Hence why the series "Kung Fu" relied on a lot of flashbacks. If somebody knows what they're doing in martial arts, it's over in less than a second sometimes. And somebody is lying flat out wondering "What the fuck just happened?" I sometimes worry that my sex descriptions are right out of a sex manual... or a recipe book... "With a brisk motion..." you get the idea.
This is kind of why I did the Tips For Writing Sex Scenes a while back, even if it's pretty basic. Granted, this is coming from the same person that has lingering bad ideas like Smurf sex dirty talk.
The more I think of it, describing sex is more limiting than even a fight scene. And by sex scene I do not mean the lead up (which is a blast to write) or the dialogue or thoughts during the act, but simply the act itself. It is rather a simplistic monotone thing: Semen is implanted in the vagina by a few minutes of repeated rubbing actions.
A while back I was thinking of writing a humorous story of a psychologist that counsels superheroes with bad sex lives. Part of the motivation was a rebellion against the pressure to write ever sex scene in erotic as the ultimate experience.
For the past few years, I've been writing a story. I have no idea when I'll publish it. The style and setting make writer's block very common. Despite what I write and fantasize about, I choose to keep my irl sex very vanila and have turned down moderately kinky offers.
It's kind of like grocery shopping when you're hungry. You dream about putting together a fabulous feast, but at the end of the day you're happy to get two slices of bread with a bit of meat and cheese in between. I'm sure your story will be worth the wait, when you finally get ready to share it! Confession: Spend far too much time trying to judge reader habits by following how they "like" chapters in the the story: most recent chapter first, or start at a key branch and work forwards, or start at the end of a branch and work backwards, or just go for chapters with certain tags/keywords...
I think it's more about not wanting to ruin the fantasy and knowing it won't be as fun as I think it is. I like James Bond, but I don't want to be a spy in real life. Real life has too much prep, fluids, and clean up.
Ain't that the truth... I have something to confess; I also hate writing sex scenes. That is why I started writing here in the first place. I wanted to get good at it; however, I've found out they are quite dull. They are tedious to write and hard to get inspiration for. Every time I have to write one, I go off and procrastinate writing. When I finally do write, I either try to base it on personal experience. More often, I pull up a porn video; watch the whole thing, and study what the actors do in the scene. Then taking that knowledge and inspiration I write the scene, it both gets me in the mood and helps me plot out a basic course for the scene to progress.
I think these two things might go together, at least for me. Writing a realistic normal sex scene is boring because there is very little to work with. Again, I love the analogy of eating a sandwich. Writing about it is just boring, but eating a real sandwich is very satisfying. Same thing with normal sex. Great to experience, but describing it is very limiting and boring. (Though both certainly have their creative challenges, which are fun.) The more fantastical and fetish driven the easier the sex scene is to write, though I certainly wouldn't do the majority of stuff I write, let alone think, about. I really should create that humorous story of a Superhero shrink that has to hear tails of heroes and villains failed sex lives.
If I may shamelessly illustrate the problem of writing sex scenes in two of my stories: 1) This is one of the best romantic chapters (from my Catwoman story) I have written, in my opinion. However, I loathed writing the sex scene after it, since the story demanded it be very tender and normal. I felt like I had to write the sex scene, but I secretly wished it was just a normal fan fic so I could have said "they had great sex" and ended it. 2) This chapter (from my D&D story), however, was a blast to write and felt very sexy. Yet it is heavy fetish based and the lovers didn't even have intercourse.
"So this one time, I'm with Spidey and we get our tights off - no condom. So he wants to use his webbing." She tilted the bottle. Red wine splashed into the glass. "And you told him no, right?" The wine stopped at the brim. She took a sip. "No," she said finally. "No, I did not do that."
Half the reason for the story is to rebel against the demand of always trying to write the perfect sex scene.
And this one time... at Mutant Camp... Yes, but sometimes, Bruce... I just want something more than just... I mean, I like the Smash but... So... Sit Down Ms. uhm... Witch. I understand that you have a few things you wish to discuss about your family...
Confession: I have apparently become addicted to using ... all the time. I've no idea when this happened. My last chapter looked like Morse code when I edited it. I need to get myself of this cursed habit.
