In a recent-ish Wednesday Links post, I featured an article from author Yulin Kuang about the art of writing a good sex scenes. This is such a subjective element in reading and commenter Emily C. thought the idea of what really makes a good sex scene is a great topic for discussion post.
Here are some of our thoughts:
What makes a good sex scene?
Sarah: I have a confession: I often skim or skip sex scenes. It’s rare that one is interesting or engaging, in part because I’ve read so many romances that the language and mechanics become repetitive and the progression to the orgasms is often boring. So that diminishes my ability to say with any authority what is or isn’t good. Grain of salt for the following.
When I was researching Beyond Heaving Bosoms, Lisa Kleypas said in an interview (I’m paraphrasing here) that an effective sex scene causes as many problems as it solves. I think that is the baseline of a good sex scene for me. Think of how many shows jump the shark because ‘they did it,’ and thereby eliminate all the tension between the characters. A good sex scene will likely alleviate some of the sexual tension that’s been built up, but will also introduce or be a catalyst to more tension.As I’m writing this I realize that much of my desire in my reading is for emotional interiority and internal conflict as the driving motivation and conflict in the story – I’m not much for external conflict and danger boning, I’m afraid. I’m not as into “The world will END if we do (or don’t) go to bonetown” plots, and much prefer “MY world will end if we go to bonetown (or don’t).” So a good sex scene for me addresses the primary sexual tension between the characters, but also adds additional tension so that the remaining story isn’t flaccid and uninteresting because the tension is all gone.
Mary Robinette Kowal gives a workshop about nesting conflicts like HTML code. When you’re writing HTML, any codes that are opened have to be closed in reverse order so that they nest correctly, and the same is true for conflicts. The conflicts/problems that are introduced have to be alleviated in the reverse order or the resulting conclusion can feel uneven. So the timing of addressing pants feelings is very important!
I’ll think on this more, but a good sex scene for me is, to cite Kleypas, one that doesn’t alleviate all the tension, and often causes more problems for the characters. I don’t much care about the language unless it’s funny (TURGID MEMBER. WANTON CAVERN.) because I’ve read so many: they blend together into a mass of writhing parts.
Elyse: I need the sex scene to fit the book. I don’t read based on how explicit the book is/isn’t but I’m really taken out of a story when the sex scene doesn’t match the rest of the narrative. I’ve noticed, maybe due to the influence of BookTok, that a lot of books have sex scenes that feel like they’re more explicit than what the narrative calls for and it comes across as awkward or forced.
Lara: I need a huge amount of emotional connection in order to enjoy a sex scene in a book. Like Sarah, I often skim or skip them, especially if they get repetitive within the book. If they’re too formulaic, that’s also a no no for me. I’m with Elyse that I need the sex scene to feel like it belongs to the rest of the book. Their sex actions must be in line with their other actions in the book.
Sarah: Oh, that’s a good point – sometimes the sex scenes include dialogue or choices that really don’t fit the characters. I remember reading a letter from a listener on the podcast who said they’d realized they were demisexual in part because of their reaction to sex scenes in books where the characters didn’t have an emotional connection beforehand.
I wonder if our perspectives are similar because we’re all readers from a specific time in romance, and if readers who are younger than us, or readers who have discovered the genre where it is right now, are looking for a different sexual component to their romances?
When I think about historical romances from the 90s and early 00s, and the sex scenes therein, woo, boy, were they different in emphasis and in, uh, performance.
Sneezy: I appear! A younger(ish) reader! In a puff of smoke!
So growing up, my reading experience was shaped as much by the internet as published books, plus manga! I tell you, the underground ring of horny manga trafficking – half of our parents thought manga and anime would rot our brains and ruin our future as doctors and lawyers, and the library would RIP OUT pages if there was so much as half a panel with a girl making out in her bra. But with fanfiction, web novels, and web comics, with no publishing industry or censorship legislation to keep us in check, we ran wild, and we were HORNY. They were safe spaces to explore our sexuality and comfort anxieties we didn’t have the words for yet.
