I can read about sex in romance novels, but let's just say that the romance genre, as a whole, is lacking in plot. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Sorry, Bruce.

On topic, I agree with Rahl. I think that sex scenes are skipped over to appeal to a wider audience. Not everyone likes knowing every little motion and smell of our protagonist's experience under the sheets.

I don't mind racy scenes in literature. I rather like them if they are well written. But how far is too far when dealing with the broader audience?

Yeah, they can be interesting, and they can reveal character, or advance the plot, or whatever, but most of the time they don't.

A well-written sex scene can give incredible character development. In the gamut of character exploration, sex scenes blow away action scenes. In fact, it's logical to say that a sex scene can reveal more about a character than any other type of scene (take the reader deeper, if you can handle the metaphor).

But the people who pay for written spec fic are often younger, so to reach that market you have to pull your punches. I meant that as a cliche, not a metaphor.

So in spec fic we've seen very few sex scenes that weren't pornographic. This leaves you with a choice. You can either:

1) Write for legacy, expressing yourself as best you can, never mind the markets that will take your work.

- or -

2) Write for the broader "Harry Potter" market, pulling the curtain on opportunities to develop your characters and affect your readers deeply.

Is it ironic that the choice to include appropriate sex is more artistically pure, and the choice to intentionally restrict sex is more like prostitution? I think it is.

Then I edited it. I guess, in the end, I know what the market can accept. I just wish it were different.

I just finished a trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, who isn't bad at romance in her stories. she's got fantasy plots and themes and almost inevitably a human connection in there somewhere. I give her kudos for writing the only homosexual romance story that really affected me like a romance. But always, always she skips to the next morning and this last time I was just so disappointed.

To put it in an exceptionall crass but accurate way, she did a great job with the foreplay but withdrew at the last minute.

Good point about the young audience. I hadn't thought of that.

Also I am one of the ten people left on the planet who strongly feels that there should be no sex before marriage.

I read all the science fiction I could get my hands on beginning at around age eight, so I do want to know that my daughter, say, would be able to read what I've written without getting sex ed. Sex is everywhere anyway; I think the world will go on turning without my contribution to the smut pile.

And I don't think I sacrifice character development by doing this. For example, in my WIP, I have 2 sex scenes. No body parts described (and as Beth points out, that does get dull). In the first one, I describe how the POV character feels about it. I honestly think that scene will make a reader's breath catch in the throat.

In the second, I describe around it, and you get two things: the woman is willing to believe anything the man tells her, and the man is a selfish liar who is doing her a very dirty turn. Boy, what a fun marriage they're going to have, when she finds out what "contagious" really means. In this, I didn't need anything more explicit than "nether regions" and "touching her all over" to get my meaning across.

[rant]...and I really get annoyed when authors go the other way. For one thing, the characters are almost never married, and there's often BDSM, murder, incest, or gay sex; often, regardless of the quality of the story, I wish I hadn't read it and put such images into my mind (Kaleidoscope Century, Angel Station, Strange Days, Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand -- jeez, Delaney, I thought this was supposed to be SF!).

For another, I was trying to read about spaceships and aliens; if I'd wanted porno, I'd be in a different section!

And finally, I don't find explicit sex to really go with high literary quality: quite the reverse. Tyro X tells us the precise state, appearance, and activity of the various organs. Hemingway says, "The earth moved beneath them."[/rant]

Autumnmuse, we're probably the majority! We just don't get quoted much!

But I see Christine had a question of WHY explicit sex doesn't go as well as explicit other things. I don't entirely know. I know that I would rather evoke other things too (don't tell me every aspect of how you cut up your steak; just tell me that it was the tiniest bit burnt and every bite was perfection). But maybe it just seems undignified to tell every detail -- just like it would be in real life.

There is also the posibility that some authors are not comfortable writing them. Since sex can be very personal to some people, they may not feel it is their place to make it something public.

So far I've been happier when the main characters are given a little privacy because my imagination is usually more romantic than the words on the page. Or perhaps it's because I personally lose the use of language when I'm in the throes, so a...um...deep penetration POV doesn't seem very real to me.

Have you read Anne Rice's take on Sleeping Beauty? I can't remember the nom de plume she used, but the books verge on soft-core porn.

