Sex in Novels, What is it Good For?

[For the record, this is a completely amoral blog post—preaching morals gives me a headache and upsets my ulcer.]

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1. Sex. What is it good for?

Were this a song parody, the next line would be "absolutely nothing." But, given that I've had bad experiences with song parodies, I will forgo that.

But, seriously, sex ... why bother?

I should point out now that my issue with sex is more in the context of literature. Almost any novel with a sex scene in it has been, in my opinion, a horrid waste of time, energy, and irritates, at least, this reader. Any sex scene that is more than a paragraph had better add to the events of the novel, or I'm going to wonder why it's in the book. If I want porn, I'd read a playboy or sign in to Literotica.com

For example, my novel A Pius Man has no sex scenes. Why? Because I find them boring.

I am not certain how much of this is my own personal opinion and how much of it is a critique of how sex scenes tend to be inflicted on the reader.

One of my major problems is the OSS, or the Obligatory Sex Scene.

In the Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child novel "Mount Dragon", our protagonists, after having found shelter and water in the middle of the desert, after nearly dying from thirst, while on the run from a nutcase with a gun.... are so happy they start having sex... Huh?

The OSS I just mentioned is quick. If it's longer than half a page, I'd be surprised. But it was just dropped into the middle of the book, and was so jarring it broke the pace. It had been a nice, solid thriller, our heroes on the run from a psychotic killer with a rifle, and then.... they're stopping to have sex? Really?

Looking at it objectively, what is the point of an OSS?

"Physical intimacy shows the the relationship involved has gone to another level and has thus impacted the characters"..... Perfectly true, but does that necessitate a five page sex scene? Or even a page? If one wanted to tell the reader that, yes, two people slept together, I can do that right now: "X and Y fell into bed, kissing passionately as they stripped each other's clothes. They then turned off the lights and hoped they wouldn't wake the neighbors."

Done. Two lines and a bit of smart ass can carry something a long way.

"Things can happen during the scene that are relevant to the rest of the novel." True, but rarely does it necessitate going into intimate details. In fact, I would suggest that anything interesting that happened could be covered in the next chapter. "On reflection, s/he noticed something odd while lying on his/her back. S/he didn't really notice it at the time, but now that it's quiet....." Done.

Exceptions can be made to this rule, obviously. If the couple rolls off of the bed as someone walks into the room, be it with room service or with a gun, then that is a useful detail.

There are moments when character can be served. I've seen sex scenes done well. I don't mean the sex scene in the novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter," where he dwells on a nice neat serial killer, his girlfriend comes in, starts kissing and disrobing him, and the next line is, literally, "How did that happen?"

I mean a sex scene.

John Ringo's "Paladin of Shadows" series (Ghost, Kildar, etc), have sex scenes and nudity. However, the point of the hero, nicknamed Ghost, is that he is not a "nice guy," he hangs out in strip clubs, and some of his contacts are strippers... it's rather amusing reading a scene where a stripper is informing him of pertinent information during the course of her duties.

The sex scenes themselves are surprisingly thought out. In the first novel, "Ghost", it is a series of vignettes. The second vignette is two-thirds bondage porn and deep sea fishing, and who knows which is worse. Before the sex scenes take up whole chapters, Ghost has a discussion with the two young ladies he's dealing with... and their parents. The conversation that follows is one part dissertation on bondage subcultures, and five parts comedy routine.

After that, you can skip whole chapters, unless you really want to learn more about leather goods than you ever really wanted to. Thanks, if I want that, I'll come to literotica.

So, here we have someone who makes sex funny without it being gaudy. In fact, the amount of thought put into his later sex scenes is odd. It shows a lot of character, intelligence, and humor.

Even then, are they necessary? Surprisingly enough, some are, and two crucial to the stories they show up in. Almost all of them impact the characters in some way. And almost all of these scenes can be entertaining for reasons that are anything but sexual.

Why Ghost does what he does (and I don't mean sexual maneuvers or positions) tells the reader more about the character than a hundred pages of sex scenes from any given novelist....

Laurell K. Hamilton, I'm looking at you.

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Laurell K. Hamilton created a novel series about Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. It was a nice, solid series, set in St. Louis, with a well constructed, detailed world, where vampires were public figures, werewolves are treated like HIV cases in the 80s, crosses work against vampires, and demons aren't the actor in a suit you see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

For nine novels, the series went well. There was sexuality here and there (a major character was a French vampire, after all), but it never really got in the way of the story. By book seven and eight, the main character was sleeping with both a vampire and a werewolf, but the OSS's were few and far between, and they were easily skipped by turning a page. Quite painless, overall.

After book #9, Obsidian Butterfly, I was warned off several of the novels because it opened with a hundred pages of vampire rituals of who gets to have sex with who. I went back for book #15, because it featured the return of Hamilton's best, scariest character: a mild mannered, white bread fellow named Edward, a mercenary who started hunting vampires because humans were too easy.

However, I had to skip a hundred and fifty pages of the novel. It was one, long and drawn out OSS. Not a menage a trois, but a bisexual sextet among Vampires and were-creatures. I can go online for this, I don't need to pay $25 for a hardcover.

Much of the rest of the same book had pages of Anita Blake defending her sex life. "The lady dost protest too much."

When the author herself was asked about the overabundance of sex during a Barnes and Noble interview, Hamilton's best defense was that "I only get complaints from men. They're disturbed that a woman is writing this sort of stuff."

Ahem...

Dear Ms. Hamilton: I get disturbed with John Ringo writing about a man and two coeds on a boat with bondage gear. For the love of all that's Holy, what makes you think that a woman with bi-vampires and several were-furries would go over better?

2. "I want a Heroine not and excuse for sex."

As I said, in my book "A Pius Man," there are no sex scenes. There are moments of physical intimacy off screen, that the reader doesn't see, but that's about it. Can I write a sex scene? Sure, they're easy. I've gotten requests from lady friends of mine for erotica (don't ask, long story). But are they necessary? No. Did I need intimate details to add to the plot, the character, or anything related to the story? No.

Frankly, I think a PG-13 novel requires more skill than an R-rated (for nudity/sex). I find that sex sequences are a cheat, sort of like premium cable—just because you can use four letter words doesn't mean you have to write them into every single line.

I have actually made my lack of OSS's in my novels work for me.

One character, the mercenary Sean A.P. Ryan, has had a long term girlfriend in my book series....they've never had intercourse because every time they do, someone tries to kill them.

One of my lead detectives, Giovanni Figlia, is happily married with two children; I can leave him and his wife alone and move on to something plot related while they're busy in bed.

Maureen McGrail is out of her own country, single, and is usually too busy to stop, slow down, and make out with a random hero.

Scott Murphy and Manana Shushurin have just met; while they have an intimate moment, everything that interests me happens later.

Just because an author can throw in a sex scene doesn't mean s/he must do so. Doing sex scenes well takes skill, and making them relevant takes talent; most people don't have it. Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had several moments where our heroine's sex life really was going to get people killed. Sherrilyn Kenyon, a ROMANCE NOVELIST, wrote at least one book where the LACK of sex was a key plot point, and another where intimacy between the hero and heroine was surprisingly crucial to the story.

So, it has been done well. Just not very often.

To answer the opening question: Sex, what is it good for?

In novels... it can be good for something.

It just rarely is.