I’m one of those people who like to indulge in the fantasy of being intensely desired on occasion. Apparently this is a common fantasy for women, though now I also wonder how much this varies from generation to generation. Combined with the unhinged glory of fanfiction.net and a shit ton more sites, it made me a reader okay with gratuitous sex scenes all throughout a story if that’s what I’m expecting. Sometimes I just want a big, dumb story where they’re pretty much just fucking the whole time, because they’re just that into each other, and Orgasm Orca is splashing about 24/7. Or maybe I’m in the mood for a super low stakes story where the characters are just happy and chill and having great sex all the time. It just depends on my mood.
It’s not that emotional resolution isn’t important, or that all levels of dumb are fine. Even when I’m looking for porn-without-plot, I’m not looking for an isolated sex scene, I’m looking for an entire fantasy. I think this might be why erotica is so trope heavy. Tropes not only let the story speedrun world and character building, but also let the reader know what headspace the story is in. Same with why PWPs work so well in fanfiction. No one wants to spend much brain on learning about the cell structures of aliens with retractable tentacles just then, we just want to know what they do with the tentacles!!! But if you just tell me there’s an alien boning a human, that’s not enough either!!! I need to know if the alien did an amazing mating display, if their mating call is vibrating all the way through their tentacles because they just THAT horny for their lover, who whisked who off to an entirely foreign planet so their lover could never ever leave – that’s all part of the fun! And at the end of it all, whether they’re in a cuddle or a puddle, I need to get a sense of how their lives continue. Partly to round out the fantasy, and partly for a sort of cerebral aftercare. Eroticas and PWP stories might have simpler emotional conflicts, but without that throughline being drawn through the story and given space to breathe and resolve at the very end, the sex scene is dull and meaningless.
What the tropes are also lets me know what the ‘rules’ are for the fantasy space the story is in. ‘Rules’ is a crude word, but basically, the story can’t do anything to break the fantasy. This is where tags are so important. Different tropes and sub-genres have their own sets of conventions, and if the story steps too far out or goes against the core intention of the fantasy, it’s not just unsexy, it’s a broken trust and I wouldn’t read anything by that author, mangaka, or comic artist again. If I’m going into an alien erotica, I’m there for the otherworldly, the strange, the anatomically impossible sex for humans to have. But if the story goes into body horror, that’s a completely separate thing, one I find particularly upsetting, and needs its own tag. If I know the story is a dub-con dark romance with a yandere (or more), the fantasy is being told you’re a good girl being given all the orgasms and foot rubs and great food by an overtly enthusiastic partner with none of the energy or anxieties that comes with making decisions or asking for them. But if the story with the same tags has the main character cooking and cleaning, on pins and needles to please the love interest, then dumped on the side of the road in the pouring rain, the love interest is not a yandere, probably not even a love interest, this is not what I’m here for, be banished to the eighth ring of hell. That’s the ring where all the books yeeted in fury and disgust go to burn.
Jokes aside, it’s a broken trust because I’m in a vulnerable headspace where I’m opening myself to taboos and desires I don’t feel safe engaging in anywhere else. Being caught unawares in that headspace is extremely upsetting. The difficulty is of course that line not always being clearly defined as it’s subjective in some areas. I’m very fine with tentacles sprouting more tentacles, but that could be a bridge too far for some.
It also matters if it’s a het or queer romance. In queer romances, I usually want super fluffy, no one’s in danger, nothing bad ever happens, and conflicts are either the realities of how two people fit together or how the couple has to convince their sentient mushroom neighbour to stop covering their house with spores. On the occasion I’m reading a more intense story, the sex scenes still have to be loving and free of cis-het coding. With het romances, that’s where I have bandwidth for dark romances.
