Are sex scenes always cringe and bad? Most people say that they should be there to talk about character or advance the plot, but why is that necessary? If fiction is able to go to great lengths to show something as mundane as a character's daily routine, even if it's goal is to show something important about that character, then why can't I go into detail about a sexually repressed character fingering herself? Why is sex such (still) a taboo in English media? Why am I the creep for wanting to show the beauty of such a scene?
The most beautiful display of the feminine sexual experience is masturbation, because there's no violent men that are corrupting such a beautiful ideal. Why can't I have scenes in normal fiction that talk about this experience without it being dismissed as being porn? Porn is sex for it's own sake. Clearly this isn't. This is one instance of an event or a habitual event, that the character partakes in. Why is it such a taboo? It's just a part of life. Also, why would it be wrong not to go into detail about the experience as to show the character who, perhaps, may be vulnerable and finds the act empowering? There's a million ways you could take this.
irrelevant time-wasting question
including the nasty will firmly stick your book in the smut or fanfiction section (usually both) and people won't view it as "real literature"
whether you wish to embrace or deny that, i make no judgement on you, just saying that's what happens
Right because every "real literature" book is void of sexuality or sex in general
it can be pulled off but you would have to be rich (as to market it outside the categories you mentioned) and also a talented writer that has received a well-rounded education (=not a virgin... yet today if you put your dick in a smartphone ho you're no better off than being a virgin... that's why libertarians seek the old fruit at the young tree... and wight wingers aspire to become gardeners in their own garden... if you get my meaning)
no, they're brainlets, you can, cultural momentum, you know why, you can, already answered, it wouldn't
I think sex scenes need to do a few things for them to be meaningful and not just porn. 1. The character needs to come to some type of realization, or conclusion, or achieve closure. 2. Irl even casual sex with a friend often time leads to the couple being able to open up and be vulnerable with their sexual partner. Which means it's an avenue to get new information about the plot, another character, or even the main character themselves, so this needs to also be in your story to make it seem worthwhile or real. 3.Sex like anything in a story is a great device to create conflict or tension or suspense. It's a fine line to walk between hot and creepy but ofc if you are intentionally going for creepy too then that's perfectly fine. 4. It can serve as a character motivator, even if someone isn't your gf or bf, if you've been fricking, you'd still try your best to find them if they mysteriously disappeared or some shit. It's a person that provides you with a form of intimacy you can't get from your best friend or a family member so you'd maybe be willing to respond to their call for help and do something for them that you probably wouldn't typically do.
There's no way to not piss people off and make them feel uncomfortable about anything sexual. No. Way. so don't even bother trying, there will always be complaints.
It’s bad in shows, typically good in books. Sometimes cheapens the story though
You know what they say, it's not literature if it doesn't follow American puritanical values
>why can't I go into detail about a sexually repressed character fingering herself?
Whatever you're trying to convey can be accomplished by implying the act and exposing the characters feelings before and after. The details make it porn.
Incorrect unless you're a prudish American. Porn is sex for it's own sake.
what makes it porn is the readership (case in point: all those muslims and africans who can't abstain from raping in France / Germany / Sweden / UK / Netherlands / Italy / Spain / etc.)
there is nothing wrong with gestures / details / whatever, one could probably describe the most non-sexual thing in the most non-sexual terms and make people (the right people, the people you would love to have as neighbors... or at least in the neighboring town lol) horny
the opposite is also true: maybe the sexually repressed character is a filthy 300 pound stereotypical gypsy, no matter the skin color... she could do whatever she wants to her vegana, the only thing "rising out" of a healthy person would be vomit
really makes you think how they keep shitting out children without interruption, doesn't it?
tl;dr there is no taboo, only low effort literature... as long as you are not being energized by freudian issues or the seven sins, you need not worry about such things
forgot the picture, 'scuse me
You don't think that the manner in which people have sex can tell us of who they are as a person/character? That this doesn't contribute to our understanding of them as a person?
Anyone worth caring about would be able to differentiate a cheap sex scene from a meaningful one. Is your scene narrated in a stupid way? Is the narrator saying “c**t” “pussy” “hole” etc…? Is it written in a way that’s supposed to make the reader goon? Sex scenes can actually be EXTREMELY effective in revealing things. The language and/or how the characters treat each other can show their dynamic, how a character feels about themselves/their body, how trauma/religion has affected someone, how a character reacts in a vulnerable situation, or even as a metaphor or to enhance a theme (like something being all encompassing, connection, feigning meaning, shame,etc.) Gotta love a good sex scene! All in all, I don’t have too much hope that your writing is going to have much substance. I assume you just don’t want to admit you wrote some shitty scene because you were half-hard and you want to convince yourself that it’s actually artsy and necessary.
That last bit it just you being pointlessly aggressive for no reason, which is strange, given you've given a good response up to that point that I wanted to reply to, showing an example of what I am referring to within my own writing, but you've completely escalated the situation to being that of baseless hostility that I'm not going to out of spite.
Congrats
Does IQfy no longer read Roth or Updike?
Lots of relevent sexual detail. For example, the face-fricking scene in The Dying Animal, which not only moves the plot forward but also gives us insight into Kepesh and Conseula. The cowards didn't put in the movie
Honestly that scene is absolutely not what I'm trying to do, so it's at least comforting to know that if that's considered good literature then whatever I do is tame as frick comparably, like this scene where the girlfriend of the MC casually jerk offs in front of the MC as a way to control her, to have the MC submit to her being this sexually ideal figure, like a god. The girlfriend sort of tells her to do certain things and bosses her around while she does that and the MC is conditioned to associate her orgasms with being subservient to her, while the other gets off regardless of the MC's intension. Sort of like Pavlov's dog.
Why even care anon? Surely it's only moronic little swiftie twitter users who would be outraged by this, or the histrionic toads on r/books that might mock you for it? But what self-respecting man would want to write for them?
I read a lot of gay fiction, and there are never any complaints that gay writers give you details so you know who is the top and who is the bottom, because that's obviously pertinent to the character dynamics.
But people get very squeamish if you talk about hetero relationships in the same way - as though we were to suppose that men and women aren't like that, and there are no power dynamics in straight relationships, that most straight aren't tops and most straight women bottoms
>comparing a small group of people who base their whole personality on their sexual preference... with normal human beings
lol! if anything ~ you present a case AGAINST "going into details"
The only good one that comes to my mind is from The Name of the Rose
imagine reading that in the library before smartphones were a thing
This thread bringing out the virgins lol.
Long suspected that much of the wrong generation stuff on this board is because of how comfortingly sexless victorian fiction is
I wonder why Proust get suddenly so sexual in Sodomah and Gomorrah. In previous parts he only uses sex to tell stories about miserable cucks who feel in love with literal prostitutes, while later he dives more into sex as pleasure instead just narrative device
Do what you want, but don't expect me to read your porn just because you made an argument in favor of it, dumbass.
The guts casca sex scene in berserk is the only acceptable sex scene I've found in literature
>*fiction