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Incredibly nosy TMI poll
So ... I made a comment elsewhere that got me thinking about sex in fanfic, and then I started having one of those "... am I the only one?" sort of ponderings, and so I made an extremely nosy TMI poll about it. If you don't read explicit fanfic, this will probably not be at all interesting to you.
The thing is, written sex doesn't turn me on. At all, really -- there are extremely rare instances where that's not the case, but as a general rule, no. But I know from reading comments elsewhere that this is definitely not true of everybody. So I'm curious ... am I a total fandom outlier, or not?
I've got "detailed results" turned off, so the only person who can see who answered what is me (though the graphs are visible to everyone). If you'd like to answer anonymously in the comments instead, so that even *I* can't see who you are, that's perfectly fine! I swear I'm not asking out of prurient curiosity; it's not like I'm sitting around wondering "Hey, does so & so on my f'list wank off to internet porn?" Like I said above, I'm just kinda curious how the numbers would stack up. Are there just a couple people who are, like me, unmoved by porn? Or the majority? Inquiring minds are very curious! (I thought about doing this f'locked, but total anonymity wouldn't be an option that way, and I wanted to leave that option available to people who wanted it.) And obviously, if you are not comfortable answering this poll, please don't!
[Poll #1521589]
The thing is, written sex doesn't turn me on. At all, really -- there are extremely rare instances where that's not the case, but as a general rule, no. But I know from reading comments elsewhere that this is definitely not true of everybody. So I'm curious ... am I a total fandom outlier, or not?
I've got "detailed results" turned off, so the only person who can see who answered what is me (though the graphs are visible to everyone). If you'd like to answer anonymously in the comments instead, so that even *I* can't see who you are, that's perfectly fine! I swear I'm not asking out of prurient curiosity; it's not like I'm sitting around wondering "Hey, does so & so on my f'list wank off to internet porn?" Like I said above, I'm just kinda curious how the numbers would stack up. Are there just a couple people who are, like me, unmoved by porn? Or the majority? Inquiring minds are very curious! (I thought about doing this f'locked, but total anonymity wouldn't be an option that way, and I wanted to leave that option available to people who wanted it.) And obviously, if you are not comfortable answering this poll, please don't!
[Poll #1521589]
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I feel this way too. In a way, if I have a thrilling adventure with a terrific build-up between characters and I suddenly get a fade to black scene, I'm usually left wondering why. Why did the author, who up until now had my full attention with the richness of their detailed story, suddenly bow out? It makes me wonder if the author is not comfortable with writing the scene or the relationship itself. In a small way, it throws me out of the story the way someone else might complain about a small, but still noticeable, technical error.
For me, when I am writing a sex scene, it is an integral part of the story or else the story is not meant to be slash but gen instead. As such, I don't have them bouncing in and out of bed every five minutes. The sex isn't there for sex itself, but for vulnerability, or because the character is using sex as a substitute for intimacy or because of some other reason.
I'm always astonished when I hear that people skip or skim the sex scenes. I put them in there for a reason. :-)
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The sex scenes that tend to work for me narratively are those that are just a couple paragraphs long, and deliver the highlights -- not necessarily including the climax. *g* Otherwise I tend to assume that they're in there for indulgence, and skim or skip them, just as I'll skim the three chapters that the hero spends being tortured in the dungeon and resume when the plot picks up again. It's great that those scenes are there for people who want the indulgence (which is, after all, a key reason why we read and write fic!) but it's not my indulgence.
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(A small side bar: I find this fascinating because for a great chunk of my adult life, I took birth control pills for medical reasons. Though I had no idea at the time, it turned me into a functional zombie. I had minimal interest in sex, that only became noticeable during certain times of the month. But worse than that, I was also emotionally flatlined. No highs and everything at a basic, if manageable, low. My friends jokingly referred to me as the Human Eeyore. At various points in time, doctors tried to put me on anti-depressives with disastrous results. I lived that way, thinking that was normal for me. Until one day, I decided for some unknown reason, to go off the Pill. It was like I came to life. Like I'd been sleepwalking and for the first time I was now fully awake. We're not just talking about an interest in sex, we're talking about *everything*. Finding my emotions again, my creativity, my sense of adventure, my willingness to take risks. There are times now when I'm advised to go back on the Pill for those same medical reasons, and I would *never* go back. I'd rather live fully with the consequences instead. So it was very interesting to see here how many other people sited their hormonal state as a strong factor in what kinds of fic they sought out...and how many did not. Which tells me that I'm not some sort of freak, after all.)