I’ve heard people say sex and sexual desires are inherently transgressive, hence the ways anxieties get expressed and explored through taboos and sex in stories, and I agree. I think for people who experience sexual desire, different anxieties get linked with sex in their minds. The expressions of those fears and desires could also be different even if the underlying link is the same. I think that’s why one group of people who enjoy vampire romance and erotica might be aghast at people who enjoy billionaire romances and erotica or vice versa.
From the examples I gave, you can probably tell I’m also looking for sensory stimulation in sex scenes. Not necessarily to fill up my wank tank, though there’s nothing wrong with that. The stimulation I mean are more along the lines of the cozy feeling of seeing how caring the characters are for each other, the psychedelic acid trip of impossibilities in monster sex, the activation from triggers that would send me into fight or flight in real life transmuted to amplify pleasure instead. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but basically if a story is a meal, sex scenes are the dishes I want to be spicy or crunchy or tender or refreshing or with Q all dialed up 100 and higher. Because no other dish can handle those elements with such intensity in quite the same way.
Sarah: That’s really interesting, especially since we approach reading and sex within our reading so differently. If I’m seeing sexual stimulation external to myself but within my own imagination, I don’t look at romance – which is HILARIOUS now that I’ve typed that out, but given that I’ve made reading romance into my job, it also makes sense to me. Because my analytical brain is often fully engaged when I read romance, it’s harder to connect to the emotional/physical reactions that are being encouraged by the book. Oh, how funny. I’m so amused at myself right now.
Shana: A good sex scene has some fluidity in its power dynamics, for me. It’s always annoying when well-rounded characters become one-dimensional gender caricatures in bed. Nothing pulls me out of the book and into analytical romance reader mode like a heroine who lacks all agency or opinions during sex. And intentionally letting someone else run the show counts as agency. I like to see even the most arrogant and demanding alpha heroes have moments of vulnerability, receptivity, or uncertainty during erotic play.
I tend to skim or skip sex scenes if they happen too early in the book, but once you’ve hooked me into being invested in the couples’ happiness, I’m happy to read them having sex again and again and again. I love a sex scene for no narrative reason other than joy.
Tara: I very much agree with Elyse that I need the sex scenes to fit with the rest of the book. I’ve read some romances where the vibe and tone fit with a closed-door romance and I was surprised when that was very much NOT the case, including terminology that would only ever show up in an erotic romance. I’ve also been surprised by the opposite, where everything fades to black, but everything up to that point made me confident that at least one great sex scene would be delivered.
It’s also important to me that sex scenes do something. This is probably similar to what Sarah was talking about above, with scenes creating new problems, but a scene needs to advance the relationship, plot, or both. If a sex scene is just there and doesn’t have any point, I get bored and resent that I bothered to read it.
How about you? What makes a good sex scene? Do you even care about these scenes in the first place? Let us know in the comments!
This is so interesting. Today a lot of romance books are rated by readers in terms of spiciness. Personally i skip the sex parts most of the time. Probably because i read a lot of romance and i enjoy the romance and the rest of the plot more. But sex scene must fit in the book, there must be tension building to make it believable. But sometimes i read PWP for the sake of it and then all bets are of.
Oh, boy I have so many thoughts. I had to walk away, eat breakfast and then come back and compose a novel 😉
I will say if sex scenes disappoint me or are not in line with the rest of the book, I will just put it down as a DNF, but I guess that’s the luxury of reading not being my job. It also may be why I struggle more with romance reading these days.
Shana, that’s interesting what you say about gender dynamics. I don’t always need power dynamics to be fluid but I will say I enjoy it when they are. I think it’s something that fanfic handles better than mainstream romance. Especially compared to mainstream het romance where I feel like the hero has to be the most macho man that ever mach-oed sometimes. I do find that pretty boring. I don’t mind if one partner is experienced and other not, but I don’t want to read a “let me show you the way your body works” type scene. Let the inexperienced person have some confidence and agency, please.
