Why I try not to write sex scenes.

[apocalypsos]

So I was reading this post regarding stories in which girls losing their virginity have these flowery, magical experiences, and it got me thinking.

I'm a virgin.

And I say that with no pride and no shame, it's just a fact. I've never experienced straight sex, gay sex, the giving or receiving of oral sex, watching sex ... hell, I've barely made out with anyone. It's not so much that I'm a prude or that I'm saving myself for marriage, it's just that every time I want to nail a guy, there's always these hindrances in the relationship like he doesn't know I exist or he turns out to be gay or he moves to Utica. If I could get a cute, smart, funny guy to like girls, like me, and stand still long enough for me to do him, that would help.

Now, I give you this detailed description of my sexual history (and lack thereof) to make a point. I don't write sex scenes all that often. The closest I've come to an honest-to-goodness sex scene was in Ghost in the Shell, and that was mostly vague description and then the inevitable cutaway to the morning after. I'd rather write no sex scene than a bad one.

That said, I tend to check out a lot of the stories on Adultfanfiction.net, not so much to get off than because the way some people write sex scenes amuses me. Hey, just because I haven't had any doesn't mean I don't know how it works. And the post above got me seriously thinking about the way these first-time fics scenes end up getting written.

When it comes to the Buffyverse (which are usually the stories I end up reading on Adultfanfiction.net), most of the writers there are entirely focused on taking the virginity of Buffy or Willow, Buffy because she's the main character and Willow because I imagine these same writers like to imagine introducing the quiet, shy girl to sex will unleash a wild sex kitten. Of course, the majority of them don't want to write Angel or Oz doing the job according to canon, they want to go back earlier and have either Xander (if they're Gary Stu-ing their way into a sex scene with the character) or Spike (since this would have had to happen back he was still evil and cool) do it. These are the ones that are obviously written by guys, by the way.

Now, at least if you're a guy, I can give you a little leeway on misinterpreting the feeling of breaking a girl's hymen much in the same way I'd expect a little leeway for misinterpreting the pain it feels getting kneed in the balls. Just a little leeway, though, especially considering how easy it is to turn to the nearest man or woman and ask, "So, how does it feel?" Hell, I asked my brother once just to know. (And guys, yes, it does hurt when a chick gets hit there, too. I once read a story when a girl was punched there and it didn't hurt, and I suddenly wondered where she got a Teflon crotch.)

Most of the time, it hurts when a girl loses her cherry. Notice how I say "most of the time," because nothing is a hundred percent, and I know more than one girl who lost their virginity and didn't feel all that much pain, or any pain at all. But the majority of girls do. And even if you broke your hymen as a kid on a fence or horseback riding or some weird reason like that, it's still something that's in a place where something like that hasn't been before. (Although if anybody wants to describe the sensations a little better ... yeah, virgin here.)

Of course, there's stories like mentioned in the above post, in which he breaks through the hymen and they just hang out for a minute or so and then shag like nothing ever happened. I can understand on a certain level, because that happens a lot in romance novels and having the woman whimpering in pain the whole time would ruin the mood. Of course, the distraction of it being statistically incorrect can drive you nuts, too, but if it's well-written, I'll buy it.

The difference with fan fiction is that for an unfortunately large amount of the time, it isn't well-written. So what you end up getting is Buffy or Willow being all scared and inexperienced until the moment their hymen is broken, at which point Buffy became a dirty-talking nymphomaniac and Willow whips out that dominatrix costume she bought on a whim. And that's just in the stories written by guys. The ones written by teenage girls feature so much romance and so many painless orgasms, you half-expect Buffy to walk out of the room afterwards whistling a jaunty tune and surrounded by fawning baby forest animals.

Then, there are the fanfic authors who are trying waaaaaaaay too hard. You know how you can tell who they are? A first time for a woman will hurt, most times to the point where they don't enjoy the experience. Now, how is that romantic? So here's what we'll do -- we'll have a character we hate rape the woman in question, and then her knight in shining armor will sweep in afterwards to cuddle her and care for her and teach her the joys of sex. I cannot begin to count the number of stories I've seen in the Buffy section at Adultfanfiction.net that read like that, and it's revolting.