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When you're talking about love and trust, or hate and invasion, or whatever, the most important part is emotional and mental, not physical. Once you establish that an exclusive relationship does exist, there is no need to go into detail. Or if you are talking about an attack, there is also no need to go into great detail. In fact, talking about emotions and thoughts is the strength of writing over other media. I say, exploit it.

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Okay, I'll also quote something I wrote in a more contentious discussion of the subject. If you want the rest of this thread, you'll have to find it yourself.

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A sculpture of the human body, or the anatomical sketches of Da Vinchi, are technically less accurate than an actual corpse filleted and covered in plastic. But the act of doing that conveys contempt for the body, even hatred. The act of mummification, while strange to us, can be seen as a affirmation of life after death, while the lines of Da Vinchi's drawings communicate a sense of appreciation.

When we portray sexuality, we are acting upon it, and upon the way that our audience percieves it. Do we present it as a contemptable act? Do we make it a subject for mockery? Or do we communicate some form of respect or care, even dignity and reverence?

The most accurate portrayal has to be true the the point of view in which it is portrayed. I made the point above about people in less sophisticated societies. Less detail is more accurate, sometimes. And a lot of detail? It communicates concern and interest primarially in the details mentioned. Are we portraying a character as being mostly interested in positions and techniques? Or is the character more concerned with emotion, passion, trust? Does the character think mostly of how to best accomplish pleasures? Or is relationship and togetherness more important?

What we concentrate on in our portrayal is what the audience will percieve as the driving motivation of the character. When we make the climactic moment the resolution to stand together against all difficulties, a decision made while driving home from a disastrous evening and sealed with a forgiving word and a kiss, it has a dramatically different impact from portraying the climactic moment as the discovery that this sexual relationship can produce a fifteen minute orgasm.

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The only thing that can make sex not silly is context, and to create a context in writing - to make the readers feel enough that the gross physical manipulations don't seem laughable - has so far eluded me.

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I think the reason is because sexual intimacy is incredibly special and precious to me, and I have had experiences with reading/watching ugly pornographic things that left a taint in my mind, and caused me to not enjoy sex as much in my personal life.

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I think the reason I don't enjoy sex as much in my personal life is that people spent so much of my life telling me it was dirty, personal, not to be spoken about, and not to be had. The only information I could get on the subject came from questionable sources because real people with real experiences never shared them.

Now, I have two further comments. First, on the personal side: I've heard this argument before, but I don't buy it. What's more personal than the third person limited point of view in which we get every thought, every feeling, every reaction? There's a narrator in my head! Isn't that awfully personal?

As to the pornography....

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I'm not writing pornography.

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There is a difference, and a significant one, between pornography and erotica. You're probably going to be in one or the other category if you describe much of a sex scene, but pornography is dirty, without emotion, it's *ucking, basically.

Erotica, on the other hand, is the culmination of strong emotions in the physical. It is making love, as autumnmuse put it.

Sex scenes in books or movies UNLESS a specific event is occuring that must be included to advance the plot or reveal a very important aspect of a character is nothing more than group voyuerism.

You may be absolutley facsinated and absorbed by the details of say Albert Einstien- but would you willingly stand at his window and watch him have sex?

Anyway, it would seem that many of the "erotica" markets pay very well for erotic fiction. And if they're paying well, that must mean there is demand for it. This doesn't mean you have to write erotica, though... But you could if you wanted to.

During the last flash challenge (FC6), I was very proud of myself for NOT writing a sex scene between two women. Oh, I had one in mind, but I knew it would have been utterly gratuitous. Rather, I strongly believe that if something -- anything -- doesn't add to the plot or character development, it's not needed. So, I didn't write that scene. But I knew what happened.

First of all, let us make it clear that in no scene, from sex to murder, does the author spend painstaking moments describing every teensy tinsy little thing that happens. That would be boring.

Second, a really good sex scene spends more time describing how the character is feeling (emotionally and physically, which get inttertwined in a sex scene) than on the specific movements of the bodies. You might mention that he touches her breasts, but the instead of going on about exactly how, with how much pressure, and for how long, you stop and say that the woman feels an amazing warmth spreading through her body. (If you've done a good job with the relationship buildup, we should feel that this is more than passion, but also love for the person she is with.) The added benefit here is that the reader can imagine his or her own preferences when it comes to these details.