I definitely think of what era of romance reader and really just romance consumer can affect what you look for in a sex scene. I grew up in the 90s with the height of the discussion around AIDS and I just can’t deal with contemporary settings where people are cavalier about condom use. I know people in real life who have STDs (not AIDS thankfully), I know people who have faced unwanted pregnancies. Nothing will suck me out of a story faster than “wait, why didn’t they use a condom?” or at least have substantive conversation about it. It’s interesting because lack of condom use something I see when i go back and read older contemporaries (especially Harlequins written in the 80s/90s when it was almost mandatory the heroine be pregnant by the last page) but I’m seeing it crop up again in contemporaries (and fanfic) written by younger writers. I guess the argument is that it’s unromantic, but to me *not* talking about it makes you appear either uncaring towards your partner or not very bright. (shrug). To be clear, I’m glad we live in an era where AIDS is not an immediate death sentence. I understand some people have “it’s a sexual fantasy, not a sex ed manual” as their frame of reference, it just doesn’t work for me.
I also like lots of emotional connection in a sex scene. These people are seeing each other, being vulnerable together and connecting on a deep level. I agree the specificity to the characters is good. In fanfic, I could read about Mulder and Scully or Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington or some of my other favorites having sexy times in a million different ways and still enjoy it as long as I feel like the emotions are there and they feel like themselves. I will say I can do PWP easier with fanfic than original characters b/c I already have the emotional connection to those characters and believe in their emotional connection to each other. I wouldn’t consider myself demisexual (I can experience casual attraction and even read straight up erotica on occasion when I’m in the mood) but I lean more that way than not.
Talking is good too. I remember reading a romance writer who dinged other writers for “talking during a sex scene isn’t realistic.” And I thought, “maybe it’s not, but I like it!” I love banter and even laughing. It doesn’t have to be dirty and as a matter of fact, I’m someone who often finds (forgive me!) dirty talk cringey or unintentionally hilarious. It can be done well, but less is more for me, Also with sexual words in general. It’s tricky. I definitely don’t want to go back to “his manhood” and “her love grotto” days, but like I said in a recent Whatcha Reading the one book I read recently had a 19th century duke who used the word “tits” to the exclusion of any other word. I wanted the heroine to buy him a thesaurus so he could expand his vocabulary. I also read a contemporary where the writer alternated between “vagina”and “pussy” which gave me emotional whiplash.
And you know, maybe this is obvious, but foreplay is good! Verbal or physical. I can take a hot “we’re just so into each other, let’s rip our clothes off and go at’ scene but I still feel like that is better with a basis of buildup (maybe in previous scenes) and not just a sudden flip of switch. I’ve read a couple romances lately where I literally flipped back a few pages b/c I was convinced I had missed something and that the attraction sprang out of nowhere.
What makes a good sex scene? KJ Charles. My answer to everything, lol.
Of course I read and enjoyed romance for decades before she ever published, but she typifies what I like.
I think it’s mainly because the characters become more intensely themselves rather than a collection of interchangeable interlocking body parts. It’s something to do with how personal the scenes are to the characters, something about how their desires match up.
It’s intensely reassuring when people I don’t personally find attractive, who want things I have no interest in, nevertheless find someone who loves and wants them because of all those traits that left to my own devices I’d interpret as flaws. It’s a way of remaking the entire world so it’s a better place. And it’s not some creepy perfect utopian better, but simply what it looks like to chose love and acceptance.
Partly because of the dialogue, which is always excellent – although I do have a fondness also for old school purple prose with hilariously bad dialogue, so idk, maybe that’s not actually essential. I guess communication is what I personally find hot? Which, if we go with the theory that sexual desires are inherently transgressive, would mean that …honest verbal expression is transgressive to me? Huh. Damn. I like it when the characters greatly enjoy themselves, which now sounds kinda … sad.