But back to your other points here. I would have to say that any 100,000 word fic that belabors *any* point, be it sex or medical details or the blow-by-blow account of a huge army battle would have me skimming those sections as well. If I start skimming however, it is usually a sign that the story has somehow failed to engage me on some level and I personally consider it a bad sign when I start doing it myself during a story or a movie or whatever. So I was astonished to read how many people skim the sex scenes routinely.
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting slightly what you are saying here, but there seems to be the slight implication that a detail-rich and a detail-pedantic story fit into similar categories here. Surely there is a difference? A gripping story that keeps you engaged shouldn't have you noticing the word count in the end. It should flow without making you yawn and roll your eyes and skip forward to the next bit. I don't think that's what you're really saying because you mentioned at the beginning that you like epic length fic, but it does sound a bit as though, in general, longer stories are simply too long by virtue of containing too much detail. And that this somehow also equates to *unnecessary* and excessively wordy detail. That the story would have a cleaner, sharper edge without it. Which is a very interesting perspective indeed, if that's what you're saying.
I usually don't sit down with any sort of word goal in mind when I write a story. I just sort of tell the story until I feel like it's done, which perhaps does lead to pedantic wandering in circles. And I know of authors who prefer to leave out explicit sex scenes, saying 'it didn't fit in with the tone of the story', which I can completely understand. There are tons of genres I *simply don't get* and I'm glad that there are people out there who do love them and enjoy reading and writing them. This topic was a little different because of the suggestion that some people would still read a story *anyway*, but routinely skim a section of it. Which still is a fascinating and enlightening piece of information.
no subject
Hmmm, maybe I'm explaining myself poorly (always an issue *g*). What I was specifically responding to was the part of your original comment in which you stated that for you, showing the sex (as opposed to merely implying that the characters had sex) was an integral component of slash for you -- without it, the story may as well be gen, with no sexual/romantic relationship between the characters at all. (Pardon me if I misunderstood, but that's what I got out of your comment.) And for me, this is a somewhat alien perspective to how I read; I don't really consider any component of the story vital in that way, and as a reader, I often prefer to have things hinted rather than shown -- I just get more satisfaction from filling in the blanks than having everything laid out.
I think there is an excellent example of this in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Though I've sort of lost my Lewis tolerance to a large degree as an adult, I loved the Narnia books when I was a kid. After watching the movie, I went back to the book to compare them, and was absolutely floored that the climactic battle scene from the movie, which I remembered, wasn't in the book at all! The fighting, Edmund being mortally wounded, all of that ... it wasn't shown and was basically just sketched in with a little bit of after-the-fact description. This boggled me because, on the one hand, I actually remembered it as if it had happened; and on the other hand, if you're going to spend most of the book building up to an epic clash between good and evil, you'd think you'd show it, wouldn't you? But that wasn't where the story was; the story was elsewhere, and it obviously wasn't necessary to show the battle in any detail, because I never once considered that something was missing, or even noticed that it was missing.
The reader's brain really has an incredible ability to fill in details, as long as these "missing" details are handled with a deft touch and not just chopped out to shorten the story.
I definitely get that one of the main reasons why we read and write fanfic is because official canon (shows, books, movies) tend to leave out non-plot-essential scenes, and a lot of what we want to see are those interstitial scenes -- the characters having breakfast or watching a movie; what happens in the infirmary after they pull the body out of the wreckage; the long-awaited first date that happened after the credits rolled. I get that, and it's very often what I'm here for too -- so I'm never going to criticize a fan writer for wanting to put in everything: we (fanficcers) tend to fail at brevity for a very good reason -- because we're writing what we would have wanted to see, and we're including the scenes that scratch our id.
Also, one person's definition of "necessary to the plot" is going to be wildly different from another's. I typically watch TV with a laptop or other project in my lap, and when I'm not engaged, I occupy myself with the project instead; there are lots of scenes that the screenwriters obviously considered "necessary" (or emotionally fulfilling, or whatever) that interest me not a bit. And there are also parts that make me go, "Aargh! Why'd you cut away there? I wanted more of that! I wanted a whole novel's worth of that!" ... which is when we go and write our own. *g*
(Running out of space ... more comment to come shortly!)
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Yes, that's a very nice summation there.
What I was specifically responding to was the part of your original comment in which you stated that for you, showing the sex (as opposed to merely implying that the characters had sex) was an integral component of slash for you -- without it, the story may as well be gen, with no sexual/romantic relationship between the characters at all. (Pardon me if I misunderstood, but that's what I got out of your comment.) And for me, this is a somewhat alien perspective to how I read; I don't really consider any component of the story vital in that way, and as a reader, I often prefer to have things hinted rather than shown -- I just get more satisfaction from filling in the blanks than having everything laid out.