Third, I keep hearing a lot of problems with the relationships that culminate in sex...sex before marriage, for example. If you find this morally wrong, then don't you have a problem with this anyway, even if the sex is not described explicitly? As to more black and white morally dispicable things such as violent sex (rape), I agree that this would be painful to experience with the character, but perhaps getting a taste of what she feels....like I said, a good sex scene concentrates on emotions. In this case, though, she doesn't feel the warmth. She feels bile in her mouth and she's afraid, in pain. You can make it seem really explicit by simply going through those ranges of pain and fear. Actually, though, the closest I ever came to describing a rape scene was to describe an *attempted* rape scene in which the woman gets away in time.

Fourth, the silliness. This is a cultural thing, I'm afraid. I can't help you. The culture is the reason that when my husband and I attended our pre-cana class (The catholic church has you do either a full day, a weekend, or several evenings, depending upon the parish.), the couple that did the sex talk giggled every time they said "sex." It drove us nuts, actually. Here they were, supposed to be talking about intimacy within the bounds of sanctified marriage, talking to adults about to get married, and even they couldn't keep a straight face. I was disgusted with them, actually. I have no idea what they even said as they spent so much time giggling. I think they suggested that we talk to our partners about it. Good advice, but the giggling made it awfully hard to take seriously. The undertone was, "This is a dirty subject barely ok if you're married."

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Sex scenes in books or movies UNLESS a specific event is occuring that must be included to advance the plot or reveal a very important aspect of a character is nothing more than group voyuerism.

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Everytime I make a post someone else comes in and says something else!

Seriously, though....

Let's talk about advancing plot. If romance is neither a main plot nor even a sub plot, then it would be pointless to put in a sex scene.

I'd like to add though, that I love writing sex scenes. I think it's fascinating how personalities and circumstances change what could easily become boring into the best fun that exists on the planet. Still, I find I just don't need them in most of my stories. They usually aren't necessary to the plot and tend to bog things down with unnecessary details.

On a side note, have any of you looked at Harlequin's Online Reads (don't ask me why I've been reading them)? No sex scenes. Not even when it gets racy and uses a sex toy as a plot device. It's probably because they would need to put up a "18 or older" warning at the front like a porn site, but still... it makes me wonder.

In line with that:

a Fox News article on the blurring line between chick lit and romance

and

a Fox News article on the growing popularity of Christian romances

Imagine this:

Day 1.

Enkidu grasped her _______, and she moaned. Then she ... (500 more words)

Day 2.

(500 more words)

Day 3 ...

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Also I am one of the ten people left on the planet who strongly feels that there should be no sex before marriage.

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Not even close! Whatever gave you the impression that you were in the MINORITY on this one? Now, there may only be ten people left in this country (other cultures are difficult to discuss in this case) who actually waited, but you are clearly in the majority of the people who believe that one should wait until marriage to have sex.

Here's the thing: A combination of religious and logical principles do suggest that waiting until marriage is a good thing. This has been the teaching for a looonnnnggg time. (I won't presume to suggest that I am familiar with all of history, though.)

I do know one thing about history: Puberty used to happen closer to 17 or 18, about when people used to get married. Now, puberty happens at about 12, whereas marriage happens, on average, at something like 26 or 27.

Hmmmm....so why aren't people following their beliefs? Why do 80% of women cry their first time? Perhaps it is because we are given 14 or 15 years of the most powerful temptation imaginable, often with no end in sight.

Rather than the gods trying to destroy Enkidu- if there would have been a scene of sex for six days with no other purpose it would be useless save as sex for sex's sake.

In Mario Puzo's books sex is very much a important part of the books- becuase it showed the other side of mafia men- their gentleness or sadism etc. But he didn't ever go so far as to decribe the juices, sounds, and grunting actions.

Shogun was the same way a lot of sex scenes but done tastefully without vulgarity.

