Meta Month 10: On Sex Scenes in Fic
Dec. 11th, 2011 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wallwalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
personalapocalypseInspired by a post that a friend made about this topic (not linking it here without asking permission to avoid possible embarrassment.) Some of this came from a comment I left there.
The question that the post asked was what kind of language is preferable in sex scenes - is it always better to be a minimalist, or is the flowery prose and long description a good thing?
After a couple days of thought, this was my answer.
So yeah, is it really a surprise that I value characterization over anything else even in sex scenes? ;p
But seriously, if anything, I think it keeps the act from becoming too mechanical or repetitive, because it forces you to think about the focus. It's not just a play-by-play; people are going to remember or focus on different aspects of what's happening to them, like they do in every other situation, and describing what a person is thinking about, what sticks in their mind the most, about a sexual experience can tell you a lot about them outside of what they enjoy in bed.
That's what I try to do in the few times I actually write them, but I don't know if I actually succeed. It's difficult to do well, since it's hard to think like someone else. What's the name of the phenomenon where an author often ends up revealing personal likes and dislikes in sex scenes rather than talking about what the characters would actually enjoy? Does it even have a name? Either way, it's an easy way out, and an easy trap to fall into.
I apologize for not having replied to every comment, by the way. D: I am keeping track, and I'll get back to them. This is a busy season for me, though, so I don't always have time to make really thoughtful replies, and I feel like a lot of these comments deserve them.
The question that the post asked was what kind of language is preferable in sex scenes - is it always better to be a minimalist, or is the flowery prose and long description a good thing?
After a couple days of thought, this was my answer.
....there are some things that turn me off immediately - usually overly-fanciful and ludicrous metaphors - and I do think that a little bit of fanciful, overly-detailed prose goes a long way in setting a scene, so going overboard isn't always necessary to get that effect, if that makes any sense. But in general, for me it depends just as much on who's IN the porn. If a writer can write a porn scene from the point of view of a character and make it obvious that it's from Character X's PoV, they win lots and lots of points. And that means, sometimes, indulging in purple prose, because some characters are going to think of sex that way. Others are going to be vague, or matter-of-fact, or even clinical, but the point is that everyone is going to think about it differently, and writing it the same way no matter who is involved just comes across as lazy.
(Besides, if rants about this topic have taught me anything, it's that somebody's going to complain no matter what you do, so you might as well suit yourself. ;p)
So yeah, is it really a surprise that I value characterization over anything else even in sex scenes? ;p
But seriously, if anything, I think it keeps the act from becoming too mechanical or repetitive, because it forces you to think about the focus. It's not just a play-by-play; people are going to remember or focus on different aspects of what's happening to them, like they do in every other situation, and describing what a person is thinking about, what sticks in their mind the most, about a sexual experience can tell you a lot about them outside of what they enjoy in bed.
That's what I try to do in the few times I actually write them, but I don't know if I actually succeed. It's difficult to do well, since it's hard to think like someone else. What's the name of the phenomenon where an author often ends up revealing personal likes and dislikes in sex scenes rather than talking about what the characters would actually enjoy? Does it even have a name? Either way, it's an easy way out, and an easy trap to fall into.
I apologize for not having replied to every comment, by the way. D: I am keeping track, and I'll get back to them. This is a busy season for me, though, so I don't always have time to make really thoughtful replies, and I feel like a lot of these comments deserve them.
