I've been busily working on my novel and not doing as many writing exercises the last couple of days. Here's one I came across in an old notebook from before I started blogging. This is from Chapter 38 in Writing Down The Bones, "A Big Topic: Eroticism" -- I don't know how long the exercise was, but judging from the amount of space it takes up on the page I'm assuming it was fifteen.When I'm lying on my side, legs slightly bent, one knee down in front of the other, my top hip juts up and rounds over in a most erotic way; this has always been my favorite part of my body. The muscles of my long legs are thick and strong and well-defined. I like to rest a hand there; a palm sits nicely on the expanse of my upper thigh, the meat of my hip. The hair is more fine up there, softer than on other parts of my leg.
I once went home with a man and he confirmed the erotic nature of this part of my body; he pulled out a sketch pad and pencil and drew me, drew that very part of my body. With the top knee sitting down on the surface of the bed, my private parts are hidden from view. If you were standing behind me you could perhaps see my balls sticking out or some of the flesh of my penis, but from the front the flesh is all leg and chest and a little upper stomach, and in the middle of all of that is darkness, mystery. This part of the body isn't male or female. It's a limb, something I use to latch onto another body and pull that body into mine, into the darkness. And by watching myself do this I become very turned on.
In the hot tub I sit and stare up at the people as they drop their garments and unselfconsciously climb down into the water; their hips shudder, their muscles flex and flow, ripple into the surface of the hot water, bubbling up, steamy in the starry night. When the water is too hot, people sit on the edge; they don't hide themselves. Don't come around here if you're trying to hide yourself! The thighs and hips spread out.
The hip is very sensitive to the touch. Usually there is a layer covering this part of me, oftentimes two layers, and in cold weather three or more layers. If I'm walking naked and someone touches my hip skin I feel tingles shooting through me, energy. I like to stand with both hands just forward of my upper thighs, in front of my hips.