As for published fiction, did you ever notice how much you can tell about an author's sex life by how they write their sex scenes? A lot of romance novelists can write a nice, romantic sex scene, and most of those are the ones who are having healthy, regular sex with their significant others. But when *I* don't buy a sex scene, I know somebody's trying to live vicariously through their fiction and is doing it badly. (Personally, I've always thought Laurell K. Hamilton is a perfect example of this. If reading the first Merry Gentry book taught me anything, it was that LKH wouldn't know good sex if it nailed her sideways in public wearing a Mickey Mouse costume.)

So there's my two cents on the matter. And, erm, if anybody wants to send Hugh Jackman over, my virginity and I would appreciate it. ;)

Comments

[cleobourne.livejournal.com]

Preach it sista!

[dreamt.livejournal.com]

I recommend sex-toys and DIY.
If I'd have waited with the whole virginity thing until meeting someone patient and nice enough to go through with it with... well, then I'd have been well adjusted, I guess >_>
But yeah.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, trust me, I'm fine in that regard. *eg* And hey, on the bright side, I've had a pregnancy or STD scare.

[welfy.livejournal.com]

As another virgin, I know what you mean. I would never write about sex because even though I've experienced all kinds of foreplay, I'm sure that sex is different somehow. And even foreplay can be messy and weird.

thought there were different reasons

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

and then there is the thing where writing other things becomes more interesting ...especially after having read about countless juice-spilling, proud erection taking someone else harder and better than ever before, yawn.

Re: thought there were different reasons

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Wordy McWord - I'm never writing porn again. Sex just turned into a very dull topic of conversation.

I vote for SWORD FIGHTING!

[phillyexpat.livejournal.com]

At least you recognize that sex isn't always "waves of orgasm rippling over and over as her mind was shot into another universe." Sometimes it's just pleasant. Sometimes, it's plain boring.

I feel bad for the poor girls who expect some sort of physical earthquake with Hugh Grant. Manage your expectations, dearies.

[rani23.livejournal.com]

If reading the first Merry Gentry book taught me anything, it was that LKH wouldn't know good sex if it nailed her sideways in public wearing a Mickey Mouse costume.)

*DIES*

OH, that's priceless. :) And perfect.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

And now I have an incredible urge to read or write fic where Female Character A loses her virginity to Male Character B, followed by Male Character B having to spend the next two weeks convincing her to ever do that again.

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

That would be terribly funny ... and not too off, either. Especially at the beginning, everything leading UP to sex feels pretty good. But once THAT goes in THERE, damn it HURTS. "No, honey, I want you do use your hand, not your dinky, thank you very much." LOL!

*snerk*

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

I completely agree on the LKH front. And it's not just that the sex scenes are bad, I think it's all bad. And she reuses the same cliched phrases over and over again.

But then, I'm not related to fertility deities like MG, so maybe I just don't know good sex either.....

[akacat]

and stand still long enough for me to do him

Superglue on the soles of their feet will help in the regard.

Or so I'm told.

Non-sequitor

[krimon.livejournal.com]

The Romans had a nice way of resolving the whole ouch factor of first-sex. Right before a woman got married, she squatted on a stone phallus and sacrificed her maidenhead to the Hymen, the God of Marriage.

I guess blaming the cherry-popping discomfort on the Gods is a lot better than feeling all revolted and sore from your first sexual encounter. After all, every Roman knew the gods were a bunch of callous bastards already.

[krimon.livejournal.com]

Maybe LKH is writing for a more...well...gay crowd. Reading Merry Gentry and even Anita Blake actually make me pretty hot, thus engendering a few moments of sexual identity confusion about wanting to nail the husband after reading 300 pages of straight sex.