Definitely what makes a good sex scene has something to do with how the tension and the plot are not just maintained but tightened throughout. That’s something I hadn’t really considered pre-Heaving Bosoms, but I have definitely noticed since. If the sex scenes are separate from the plot, I have to decide whether I am more interested in the plot or the sex, and I will skim one in favor of the other. Which I chose depends on the writing, and my mood. I think I am probably more likely to read only the sex scenes, because if the writer can’t integrate intimacy in the narrative, I am unlikely to care enough about what happens to slog through it. The sex is sort of a précis.
@kkw,
“It’s intensely reassuring when people I don’t personally find attractive, who want things I have no interest in, nevertheless find someone who loves and wants them because of all those traits that left to my own devices I’d interpret as flaws. It’s a way of remaking the entire world so it’s a better place. And it’s not some creepy perfect utopian better, but simply what it looks like to chose love and acceptance.”
Yes! Yes! Exactly! As long as you can make me believe these two (or more!) people see and appreciate something special in each other, I will walk away feeling good. And like you said, the sex has to show that.
It doesn’t matter who has washboard abs or or doesn’t or if they can do something really cool or fancy with their tongue. That ability to love certain qualities in our beloveds that would go totally unnoticed or even be found a demerit in others is the thing that makes love feel both everyday and magical (for lack of a less corny word).
Matriarchal Bitch here: I think it boils down to our own personal preferences and histories, but to me a good sex scene is one that develops organically from the MCs’ evolving relationship, doesn’t occur too early in the story, includes clear consent and observation/understanding of boundaries, and—while presented with a certain level of explicitness—does not devolve into a clinically-detailed anatomy lesson. I spent my late-teens and early-twenties consuming mass quantities of bodice rippers, which in the main were not very good (I used to say, “untouched virgin on page 149, having multiple orgasms on page 150, yeah right”), but I think a huge part of the enjoyment of those books was the sheer exhilaration of having books written by, for, and about women that were sexually explicit but were not written from the “male gaze” perspective. There had been plenty of sexually-explicit material prior to 1976, but most of it was written by men and, for the most part, objectified women and minimized women’s agency or even women’s desire to have agency (for instance, do not read any of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels without anti-nausea medication). Even today, almost 50 years after I first read SWEET SAVAGE LOVE, there’s still a little chirp of happiness in my heart at how open (on so many levels) and forthright sex scenes in romance novels can be. That being said, there can be too much of a good thing and, as others have commented, I sometimes skim or skip the sex scenes in books, particular if they’re too frequent and/or seem to contribute little to the characters’ development. I’m much more interested in the MCs’ emotional journeys than in an IKEA-level description of “flap A being inserted into slot B”. And I find that when I’m completely invested in characters finding their HEAs, limited or closed door sex scenes don’t trouble me (for example, it wasn’t until I finished Alexis Hall’s excellent TEN THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED that I realized it was basically closed door, I’d been so busy rooting for the MCs to find love with each other, I hadn’t even noticed that the sexual side of their relationship was all off-page). Part of being untroubled by closed door romance is undoubtedly because I’m confident that the next romance I grab will probably not be closed door—so I’m spoiled for choice.
TL;DR: never take for granted that we actually have the option of skipping sex scenes…because we live in a time where books have them.
Passion, intensity and intimacy are the keys for me.
What I look for in a good sex scene has changed a lot over my decades reading romance. When I started reading romance as teen in the 80s, I read them secretly and exclusively for the sex and all I cared about is that THEY HAD SEX, I wasn’t worried about details.
Fast forward to now, I’m 54 and post-menopausal and I skim most sex scenes. In theory, I think that a good sex scene is one that fits the characters and book and moves the plot but in practice I find so many of them to be too long or tedious or embarrassing and I just skip them.
Before menopause, I enjoyed sex scenes that demonstrated the couple (or more) figuring out how to communicate and how to work together. That was part of the appeal of good kinky / BDSM romances – the negotiating. I also liked a good bad sex scene if it resulted in great sex later on. Someone recently mentioned that a lot of Amanda Quick’s historicals from the 90s and 00s featured a bad first sex scene and I loved those.