Yeah, that was me not being clear. Blame it on having a fever for three days in a row. What I meant was that I consider sex an integral part of any romantic (for lack of a better word) relationship and one of the things that fanfic can give us that canon often leaves to the imagination. So therefore, if I am writing a story about two characters in a relationship, as opposed to a gen story, some element of sexuality is usually present.
That's not to say that I can't see where it might not have a place in the story if the story doesn't warrant it. That's not to say I haven't skimmed over sex scenes that bored me as they were written or that I haven't read a sex scene that I found unbelievable and hence, lost interest in the story. It's the idea that someone routinely does it that I find interesting and, to be honest, as an author I find disconcerting as well.
It's a little like finding out that someone routinely skips the science stuff in a story because they aren't really interested in it and they can enjoy the story without understanding the plot point that it turns on there. There's nothing wrong or abnormal about that. It's just it would make me blink a little to find that out because I would be disconcerted by the information. I'd want to try to explain why I thought understanding the science was cool or important when, as long as the reader enjoys the story, it really doesn't matter at all, does it?
no subject
This topic was a little different because of the suggestion that some people would still read a story *anyway*, but routinely skim a section of it.
Well ... a number of people in this discussion have said that they write sex to turn themselves on, or their readers, and that they read sex to be turned on. Which is fantastic, and good for them! But since I don't get turned on by sex scenes, then my options are basically a) avoid reading all NC-17 stories, or b) skip the parts of an NC-17 story that are plainly not written for people like me, and enjoy the rest of it.
I mean, the answers definitely have been all over the map on that one; it's clear that not everyone who writes sex scenes does so primarily to turn on their readers (or themselves). But there's no real way for me as a reader to tell the difference between a sex scene that's in the story as stroke material, and one that's there to impart vital plot information. Just like there's no way for me to tell the difference between a scene of the team at breakfast that's there because the writer loves writing banter and thinks the team are very cute together, and a breakfast scene that's dropping vital plot clues which will become important later on. Because life is short and my time to read is limited, unless I happen to be in the mood for witty breakfast banter, or know and trust that writer not to lead me astray, I'll skim ahead to the team going through the gate, or the saboteur planting a bomb, or whatever the reason is that I'm reading the story in the first place. (And if what I want is witty breakfast banter -- or the characters being cute and doofy in bed ... or whatever, then I'll stick around for the scenes in which they're doing that.)
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting slightly what you are saying here, but there seems to be the slight implication that a detail-rich and a detail-pedantic story fit into similar categories here. Surely there is a difference? A gripping story that keeps you engaged shouldn't have you noticing the word count in the end. It should flow without making you yawn and roll your eyes and skip forward to the next bit.
Oh, definitely! And I may have screwed up my own point by bringing up word count in the first place; I like long fic, like I said, and you're absolutely right that a good, gripping story isn't going to leave you contemplating how long it was. But the point I'm making here, I guess, is that one person's definition of "important detail" or "too much detail" is going to be different from the next person's; it's not exclusively dictated by the story, but also by the emotional (and sexual!) needs of the writer (and the reader). As an h/c reader, I dislike long recovery stories (though I've read a few I liked -- usually when there was a lot of other things going on around it, or else a very strong thread of character growth and change tying it together). But some people absolutely love them, which is why there are so many of them out there (I assume).
I also definitely feel that it often is very obvious, and hurts the story, if a writer shies away from writing sex scenes (or graphic violence, or religious intolerance, or Rodney being an asshole, or whatever they're squeamish about) simply because they don't want to write those scenes. I'm not going to go so far as to say that they ought to write it anyway, because again, it's fanfic, and we're here for fun; someone whose fantasy stops at the bedroom door shouldn't feel like they need to put in the sex just to please their readers, even if the story ends up failing to satisfy some of their readers because of it. But I do feel that it produces better stories if the writer's decision of whether or not to include the sex scenes has to do with their vision for the story and not because they're allowing their strengths and weaknesses as a writer to dictate the story's direction.
