As many of you know – because I’ve told you – I don’t have anything against sex. (Well, not at the moment. It would make writing awkward, and besides it would shock the cats.) I have been happily married for twenty six years and I have two sons, neither of which, despite their belief, is a virgin birth.
I am, however, getting sick and tired of sex in books. Oh, not sex as sex. I mean, most of you know I’m not a prude. I can read sex without much worries (except sometimes I wonder if people bend that way – in other planets, I know they don’t on Earth.) I’ll even admit there was a time when I was about 13 or 14 when I would read an entire book for the three paragraphs of sex. I suppose that was part of the age. You see, I’d never had sex, I assumed it would be an eon, give or take, before I had sex, and I wanted to know everything about it.
So, why am I getting sick of it? Because most of it doesn’t mean anything. Worse, it’s dreary to read.
It’s like there is some directive from above on “there must be sex here.” In fact, I know there is a directive out in Romance about x sex scenes at x places in the book. The number of xxx in which book depends on the line, but it’s carefully dictated. I can also say that in one of my series, I was told I MUST have sex scenes, even though I felt that sex didn’t belong in it.
So some sex in books is the result of pressure from what used to be the only means of getting books on the shelves. And on the part of the publishers, themselves, I think it was an effort to cater to what they perceived to be a universal taste.
Is it a universal taste? I don’t know. I can only tell you what I know and what I think.
I think a lot of the sex in books is boring. It makes no sense, it accomplishes nothing. If it doesn’t outright violate the character – really? A regency girl giving it up after one kiss? – it is at best oh um. They kiss they throb they flutter, they grind, they penetrate, there’s things that get hard and things that get moist, there’s how he’s never had it that good and she’s never felt this way before and zzzzzzzzzzz. What? Sorry. It’s just I’ve read so many of these.
Possibly there is some demographic out there whom this satisfies, who feels thrilled at the mere mention of sex. They’re probably thirteen. Or perhaps fourteen. But there are indications that it’s not the ticket to money and success (except insofar as marketing distorts things) that publishers believe it is. There is a certain hysteria of falling numbers and increasing sex under the belief that doing more of what’s failed is a sane business approach. (Do they teach this in the ivy leagues, or something?)
In my opinion, what sells is not explicit sex, but sexual tension (Something I doubt most publishers – jaded by books crossing their desk every day – might not be able to tell with two hands and a seeing eye dog) does sell. Sexual tension – as opposed to sex – makes the reader continue reading, makes us interested, makes us crave the moment when the two would-be-lovers, yearning for each other bur holding back, finally kiss or even touch.
For instance, Georgette Heyer’s Venetia or Silvester have enough sexual tension in it that at the end of the second, the phrase “Sparrow, Sparrow,” has more excitement in it than any of the multi-page anatomically correct sex scenes I ever read. And, FYI, Heyer is still selling very well indeed.
Not that sex is forbidden in this – I’ve read a few urban fantasies in which the sex builds the sexual tension, due to something the character can’t (or shouldn’t) overcome. Or must overcome. The point being the sex becomes part of the plot and entwines the plot and heightens everything else.
On the other hand, in a lot of urban fantasies and in 3/4 of the romances, you could take the sex scene out completely and no one would notice. Well, maybe the publishers looking for the x that marks the spot. And in many books it gets either clinical and dry, or silly and dreary. If you must describe a part of the female anatomy in such exaggeration that it sounds like a cabbage unfolding and unfolding and unfolding yet again, you’ve probably gone too far. Suggestion and indication – note not prudishness and playing keep away – are more… interesting than tons of ink spilled in the service of anatomic descriptions.
The best way to write sex is the best way to write anything else in a plot: irresistible force meets immovable object (again, and again, and again, harder, faster… er… get your mind out of the gutter. And then come back and toss a life preserver to my mind, would you?) Have your character want, crave, need and yet not be able to get for good and sufficient reason (and there must be a real reason, just as the need must be palpable not just “I want it bad.”) And then have all this serve the greater plot. And then, maybe, just maybe you’ll have something worth reading. (And if you’re writing erotica as such, I highly recommend How To Write Erotica by Valerie Kelly. Actually I highly recommend this book for the writing technique of “immediate writing.” She gives very useful hints on what to give in detail and what to shade in. Caution, it has graphic passages. Not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.) On the other hand, if you don’t want to write explicit sex, be brave and original and keep the graphic sex out.
I believe in the indie market place we’ll see more sex and more sexless books too. I can also easily predict that if the sex counts the book will do well, if the sex doesn’t count…. Yawn, who needs it?
*Crossposted at According To Hoyt*
Mad Genius Club 
19 responses to “No Sex, Please, We’re Bored”
When you find yourself reaching for the Thesaurus, your sex scene has lasted too long. I mean, throb gets so boring if repeated too often. Wait, did I just write “oscillate” in a sex scene? I don’t recall my husband ever . . . err, never mind.
Go up three paragraphs and cut it. Insert a couple of blank lines to tell the reader to use their own imaginiation, mine just broke, and start in the morning.
“Oh MFG! I didn’t! What was in that drink and how much did I have?” Hero leaps out of bed and starts hunting for clothing.