Real sex from real life is not pretty- it's filled with awkwardness, physical flaws, rashes, cramps, smells, bodily accidents, bizaare conversations, threats, pleads, promises, and insults. When writers write sex scenes they don't write real ones- they write fantasy scenes where everyone is pretty and sexually responsive.

It's like fight scenes in movies where a 16 year old girl weighing 80 lbs is able to beat up six two hundred lbs trained mafia men. It's just not beleivable and after a while you get to where your sick of it.

I don't know where you got the puberty stat, but I would really double check it against birth and marriage records. The stat is somewhat true for upper class females who did not endure the social stresses of the lower classes. For southern aristocracy girls married around 19 to 25 while the commoner was married off starting around twelve or so.

JB Skaggs

With sex, it's pretty much the same. Either it seems to come out awkward and laughable, or it's gross and pornographic.

If the sex is important to the story somehow, then by all means put it in but it should be appropriate to the tone of the story. A well-written rape scene could add a deeper level to a story involving rape. Likewise a story involving romance could be "more real" if it involved a loving, respectful erotic scene.

Of course, once you start adding sexual elements, you start reducing your audience. There are people out there who will flip past the sex you put in -- regardless of how "beautiful" you make it -- and there are people out there who will just put the book down and not pick it up again. That is just the reality of the market. It may be somewhat cultural, but unless you are writing for a foreign market, that is the reality.

I can't stand to watch sex on screen. I love to read about it though.

I know why. When it's on screen it's clearly someone else, and I feel like I'm watching something I shouldn't.

A well written sex scene, as part of a larger well written novel, makes me feel a PART of the scene. I'm not watching, I'm participating.

You don't have to agree with me; I just wanted my opposition noted.

Beth, I completely agree with you.

Given some other things that you've said, I think that you have different ideas about "explicit" in a book than most other people here. But that just makes your original question even more puzzling. I have read very few books involving sex that aren't "explicit" by the standard you seem to use.

For the record, I have no problem with "explicit" sex in movies when it's a "we just had sex and now we're lying in bed together talking about us" kinda scene. I also don't have a huge problem with "artistic low-light shots of various body contours set to dramatic music" sex, though I think it's a bit cheesy (okay, it's a lot cheesy).

And I have no problem with the equivalent in books, which is what I think you're talking about.

http://www.mum.org/menarage.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~hjcombs/ms.htm

I've also got the source in my adolescent psychology textbook but I can't seem to find it. One of these days we really need to unpack our books. I can even picture the page it's on, but I'd like to be able to cite the title and author for credibility. Sigh.

I do not want to see it.

Among other things, I like to be able to imagine myself in the place of the woman which I can't do in a movie. Also, as a woman, I prefer auditory turn-ons as opposed to visual.

I mean, I'm sure I'm weird, but I don't think I'm weird in this case. I do see a great deal of confusion in what constitutes explicit sex. Many people here read this topic and immediately started thinking of the worst porn they ever read. That tells me something, which promted my explanation of what made for a good sex scene.

But yes, you do need some of the body parts in there.

P.S. I don't have a problem in the sense that I have a moral problem with explicit sex in movies. Go, watch it, have fun. I just won't join you.

Christine if you feel strongly that you wish to write erotica then do so. You may be a very gifted in that arena and be able to express sex in a way that is original and interesting. If you have the desire and the skill do so.

But as with everything weigh the costs such an excursion would have on your reputation.

Stephen King survived explicit sex scenes about children without being labeled a pedaphile- while Piers Anthony did not. So the point I am saying is if you do not wish to be labeled a an eroticist or porn writer then weigh the costs carefully.

No, let me explain something. I don't care whether you call it porn or erotica. It's the same thing. Erotica may be a more accurate term, since it concentrates on the specific characteristic of such art. The point is that to the extent that a work is successful in arousing the sexual response of the audience, it will necessarily be less successful in communicating any other response.

Christine may boast that women are different in this respect, but I don't believe the evidence supports this notion. Horney women are just as notoriously stupid as horny men. That blood flow has to come from somewhere, after all

My argument isn't that turning the audience on is wrong (though I do happen to believe that, since I'm against needless stupidification generally), my argument is that eroticism tends to denigrate any other artistic value in the audience's perception. It's an unavoidable fact of human physiology. Humans become far less alert and intelligent when sexually aroused. They don't think well, and their sensitivities become realigned towards more sensual subjects.