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Well, I would have to say that I usually include sex in a story because I think it's part of the relationship that I am trying to explore in that particular story. I have a tendency to write a lot of 'first time' stories because there is so much built-in angst and tension there; the sex is a very big part of that. Since I'm including sex, I feel like it is my 'duty' somehow, to make it as hot and engaging as I possibly can. So, if it doesn't make me hot and bothered, than I feel like I've missed the mark. Because, until I get feedback, that's the only gauge I have. I've run a few polls regarding what people think is hot and the answers, like those here, have been all over the place. I'm never quite convinced that what I find hot will be appealing to anyone else. But I do think about these things and work hard at creating a scene that I think is not only hot but believable and works within the story. So if any feelings are getting pinged here, it is probably one of 'but how could you skip that part? I worked so hard at it...' Or *any* part, really. But now that I know that it exists on a wider scale than previous expected, it is definitely something that I will take into consideration the next time I write something. It may not change the outcome in the end, but it will certainly be on my mind.
But I do feel that it produces better stories if the writer's decision of whether or not to include the sex scenes has to do with their vision for the story and not because they're allowing their strengths and weaknesses as a writer to dictate the story's direction.
I agree. Only sometimes, it is hard to tell the author's intent. I've read some lovely stories where a graphic sex scene really would jar with the rest of the story. There are other times when my reaction is 'whoa, what just happened here?' Which is probably what I remembered most when responding to my idea of what my usual FTB reaction would be.
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I just sort of tell the story until I feel like it's done, which perhaps does lead to pedantic wandering in circles.
*nods* That's absolutely how I write, and I'm sure there is a ton of aimless wandering in my stories (some of which I manage to strip out on the revisions, and some of which stays in). But -- I guess I keep emphasizing this, but I do think it's important: a lot of what seems like aimless wandering to me (and therefore gets cut) might be exactly what some readers are looking for, and a lot of what I find to be aimless wandering in other people's writing is somebody else's idea of a perfect, emotionally satisfying story.
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:-)
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Huh. For me, slash/gen/het is about the state of the principle relationships in a story, and that's all.
(I recently did wonder why a Sherlock Holmes story faded to black - it was kind of jarring, and the author writes explicit sex, so it's not like she never goes there. To every rule an exception, I guess!)
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Poorly worded, my apologies. Blame it on the fever I've had for the last 3 days.
I guess what I meant to say here is that if I am writing a slash story, then I consider sex to be an integral part of that relationship and something that I'm going to explore within the confines of that story as a result. It is rare when I can think of a situation in which I would write a slash story where sex really didn't have a place within it somewhere.
(I recently did wonder why a Sherlock Holmes story faded to black - it was kind of jarring, and the author writes explicit sex, so it's not like she never goes there. To every rule an exception, I guess!)
I would have found that jarring as well, and wondered why this story was the exception. In this situation (author who otherwise writes explicit scenes), I would have thought about whether it worked better in this story than not. I would have also wondered if this was a new relationship for the writer (lord knows, when I am just learning the characters, I have enough on my plate trying to seat them in a *chair* in character without getting them into bed with someone just yet). :-)
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Ugh! I hope you're feeling better.
I guess what I meant to say here is that if I am writing a slash story, then I consider sex to be an integral part of that relationship and something that I'm going to explore within the confines of that story as a result. It is rare when I can think of a situation in which I would write a slash story where sex really didn't have a place within it somewhere.
I've written three slash stories; so, maybe 5% of my total (90% of the rest are gen, and maybe 5% have some het content). Of these:
(1) As a result of the events of Grace Under Pressure, Rodney realizes his superego is Sam, ergo female, ergo he can get involved with John and not violate USAF regs. He explains this to John while John is getting him warmed up in a outdoor hot tub (Atlantis has to have at least one); John is amused, but there's no way he's going to act on it while Rodney is still hypothermic and semi-deranged.
(2) After the events of the episode where Katie Brown drops Rodney, John tracks Rodney down and light making out follows. Fade to black, because the point of the story was the transition of the relationship; and I'm, again, not sure Rodney was in a state of mind in which John would have let things proceed to sex.
(3) I have Ronon journal about his camping trip with John while Rodney and Jennifer are on Earth. He mentions he and John "fool around" but I don't add details because I doubt Ronon would. If I'd written that story differently things would have been spelled out a bit more explicitly, but not really erotically because the story is about the general deterioration of the team dynamic at the end of S5.
So... I can imagine writing explicit fic, but my stories haven't gone there. Maybe if they were longer!
- Helen
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I'm not saying that fade-to-black isn't sometimes extremely appropriate. And I have several friends who feel that FTB is more appropriate for the type of story they are writing. I don't see anything wrong or unusual in that, just, on the whole, for me, sometimes FTB catches me off guard, like it did for you in the SH story.
I'm feeling a bit better today, thanks. But the BF has caught it and he is feeling *very* sorry for himself. :-)