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Sex!!!

L

Lara Croft

Treasure Hunter
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*grins* Or...sorta.

When you get into romance, there's always the question lingering in the air: How much is too much? Whether it be music, art, or literature, people encounter nudity and sex in all mediums.

So, when does this appeal to human instinct attract or detract to the finished product? Could it be done without, or is it integral to showing purpose and meaning?

Debate and enjoy. ^_~
 
Horribly, terrible and disgustingly done romance novels of the twenty-cent type are over-done and bad; but other than that, and their use of epithets <shudder>.

Sex can sometimes be over done... but not usually. Unless it's not PWP, of course!

<returns to the fence>
 
Personally, I don't read sexually explicit novels. I have always been of the opinion that I would rather be doing it than reading about others doing it. :p

For this reason, I tend to avoid lemon/lime/citrus fanfics. My absolute favorite author's note came from a person who wrote an Ash-Misty sex scene and then put in parentheses: "I know about sex, 'cause I had sex ed in the 5th grade!" I laughed long and hard at that comment. Most fanfic sex scenes appear to have been written by people who've read one too many letters to Penthouse, IMO.

I find that some romance novels tend to go overboard in this department. I think it detracts from the plot, although to be fair, sex is the plot of most of Harold Robbins's books. Sex scenes can be done tastefully (read one of Nicholas Sparks's books).
 
The problem is it can either be done tastefully, or bitterly. If anyone has ever heard of the nifty (and no, I shan't provide a link or anything, because if you HAVEN'T heard of it, there is absolutely no reason for you to hear of it now. ^^) archive, and has looked at a few of the stories they have there, I'm quite sure you'd understand.

For example; you get the wonderfully done, nice, happy, stories, with sex in them but that's the point, and then you get the horrible stories with disgusting spelling, or stories with correct spelling and grammar, but really cheesy plots, disgusting uses of epithets and things that no author should touch with a ten foot pole.

Sex can sometimes be necissary to help carry the story along even. ^^ It could be a reason or a plot point or something of the sort, if you know what I mean...

but yeah.
 
I agree with Pluvius. In some cases, two characters have a sexual relationship that is a component of their overall relationship in the book. Or, in some cases, one character seduces another character (think Ian Fleming's James Bond).

What I object to is two characters having sex and the author not giving me any reason at all for this to happen. No background, no details, nothing. Just sex. I have dismissed so many fanfics on this ground alone.
 
In my opinion, it's really quite simple. In stories, sex is much like anything else. It's good to the extent that it advances and supports the plot and character development, and bad to the extent that it distracts from, slows down, or otherwise interferes with the story.
 
Well, personally I do not enjoy sex in stories, even if it does further the plot. Since I am 15 and prefer characters from 12-15, that would just be kinda wrong. And if the characters were adults, I still wouldn't like it that much... Sex just aint my thang, lol.
 
I think I'll have to agree with Murgatroyd on this one - sex for the sake of sex (as often seems to be the case with NC-17 fics) is not something I'm into. If sex scenes are done tastefully and actually serve a purpose in the fic, I don't mind too much, but if the author seems to be setting out to be as crude as possible - no way, Jose! In fact, I think one of the things that got NC-17 fics removed from fanfiction.net was people using that rating as an excuse to post the most perverted "fics" possible - I won't go into details about that. But I will say that I parodied PWP before the ban was imposed . . .

As for writing sex scenes, I don't tend to go the whole hog and describe the whole thing in detail. In fact, of the stories I currently have at fanfiction.net, not one contains an actual sex scene, although there are references to sex in a couple of my PG13 entries and in the one R rated fic I've got on that site. One of my stories on fictionpress.net has a couple of sex scenes, neither of which go into detail largely because I was trying to keep within the R rating.
 
It's something I'd rather not read. It's something I can't rightfully discuss anyway, as I am still a virgin. (Shocking at my age, evidently) I would work with characters my age, but it didn't work out so well, but it is a concept that has been left untouched by any author that I know of. (I am 20, and will turn 21 soon)
 
In my opinion, as long as it ruthers character/plot development and its tasteful, then it's fine. If it's thrown in there for the sake of fan service and it's filled with slang and isn't tasteful at all, I wouldn't read it. Well, unless it's *so* poorly done that it's laughable. XD
 
If you want poorly written lemonage, try "Who's Yo Master" by Ilex. It's comic gold. She's brilliant.

Delia: He never shouted things in Italian with me!
 
I'd say, enough to keep it going for the audience (anysort) but nothing over that.
 
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