[azurelunatic]

Glad to know it works the other way around too -- it's sort of paradoxial that hot boy-on-boy action makes me hot for having some het sex (or hot girl-on-girl action) myself.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm agreeing with some of the comments on the post you linked to, in which you don't have to be experienced to write a good sex scene, you just have to be a good writer of sex scenes. Though not all good writers can write good sex scenes. I know some fabulous writers who shouldn't be allowed near sex scenes with a fifty-foot pole. It's like writers of dark fic. There was this absolutely amazing dark fic writer in early buffy fandom, who used to leave you feeling like someone had punched you in the stomach. We discovered she was 13 and a perfectly sunny, happy well-adjusted person.

And I do find it amusing that it tends to be the blokes who fantasise most about getting someone to lose their cherry. Mind you, they're also the ones who obsess about size of dick. All the girls I know go 'Honey, all we're concerned with is whether you know what to do with it.'

I've had good sex and bad sex and boring sex, and my virginity-loss was mostly 'oh, it happened? Okay, feeling not bad... dammit, why did he get to come and I didn't?' I also know someone whose only reason it was painful was because it happened in the middle of a thorn bush when she was drunk.

[xturtle.livejournal.com]

I just really inappropriately associated your last sentence to the play-within-a-play from "Midsummer Night's Dream."

I need to stop being a dork now.
CJ

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Apparently I, and most of my friends about whom I know the details of such personal things, really lucked out in the "first time" department.

[yud.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons that I love reading bad sci fi books is because of the horrible sex scenes. Sci fi books are often like romance books written for horny teenage males. Sex isn't romantic, it's marathon sessions of casual sex with hot women, who always orgasm, by the way. It just really cracks me up.

nymphomaniac virgin.

[theliel.livejournal.com]

you need to watch hal hartly's amature (not The Amature, or anything like that, just amature. you'll know it's the right one because there's a girl holding a bloody power drill on the cover)right. fucking. now.

trust me.

[silverhill.livejournal.com]

There's the pain, yes. But there's also awkwardness -- especially if both people are virgins. Sex can be really damn awkward.

But I read smut fics, too, because I'm amused by them. It's all bodies moving in unison and fireworks and waves of orgasms (simultaneous, of course) and glowing skin and perfect body parts. Totally unrealistic.

[lasarus.livejournal.com]

Okay, *never* read anything by Jean M. Auel. (Bad sex, 2D characters, Mary Sue-ism, etc.)

Personally, I write sex scenes, but I've never shared them with the world. Just in case they're, well, crap :p

[azurelunatic]

Fucking with virginity is sort of like putting a too-big Qtip into your ear canal. It's all "Foreign object alert time!" on some very sensitive bits. Proper lubrication and being very very careful is key until the area becomes accustomed to the intrusion.

There are evidently at least three different types of orgasm.

One is the orgasm from clitoral stimulation. This is the most commonly heard of from the well-informed. Many virgins get to know this very well.

One is the orgasm from stimulation of the vaginal walls. This is where the term "G-spot" gets thrown around. This is the orgasm that you are supposed to experience during heterosexual sex but commonly don't unless the guy is paying attention to/good at what he's doing. Some women don't have these. Some people regard these as mythical, or strictly the province of romance novels.

One, the rarest, is the orgasm from stimulation of the uterus. Some women don't like particularly long foreign objects penetrating them, because the uterus sometimes causes pain when bumped. Some women adore having their uterus bumped and get off on it.

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the whole-body orgasm. Those things are dangerous. The first time I felt an orgasm that hit everywhere (and oddly enough, most intensely in the webbing between my toes) I swore I'd never put my knees together again.

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

First, thanks for admitting that publicly--being an adult virgin seems to be the only real sexual taboo left.

Another one, checking in.

I don't write sex scenes, largely because I'm not especially interested in the topic, but I do think honesty is important--I've asked more, er, experienced friends to tell me about the practical aspects (one described it as "walking around like you've got a splinter there for a few days").

[ketaki.livejournal.com]

I read my first smut fic after my first experience with foreplay and believe me, it made me want to flame the crap out of the author for giving false hopes to anyone out there who is inexperienced.

Also, authors who can pass off realistic sex as romantic are blessed and rare gems that only come out once every seventeen blue moons.

