with body language, posture, motions and words and tone of voice. But starting the intimacy outdoors with a touch, a would or a motion can ignite the spark that creates realism when they move indoors.
Removing Layers
Remember all of those layers? Yeah, they’re a pain in the… but they’re necessary to keep from freezing those delicate (and not so delicate) bits off. It’s jarring to your reader if people were fully suited up a moment ago, and are now suddenly naked doing the horizontal mambo with no transition. The dreaded “telling” can really bog down a story here: he took off his coat, she hung up her parka, etc. I try to mix it up with conversation and action that moves the plot along and gloss over the taking off of stuff. Sometimes it’s integral to the plot, especially if later I need to have them grab something from a pocket as part of the action. I don’t want the reader to be thinking—hey wait, where’d that come from.
Time Jump
The good, old-fashioned time-jump is always a standby to help overcome the layer hurdle as well. You can jump from where they’re outside in the cold to where the characters are curled up by the fire in the lodge, and it’s obvious that some time has occurred. You can describe the items you might need later in a scene (a jacket hung by the door, underclothes strung up by the fire, a weapon being sharpened while someone rocks in a chair).
Bathing
Remember the not-so-sexy sweating, I mentioned previously? It is something I have had readers who work and play in the outdoors comment on, that there’s no way after skiing, snowshoeing, basically doing any strenuous activity in the cold is anyone going to smell good. That’s something realistic that you can use to your advantage in your story. What’s sexier and brings to characters closer together than a bath or a shower when they get back to the lodge? That being said, if your lodge is a remote cabin with no running water, you’re going to have to get creative, but I think you can pull it off.
Thanks for reading! My Alaska backcountry horror novella, The Dark Land is available on Amazon. For sneak peeks sign up for my newsletter. I promise not to SPAM (though Alaskans are the #2 consumers of SPAM behind Hawaii!).
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