Now that I have your attention…
This month we’re going to launch into a trilogy of topics unsuitable for discussion at table but perfect for the internet: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, religion, and politics. Since it’s going to be Valentine’s Day, it seems the perfect week to talk sex, eh?
I’ve written some sex in my day, with three erotica books and a couple of short stories under my, er, belt. I even blended erotica with science fiction in one book. I’ve written enough sex that it feels weird now to skip over sex scenes in my fiction and I tend to check the eReader to see if I missed a page when a sex scene is shuffled by.(minor spoiler) Even when editing EXILE I realized with some suprise, having written the book before I launched into writing erotic
a, that the sex scene is closed door.
I can’t imagine anyone asking me why I skipped over detailing and choreographing sex between my characters. But I had more than one reader of my “space operotica” ask me when I was going to write “real” science fiction–meaning without sex, I suppose. I wondered at that. Could it really be considered real and honest if the sex is skipped over? It’s certainly not the whole story, and the love story is significant to the plot of that book. Sex in SF isn’t unheard of, just often glossed over. (I haven’t read it yet, but apparently Zachary Jernigan’s book has graphic sex in it. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll post an excerpt…)
My point being in all this, I don’t think there’s enough sex in fiction–at least when a love story is involved as a plot or subplot.
Including any scene that furthers the plot is essential, and it’s tough to imagine sex not furthering a plot a little. But I think there’s long been a double standard when it comes to detailing sex in fiction, especially in SF/F. A reader would no more expect a story to skip right over a battle scene or any other character-developing scene. So why skip the sex? Well, it’s intimate and makes the reader uncomfortable, right? And, you know. It’s, like, sex. Best to pretend it’s not happening. But I want intimacy and I expect some discomfort from my fiction. I want inside the characters’ heads and hearts. That’s why I read. Sex is a great way to show that—it’s visceral, physical, and personal. It’s a great way to show characters at their most vulnerable… especially when they’re with someone they love.
I guess at the end of the day a writer has to decide whether the sex is important enough to take up room in the story, just like any other scene. If it’s only important to know that the character had sex…if that’s enough, then sure. Close the door on the scene. I’m all for brevity. But if there’s an opportunity to learn something about the characters or further the plot during the act, then I want all the gory, glorious detail.
What do you think? Is there enough/too much/not enough sex in SF/F?
Candy Williams on February 11, 2013
I have to agree with you on this one. I think that sex *gasp* is an integral part of life, fantasy or not and there definitely isn’t enough intimacy that connects characters in fiction as it is.
Paul (@princejvstin) on February 11, 2013
Sex is like the first cousin to romance, and a lot of genre fiction ignores it, does it badly, or actively hates it.
There is a prudishness, I think, that a lot of genre fiction has, going all the way back to its roots. Even FTB scenes can be uncommon.
For me, sex scenes are welcome if they do something else. If I want erotica, I will read erotica. If there is a sex scene in a genre book, I want that scene to do something else.
Erica on February 11, 2013
Seems like there’s a lot of back and forth about this in various SFF writer’s forums I’ve participated in over the past couple of years. I like a good romance subplot in a novel (creates higher stakes for the protagonists and gives me more reason to root for them and want things to come out all right), and if a relationship of that sort is developing between two people, it seems odd that there wouldn’t be a certain amount of “tension” in that department, and a lot of randy thoughts, even if circumstances keep them apart for much of the story.
I’ll admit to taking a middle ground in my nip. I “showed” the sex scenes, but I avoided graphic description of what goes in where … used some innuendo and focused on describing the emotions and sensations themselves. None of my readers have complained thus far, and some have said they liked my approach. But gathering from the comments in one thread over on a writer’s forum (I think it was entitled “why so little sex in SF and fantasy) some readers find any kind of sex scene at all to be distracting, unnecessary and just plain boring. That’s kind of the way I feel about overly long and descriptive battle scenes where every explosion, sword thrust and parry, or laser beam attack is described in painstaking detail from a sort of zoomed out omniscient perspective. But eh, to each their own, I guess.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 11, 2013
Erica, it can be overdone, for sure. But there’s a way to write any highly choreographed scene without giving a direct blow-by-blow.
I’m right there with you, Paul, but I also expect my sex scenes in erotica to be more than just “sex.” Actually if I want just “sex” in my entertainment, porn will suffice. Some erotica is porn but not all of it, not by a long shot.
And, what Candy said about the intimacy.
Erica on February 11, 2013
I completely agree. I don’t categorically dislike battle scenes, or any other kind of scene in a book. But I suspect we all have our own tastes with regards to details. I generally find that if a battle scene is a bit on the long and too detailed side (by my tastes), I can skim it with little harm to the overall story reading experience
Betsy Dornbusch on February 11, 2013
I love writing battles and sex. I love blocking and choreographing scenes for the challenge. I often have to back off the details. But then there’s the moment a blade slips between ribs or a woman undoes her bodice that just grabs me. I tend to block them out in great detail and go back and find those moments my character reacts to. I don’t do a ton of internal narrative generally (though the EXILE books are a bit of an exception) and so if Draken reacts, I know it’s important. That’s the organic part of the process for me. It helps too that I have really good people to read my fight scenes. Sex…well, I’m on my own but lets just say I have some personal experience to draw on.
Walter Greatshell on February 12, 2013
Definitely not enough interesting sex. Not to be confused with porn–porn to me is monotonous. Sex is like garlic: you don’t want to use too much, but you can’t be a wimp about it either. I don’t understand the equation of sex=porn, and it offends me deeply that genre novels are assumed by some to be the last bastion of safe, G-rated family entertainment. Fuck that.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 12, 2013
Yes. Fuck that, Walter.
Mazarkis Williams on February 12, 2013
Never too much garlic!
Um, yeah sex. I agree that sex is an important part of life and stupid to leave out. I didn’t know anybody thought genre was supposed to be rated G, but that explains the Terry Goodkind novels in the children’s section at the library.
Simone Cooper on February 13, 2013
Personally, I love a good sex scene
But that’s the problem: many sex scenes in genre fiction are badly done, even laughable, and they don’t live up to the author’s goal in writing them. Maybe this is the author’s prudishness or just a lack of experience, but I’d rather have a closed door than a sex scene that makes me cringe. [Check out the Bad Sex in Fiction awards published by _The Guardian_ every year--though those focus mainly on "literary" fiction.]
In one of his writing talks, Donald Maass said something to the effect that sex scenes (and some battle scenes) are so often boring because there is usually no conflict. All the main players involved have the same … conclusion in mind, and they’re all getting what they want. This is the opposite of developing tension and urgency. Instead, it drains them.
I think this is like what Paul said. To me, the sex scene, like the fight scene and every scene, needs to accomplish something in terms of telling the story, developing the character, and revealing conflict in order to be completely engaging. Otherwise, it may be an interlude I’ll enjoy, but I can certainly understand a reader finding it boring in terms of advancing the story.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 13, 2013
I agree totally. I always expect if a character is succeeding in the middle of the book at something (getting the guy or girl s/he loves, winning a battle) that it’ll come crashing down around them soon.
Sometimes though I think a scene can be rife with action and tension, just by virtue of being an action scene. I’ve had characters backed up against a wall, facing death, (or, gulp, facing LOVE) and someone comes to rescue them. The tension keeps going until that moment. BUT it’ll come to screeching halt unless there’s something else there–an internal “oh shit” for the character at least–that makes being rescued (or having sex) a setback.
The simplest thing sex can do is make a character admit his or her feelings and fears for the other character and thereby up the stakes. It had better do at least that…
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