That seems very fair. I appreciate that you've identified those who fear the sex scenes as fetishists in their own way. Cheers!

Thanks to the internets, I am realizing once again that I don't have a lot of use for people who read narrative fiction only if it has sex scenes in it they consider hot, because they can't bring themselves to admit that what they want is erotica.

I figured that out about 20 years ago, and then went on to worry about other things, like where I left my car keys, why the debates (let's be nice and not call them fights) in any group like the SCA or an area of fandom are always about pretty much the same things, and why I seem to be the only person in the house who understands how to change a cat box or wash dishes.

I can grant a small amount of sympathy towards women who consider themselves upstanding upholders of traditional values who gravitate towards the romance novels with inserted sex, because most of them would go splody if they did admit to themselves what they wanted was erotica, and the others are too busy to read narrative fiction and erotica, and are just multitaking their reading the way they multitask everything else in their lives.

Also, I just saw Eragon today, and the dragon was well-animated and the dialogue appears to have been bought by the mixed gross from Bob's Used Dialogue Store (Motto: Selling only the most thoroughly tested clichés since Hector was a pup). Also, the doughty rebels appear to have a hideout seated on top of the continent's textile mines, and are currently working an especially colorful seam, while the Bad Guys appear to have managed only to get the monopoly rights on ugly acrylic nails.

I got to hear Jeremy Irons' voice, and that always does something to my animal brain.

But the movie is a fine vein of snark in many ways.

I may have to avoid the SCA for a while until the young people finish mining the movie for their garb.

death-or-glory stands and doomed heroics and people faced with impossible decisions

I know you're not taking TV recommendations at present, but I have to say it: Rome.

No, I can handle the erotic romance crowd. Because some of them, as you say, want both, and others, bless their hearts, can't imagine actual erotica. I have run into quite a few readers lately, commenting on various works, who seemed to find the narrative &c. a complete encumbrance, whenever it was not totally in support of teh hawt, even though the writer clearly was not setting out to produce erotica. truepenny in one of the writers they find fault with, but by no means the only one. These people, from the tenor of their remarks, seemed to be upset because they weren't getting elegantly-crafted erotica--and needed to get over it and go buy elegantly-crafted erotica instead.

You're right about that--it's just that these are always noisy people. In one sense or another.

I would just have to add that, with erotica, one has to make certain that the um..activities one gives their character to explore is not 'out of character' for them.

"A sex scene is not different from any other character interaction. You present it in exactly as much detail as is useful and/or revelatory."

Word. If there's one thing you CAN'T control in this world, it's whether a certain portion of the population is going to fetishize or get squicked by any given thing.

I'll really have to mull over the fight/sex/conversation dynamic.

My latest realization was that the sex scenes I like best are written the same way most people write about experiencing food (whether the experience is positive or negative).

Since it more fun to talk about doing it wrong, you usually wouldn't write:

"She slid the fork into her mouth. Then removed it, leaving a morsel of food behind. She began to masticate, jaw working up and down, up and down."

Yes, that is it exactly!

Part of what I meant was that most decent writers are good at adding vivid descriptions of meals when it's important (fraught!) and at leaving them out when it's not.

It's also a lot less common for important-eating scenes to get bogged down in physical description when what the reader really wants is how the characters experience it.

Of course, there are reasons for a writer to get technical in either case. They might intricately describe how someone with a broken jaw (or a caterpillar) manages to eat -- they could do the same for someone who has particular sexual needs.

A sex scene is not different from any other character interaction.

My comment to you later post, where I say something in regard to "showing" sex, is intended to make this same point.

Hi! I like this post and thanks for your ideas about writing!