And there's only one couple I've known where the woman has the pleasure of having orgasms whenever her husband is paying attention.

So I'm not holding my breath girls! :P

[astaria51.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you've said, but one of the only things so far that hasn't been commented on is this:

Rape fics!!
*TEARS EYES OUT*

Why do people think that rape is sexy? Or...rather, that rescuing someone after rape is sexy? Um. My general impression of rape is that it's TERRIFYING and TRAUMATIZING and very often GUILT-INSPIRING (which is horrible, but true). And not that aforementioned raped female is going to want to touch, much less sleep with, anyone immediately after.

Now, there's occasionally the reaction to sexual abuse during which people react by becoming more promiscuous, but it still doesn't make for a very romantic story. And my impression (again, impression) is that that's mostly from childhood sexual abuse, not incidental rape.

But GRRR.

What really gets me is RPS rape-fic. I loathe fiction where real people are 1)raped 2)made suicidal or killed 3)abused by friends or family members. I don't care if band members "sleep together" in your fic. I've been making assumptions about some of my favorite bands for years. And it's fiction. But when you take a band or actor that you presumably admire and do shit to them and/or their friends and family that you wouldn't wish on any other human being, it PISSES ME OFF. It's a pet peeve.

Grrr. I don't understand the attraction of that. Or the sense. Why do people think (over and over and over) that that plot works?

In other news: I'm NOT a virgin, and I'm completely incapable of writing smut. However, one of my goals has always been to write a massively unsure, dorky-but-awkward mutual-first-time scene. Because sex isn't always pretty. It can be romantic while it's not being pretty. And it can be romantic and hurt. But it's not (always, and usually not the first time) flowers and fireworks.
Oh well. I may have to get to flowers and fireworks at all before I get to realism.

Anyway, very valid points. Thanks for the ramble, it brought up good stuff. :)

From an unknown, 22 year old virgin

[syrance.livejournal.com]

I have a friend that was raped within the last year. She's getting married in two days. She's currently pregnant with her second child (it's the groom's) and I have no idea how she's doing it. Now, granted, I'm pretty naive when it comes to sex, but I do have a psychology background and I know something about trauma. If I were in her position, I would have curled up on myself and submitted myself to extensive therapy. Apparently she's made of sterner stuff than me.

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

I swear, I had a lycra hymen or something. It took about a month of mattress pounding to get rid of that fucker. I was all 'ow ow... ooooh, do that again, ow, not that, the thing with the ohhhh yeah, that thing, ow!' until an unexpected pounce with insufficient lubrication killed the damn thing.

Oddly enough, when I spawned, the midwives always told me I had a unnaturally tough amniotic sac too.

And ew, that was TMI, but I'm going to pass it on anyway. You never know when these odd little factlets might help someone who thinks they're a freak.

In the name of TMI

[wonderlander.livejournal.com]

First? Word on the lycra hymen.

Secondly? All the women on my mom's side o the family have had to have their water broken for them. Our amniotic sacs will not break naturally. It's weird and everyone except my mom gets mad when I point out that maybe it's evolution saying we're too odd to breed.

Losing your virginity...

[radiotrash.livejournal.com]

Doesn't start out that bad and you think "Pfft, don't know what those girls are talking about."

But then he goes deeper and it's like having a flaming hot poker repeatedly thrusting into you.

Well, ok. Maybe more like mildly warm.

(P.S. It didn't just hurt the first time for me, but the next two times after as well.)

[faith21.livejournal.com]

it's just that every time I want to nail a guy, there's always these hindrances in the relationship like he doesn't know I exist or he turns out to be gay or he moves to Utica.

Ditto. Except, in my case, it was Maryland. -sighs-

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

In retrospect, I like the fact that Scott moved to Utica, if only because Utica sounds funny. :)

[thedivinegoat.livejournal.com]

Just promise us that you'll never write a website like this one - Britain's Most Famous Virgin

Be warned - this site will melt your brain.

[silent-sybil.livejournal.com]

*visits*

*sobs* i... needed... that braii-