Currently I almost exclusively read queer / LGBTQ+ romances (but not much in the mm romance genre). One nice thing about queer romance is that the definitions of sex tend to be broader and more interesting than in straight romances (including in m/f queer romance).
@DiscoDollyDeb – your comment about your joy at discovering bodice rippers reminds me of how I felt when I discovered the Black Lace imprint in the 90s – erotica written by and for women. A lot of it was ridiculous and OTT and probably doesn’t hold up today, but it was so joyful and it was so amazing to read about women taking sex and sexual pleasure seriously.
I think there’s too much emphasis on sex scenes. There have definitely been some books I’ve read that felt like they were written solely for the “spiciness”. I don’t really care if they bang on a table, I just want them to grow as individuals and together.
There are also so so many times I’ve read a ridiculous euphemism for vagina so it’s become a running joke with my husband and I. We live near a canal and there has been more than one “her sensual canal” so now it’s what we call it every time we drive across it… Like “hey hon, just crossing the sensual canal you want me to pick you up a smoothie on my way home?”
I’ve found that the sex scenes I love and enjoy are the ones where the emotional connection has been slowly building up. When that arc then bursts into sex, oh my hotness–I love reading it.
Then there’s the more erotica-leaning stories which I get into knowing it will have S E X–and there, I tend to generally read the scenes and some are really really good, and some are skip-worthy.
The sex scenes which I ALWAYS skip are the ones where it is just another romance with no character build-u,p or emotional connection and sex is just another thing that happens in their romance–meh.
I have also become more and more interested in the mechanics of sexual “congress”–is it doable? Is it actually pleasurable? It is logistically possible? Those thoughts do cross my mind! And then there are times when realistically the scene bends credulity, but it is still hot because a) the stakes are high OR b) there is a depth of connection between the protagonists OR c)it’s a well earned sexual respite OR d) or a good enough reason that the author’s been able to make me buy into
Give me a build-up phase. I’m tired of insta-lust followed by insta-sex. Stolen glances, inadvertant touching, flirtatious banter are all good preliminary moves. I love some Tessa Bailey dirty talk, but not just from the hero, please. And for gosh sakes, find new descriptions. There’s no excuse for anyone shattering into a thousand pieces anymore. Makes me want to pull out the vacuum cleaner and dispose of all those shards.
@Mabry–that last bit made me lol.
I’m so happy you all decided to tackle this question. I think about this topic a lot–usually when I’m either skimming a sex scene or fanning myself over how wonderful a sex scene is. What works best for me depends on how integral to both character and story the scene is. Good characterization inspires an emotional connection between characters and reader, and this reader requires a strong, authentic hit of emotional connection along with those moments of vo-dee-oh-doh-doh.
That “tab a/slot b” metaphor doesn’t just apply to mechanical depictions of sex; it also describes a formulaic approach to romance writing. It is insulting to a reader to assume that x number of sex scenes inserted at n intervals and including carefully curated escalations of sexual activities will make a crappily written book tolerable. I read a ton of romance, and the quality fluctuates wildly. Sorry, but tropes are not cookie cutters.
I guess for me, the most basic criteria have to do with the quality of the writing. I can’t really separate what I consider good writing from good sex scenes. I recall reading a how-to article about writing sex scenes in which the author (whose name I, sadly, no longer recall) stated that you wrote these scenes the same way you wrote all the scenes. That was an aha moment for me, and I always look for that consistent quality.
If I read something in which the tropes are lazy little short cuts, the characters are utter stereotypes, and the love scenes are framed in thirty year old cliches, I know I’m in DNF territory. On the other hand, if only the love scenes are clunky, whether i stick with the book will depend on the strength of the story-telling and the balance between these two elements. So if formulaic nooky dominates, I’m out.
Rereading this, it seems I’ve focused on the negative. The thing is that often the positives of a good sex scene are highly personal and unique to the individual. It’s simply easier for me to pinpoint my dislikes than my likes.