Herione’s worst rival clutches her head. “It didn’t happen. If I ever hear the faintest rumor, I will borrow one of Daddy’s henchmen . . . ” Rival breaks off to rush to the bathroom . . .
Pam
actually most sex is described in a completely matter of fact way. No thesaurus involved. Just clinical close ups. Which I find about as exciting.
No wonder it’s boring. Even I can do better than that!
At least we’re past the era of “Shogun” and “steaming stalks” (thank the Lord above!).
I agree wholeheartedly. But, I suppose, the *next* big thing will be explicit bathroom (everybody does it! It’s part of nature!) descriptions. The quality of the hero’s flatulence. The consistency of the heroine’s felicitous fecal deposit. The length and intensity of the hero’s urinary stream… Yeah. Some things are better left unsaid.
Though, I suppose, even as we speak there is a new branch of Romance devoted to foot fetishists and containing page after page of shoe descriptions. ::shudder::
Lin,
Uh. We’ve been past that era for twenty five years. Twenty five years ago, how to write books already advised to give things their clinical names.
As for the bathroom — um… have you read much mainstream literature? They’ve tried that since the seventies. The foot thing… got it… it’s boring. I don’t think there’s a fetish left untouched, though I confess I haven’t seen furry romances on the shelves. Amish romances sure, but not furries. Not sure why. There are probably more furs than Amish.
I did say I was glad we were past that “steaming stalk” thing 🙂 Mainstream literature? Two words I tend to avoid whenever possible, linked!
It’s a known fact I live under a rock 🙂 I find myself re-reading Blyton or Wilder by preference to most of the blurbs I see on the “Best Sellers” lists. But I read intelligent SF, so I figure that marks me as strange, right there 🙂
“I don’t think there’s a fetish left untouched.”
Rule 34.
Rule 34 indeed. There are probably inverse fetishes springing to life all over the internet as we type – and they’ll have always been there.
You know Lin, if he’s got a steaming stalk, he either needs a doctor, or possibly a really good xenobiologist, steaming stalks being about as normal for the male anatomy as soft petals are for the female.
As for bathroom descriptions, like sex, only if it matters to the plot, and with extra care, since readers who’ll follow the most amazing fountains of gore with slobbering glee can be turned off by the merest hint that their hero needs to pee.
Okay just to entirely lower the tone of the joint…
The seduction of Dr Ambrose McWhalen, or why my son’s first name is Blammo.
“And that’s it. Blammo! We have a whole new life-form.” he said, enthusiasm radiating from every last five foot four inch of him, from disordered hair to scuffed boot-tips.
“Really?” She lowered her lashes, looked at him over her glasses. Glasses made you look more academic. “Blammo! Amazing. I never knew words were quite so powerful.”
“You’re not taking me seriously, are you?” The prickles were coming up, like a wary hedgehog. Any minute now he’d curl up. Probably not with her, which was the idea.
“You, yes. Actually I’m taking you quite seriously, which is bizarre because you’re not my kind of guy at all. Blammo though, is a little harder to take seriously.” She gave him the benefit of her best smile, let her hand trickle down his arm in a slow cascade of fingernail points.
He grinned awkwardly, somehow managing to look uncomfortable, eager and terrified all at the same time. “Well, um. I’m not very good at actually explaining the mechanics of RNA transferase interferons to a… a layman. And I’m not very good at girls. Uh, talking to them that is.” Puppy eyes looked up at her. “Especially beautiful ones.”
“I’d never have guessed,” she said, pulling him down to sit next her on the couch. “Even if I am sure I am not a layMAN. You see, laymen don’t have bumps here,” she took his unresisting hand and showed him, “and do here.”
His face lit up like a stop-light, and his mouth fell open. Then he got control of himself. “I… I really have to go.” He started to try to stand up.
She pulled him down onto the couch. “Really?” She asked, swinging a leg and an arm over him. She looked down on him. “But I so want to find out the real meaning of Blammo.” She kissed him. He looked like a hypnotised rabbit. First a hedgehog, then a puppy, now a rabbit. Honestly, this challenge would have been better for a Zoophilist. But the other girls had said he couldn’t be had. “And I don’t think you know either. We’ll have to find out,” she said, as she started to unbutton his shirt.
-00-
Where is this from? If it’s a work in progress, which one and when can I get it?
er. I just wrote it for a joke. The inverse of the usual sex scene. 🙂
I want it. Now.
Oh, no. Look what I wrote as a comment on a sex post. (Slinks off, hiding her face.)
OKay, when I stop giggling I must congratulate you for raising the tone while attempting to lower it. I have to work out how to breathe first, though!
Hmm, is this an example of feminism? A sexually aggressive female is just fine? Or maleism? A sexually aggressive female is amusing?
I’m so confused. I may just have to resign from the sexual revolution.
To matapam – the title. It’s a biter bitten story.
Silly me! I assumed this was an installment on Dave’s autobiography — When Dave Met Barbs
/running! I’m running!
Ya better. Barbs would know what RNA transferase interferons were. She’s brighter than moi. 🙂