If the writer is good, you’re hoping not only do these two people get together, but also that they live.

So, when the finally do get together and then constumpate their relationship, they shut the door on you and it’s a bit unfair.

I’m not saying we as the readers need graphic detail, sitting on the edge of the bed with a tub of popcorn cheering them on, but, c’mon, a little something-something is in order.

As far as the morality debate, I don't think the writer's personal view should play into it. Would your character do this? That's the question that would need to be asked.

I’m much more open to reading sex scenes then watching them as with prose it’s easier to put some art around them. No matter how tender or how pertinent to the plot, on film sex scenes will always feel a little sensationalized. I’m not saying that can’t happen in prose either, but it doesn’t immediately seem that way. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the scene itself, if a film character shows her breasts while making love or otherwise, then an actress (a real living, breathing woman) has shown her breasts.

It's amazing that this subject has drawn such controversy! Why do so many Hatrackers have a problem with sex in fiction?

Of course our society frowns on sex outside marriage, nearly all societies do. Our society does not approve of shooting people, either, yet when NewsBys asked a gun question nobody said "I am morally opposed to shooting people." When Eruve asked about multiple villains, nobody said "I am morally opposed to evil."

We're talking about fiction for crying out loud!

Fiction has murder, treachery, war, pain, suffering, seduction . . . and sex. And more. Any of these can be gratuitous or essential, tasteful or offensive, and appropriate or inappropriate for children.

For those or you too offended by cussing third and fourth-graders to watch (and I can't say I blame you, but I assure you if you can get past it the satire is hilarious in most episodes), let me recap: Basically, American parents get offended at a Canadian TV show with a lot of fart and poddy jokes. So they get the army involved, recruit new troops, and (with many big guns) go to war.

Anything that detracts from the story is a problem and for the majority of works out there eliminating the actual display of sex does not eliminate one aspect of the story except the curiosity to watch someone have sex. But including the detailed sex scene turns off a large portion of the audience, and reduces the stories continuity.

I guess for me watching the coarsening of society, that I have begun to really detest public sexuality.

Example here is a conversation in front of my house by three 13 year old girls in front of their families:

"I was like so f--king amazed at him," girl 1 said.
"I know he turned out to be such a g-d d---med d--k- I mean he got what he wanted, " girl 2 said.

Girl 3 responded, "Well that's why I only let him feel my tits- I knew he f--king you both. But God he was so cute!"

Girl 3 later on came to my house and asked my "daughter" to go out with her and wanted to know if she liked to finger herself.

This type of language and behavior is rampant everywhere I have lived in the past five years. From Oregon, West Virgina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. My wife when we started dating six years ago did not know that d--k was a curse word or b---h.

For me I do not want to be part of the coarsening of my culture.

What is happening to class or style in America? Or as one wit said "As Britney Spears has proven it has never been more profitable to be trash."

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Anything that detracts from the story is a problem and for the majority of works out there eliminating the actual display of sex does not eliminate one aspect of the story except the curiosity to watch someone have sex.

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This is a strong and valid opinion, but I do not share it. (At least, if we've sampled the same selection of books, which we probably haven't. I don't think we like the same things. ) Just because you can take out a sex scene without actually skipping over relevant plot, doesn't mean you should.

As to your daughter and her friends...all I can say to that is that they're probably curious. I remember being that age (it was only a decade or so for me) and I have to tell you, more than anything else I wanted to know what it was all about. No one would tell me because that's not something we talk about in "classy America." If class and style mean we can't talk about real things, then maybe they're overrated. I began to wonder if I was the only person feeling the things that I did.

So I turned to romance novels because at this time, they're the only thing that talks. It was not the right move. For one thing, if you want *real* fantasy...go read a romance novel. They take the cake when it comes to things that couldn't possibly happen. But I didn't know better, so I thought that was the way it was supposed to work.

2. If you want to write explicit sex scene, go ahead. Just don't claim you're somehow a better writer, more artistic, more filled with integrity, more enlightened, blah blah blah, than people who choose not to write explicit sex scenes.