TL;DR I like my sex scenes well written, true to character, and emotionally satisfying.
Sometimes it seems as if authors insert sex scenes simply to reach a required number for the book. Okay, do I have 4 sex scenes? Check. Insta-eye roll from here. Lisa Kleypas has it down for me, & I agree with Elyse & Tara–the sex has to fit the book. KJ Charles takes heat to the highest level, as does Scarlett Scott who gives it hard & straight, but often too often. The good news is there are spiciness levels these days for everyone. When I was cutting my teeth on romances (and I’m dating myself here) heat levels were determined between Kathleen Woodiwiss & Rosemary Rogers. 🙂
My favorite is when the characters actually talk about what they like/don’t like. Not verbally confirming consent in a situation when there might be any doubt always pulls me out of a sex scene. Maybe that’s not desire your reading in her eyes but fear, disgust, or boredom? Use your words and ask. Similarly, not discussing birth control/protection in a contemporary romance always distracts. But beyond that I like it when characters- especially women- ask for what they want and voice what they don’t. That should be normalized.
I’m really enjoying this post. Personally, I tend to skim or skip sex scenes, except when I’m reading an author who includes the banter or inner thoughts of the characters, which are frequently funny and/or emotional. So apparently “connections” is the word I’m looking for.
I have two specific linguistic pet peeves that instantly make me need to skim a sex scene.
If the book is written in first person, and the narrative voice suddenly starts talking about “our”. Our bodies doing x, our feelings … No. The author made a choice to write in first person, so have the courage of your convictions. There’s no “our”. There’s me, mine, my, UNLESS the partner is verbalizing or the narrator is working out what their partner is enjoying. In which case, the narrator can start thinking about he/she/they. Absolutely irrational pet peeve.
The other pet peeve is a cutesy term I’ve started seeing authors use in the last few years (hi Tessa Bailey) for a male character’s genitalia: inches (noun). As in, instead of saying p*nis, substitute inches. I’m all about linguistic change, especially as our understanding of concepts change, but this one? Full body cringe. And I don’t know why! Why is this the one my brain can’t handle?
As for what I enjoy: if I can picture it, I enjoy it. I didn’t realize until recently that aphantasia is a thing. But after discussing it with my husband (who really strongly has it), I realized that almost all of my enjoyment comes from creating my mind-movie. Anything that interrupts the movie – do people bend that way?, did they take off enough clothes for that to work?, is that really what the youths say during sexytimes now? – just makes me want to go find a better movie.
@Ely, I also do the mind-movie, and can distinctly remember being thrown out of all necessary suspension of disbelief at a description of the MMC holding the FMC’s hips in both hands as he’s penetrating her in missionary position. This means most of his weight is on her chest. That is not sexy. Writers really should keep better track of whose hands are where, and why.
Also, I had to Google PWP because I had no idea.
This discussion has been illuminating and reassuring – I’m an indie + small press author, I don’t write a ton of graphic sex scenes, and I’ve had to trust that being on the less-graphic side wouldn’t lead to an automatic No from readers. It’s really difficult to communicate the heat level in a book description, though, because every reader’s Scoville scale is unique.
@chacha1: I also had to search for the meaning of PWP.
I enjoyed the post and the comments above. I am not the most analytical of readers, so it’s difficult for me to answer the question. As someone with aphantasia, I can say that @Ely’s mind-movies play no part in my reading pleasure, but I can also be thrown out of a story if people bend the wrong way!
I can also roll my eyes at fluttering pink holes or damp panties if I’m not caught up in a story. I think what works best for me is if the characters already have a connection before they become intimate.
I am rereading Floored by Melanie Harlow right now for inspiration because the sex scenes are SO GOOD. Reflecting on why, I think it’s related to Tara and Elyse’s points about fitting into the story overall. In Floored, all of the major sex scenes happen really nearly as a part of the narrative flow. Too often we see plot action, BOOM sec scene, then back to the plot. But in Floored the sex happens during the story and in a context that feels very natural to how sex actually happens. For example H is a former bully, now cop, who investigates a break in at he’s house; they first hook up when H comes over to check in on h with a little update on the case, but typical to the character he’s not very nice about it, so there’s tension there. Then the power goes out and the tension soars and next thing you know he’s got her bent over the kitchen counter. Later on he helps with a renovation project at her dance studio after hours, she’s watching him work and ruminating on their first hookup, again true to type he teases her about it and that leads them into another hookup. It’s very much part of the world of the story as opposed to, paragraph break, sex, end chapter, and that makes it really good!
The best sex I’ve ever had was at a party with a complete stranger and involved absolutely no verbal communication at all. Honestly I kind of prefer it that way: I want to be concentrating with a different part of my brain when I’m having sex. But non-verbal sex still involves communication! It’s all about communication, in fact! It’s not about Desire in the Eyes and physiological responses. Most authors are really really bad at capturing this in a sex scene.
I don’t really care if sex scenes come early or not as long as the author does a good job convincing me that it makes sense for these two people to be going at it right now. Some authors seem to think that plunging characters into sex immediately is how you convince a reader that they have chemistry, kind of like how Hollywood thinks having people getting it on immediately is a good substitute for bothering to cast for chemistry, but clearly many of us aren’t convinced.
One thing that really bugs me is the opposite: when the characters bang too late for it to be interesting. Harlequin and Avon historicals do this a lot. The author has correctly recognized that it doesn’t make sense for the story for the characters to have sex, which is great, but she still wants to get some sex in there, so she puts in one sex scene at the very very end of the book, after the wedding. There’s no tension left, no conflict, nothing to be resolved apart from whether these people can get each other off, and it’s just…boring and pointless. I am very certain that it’s possible to pull this off in an interesting way, but most authors don’t manage to do that.
I also have a huge language pet peeve: when the author has the POV character, usually the heroine, describing their own body with purple prose. Who the hell thinks about themselves like that when having sex?!?! If you want to talk about how round and plush someone’s butt is, or whatever, you need to be in the other person’s head, or it sounds weird and narcissistic.
Another vote for KJ Charles and also Jackie Lau’s sex scenes really work for me, I think because she often uses masturbation and sex toys which are a different kind of intimacy—it’s showing a parter what you like when you’re alone and no one can see you. Love that. Also, slightly bossy men.
I also do frequently skim sex scenes—I can always tell that a story isn’t really working for me because I’m like “yep, they’re boning, ah, here’s the next point in the plot, let’s pick up here.” I don’t mind closed door either, especially if the pining and flirtation is there, although occasionally it’s like, “OMG! Where is the sex!? It is stifling here!” (See: Gentleman Jim by Mimi Matthews.) Oh, and danger sex is a definite no because I find it to be such a personal turnoff.
I’d agree with lots of great points people already made here, especially having those moments be true to the character’s personality in the rest of the book. I find often i’m OK with either falling in love fast, and having lots of longing and almost before they finally get to the sexy times, or with fun sexy times and then they work their way towards love, but insta-both is boring. There are also sometimes particular things that become faddishly “in” for a while, and you’ll get 10 books in a row that all read like the authors repurposed one sex scene between them, because all these characters are having the exact same sex, from the order in which they proceed through the process, through the exclamations, to the number of pages it takes them to get there 😛
Another thing that can make or break a scene is the unintentional pov shift you sometimes get, I assume often because the author is uncomfortable and trying to distance themselves. We’ve been in the head of Character A, full first person, and we’re suddenly getting their experience, but as if looking through the eyes of their partner, or a third person omniscient. If we’re going to feel them stub their toe, not be told there was a box in the way, or hear glass break, not be told that a goblet fell in the next room behind a door, then we need to keep that pov here, not suddenly be the only scene in the book in third person omniscient. Or vice versa, although i can’t think of examples of third to first off hand 🙂