Reading Sex Scenes
BY ANONYMOUS
Snuggled under the blankets at around 10:30pm on a Thursday night, the warm light of my iPad’s night shift mode illuminates my glasses-less face. The text scrawled across the screen - a love story about a tall, dark, and handsome fae king and his beloved, a siren - has just reached its long awaited climax. That is, the two of them have just confessed their undying love for each other after seven years in the making and are about to show each other just how unbearable those seven years apart were.
The scene starts off sweetly enough. They move together into a sweet embrace, the top of her head tucked gently under his chin as they revel in their newfound adoration for each other. He peppers kisses along the contours of her face; her forehead, both eyelids, her cheeks, her chin. Tears of joy silently stream down her cheeks, which he catches with his tender lips. Their faces hovering just inches apart, eyes gazing at their counterparts, communicating the intensity of their emotions and the contentment that either of them feels. And finally, their lips meet in a knee-weakening kiss; their tongues feverishly intertwined, giving and taking every ounce of emotion they can find in the moment. When the tension has built to an unbearable point, they begin to strip each other of their clothes, desperately tugging at the fabric that prevents their heated skin from touching. The siren takes in the sight of her nude lover. Skimming his skin with her eyes, she relays to me that, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen [name] fully naked. His eyes watched me watch him with a hunger that I knew all too well. The corners of his mouth turned up into a confident smirk as he registered the pure admiration that shone in my eyes. The muscles on his body seemed to be sculpted by the finest artist to walk this earth - no, the heavens, even. Each of his wonderfully chiseled pecs was punctuated by rosey nipples, a rippling set of abs trailing below. As he moved towards me on the bed, his cock -” His what? I stared at the dim screen in incredulity, my eyes narrowing at the author’s choice of words. The spell of the couple’s loving embrace broken, I began to contemplate my life choices of reading a steamy romance novel at 10:30 on a Thursday when most of my peers were probably acting these very scenes out themselves, albeit in a less dramatic way. Next, I contemplate the author’s reasons for deciding the word “cock” was the best option in this situation when I can think of several more... fitting terms laying here under my comforter: “his arousal,” “his length,” “his desire.” Now, I wouldn’t call myself a prude or anything. I guess I’m just a stickler for continuity, especially when it comes to sex scenes in books. There’s a huge difference (to me at least) between sex scenes and love making scenes. Obviously there’s a whole lot of circumstances that might make certain scenes deviate from being placed specifically in either of the two categories, but strictly speaking there’s a distinguishing factor. Most of the time you’ll know it’s a sex scene because the context surrounding it warrants a rougher tone of language. For instance, if the scene also incorporates dirty talk or the events leading up to the scene are a bit more rushed, it would make more sense to me to use words like “cock” or “dick” or “pussy” to describe genitals. On the other hand, when the events leading up to the sex are made up of tender moments and careless whispers, it’s quite jarring to suddenly read the word “cock” following a beautifully narrated, heartfilled length of text. In my opinion, I would rather read more roundabout terms used to describe genitalia such as “his length,” “her warmth,” etc. etc. Yeah, at times it sounds cheesy - I get it - but in this case it places the emphasis on the emotional aspect of having sex rather than the act itself, thus a love making scene. I can recall a scene I read from another story over winter break, set during the past in a fictionalized version of somewhere in Europe; about a petite, red-haired and freckled woman - the owner of a castle and estate - who by some circumstance ends up getting married to a man who is dark-haired, brash, and anything but petite, without having met each other previously. It was purely for convenience at the beginning since she had an estate and he wanted one. So, naturally that’s how it played out. Anyway, this book has earned its place high up on my ranking of sex scenes in books because of its beautifully written and, quite frankly, hot as shit, sex scenes. The reason being that the scenes were punctuated with gentle, loving language - no cocks or pussies to be found. They focused on the emotional connection being made, and the pleasure gleaned from that, rather than just the act of having sex. Of course, there are times when I’m in the mood to read a scene that is only about the sex. Unfortunately I haven’t come across any books that have scenes like that in them, as I tend to prefer books that rely mainly on the non-sexual interactions between the characters. Usually if I’m looking for something that’s purely sex, I’ll find a “lemon” - a fanfiction that is written with the intent of the characters having sex. This happens very rarely though, the last time I remember actively searching for something like this was when I was in my sophomore year of highschool. In these, I don’t mind the language being crude because that’s what I came for and it’s what I’m expecting. If I was reading one of these and it was taking too long to get to the sex, I would often get exasperated and skip ahead. Similarly, if I came across any scenes describing how much they loved each other, etc., etc., I would skip ahead, or find one that was less long winded. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that I enjoy reading sex scenes where softer language is used, and the act is significant to the plot in some way. It’s hard to mix the elements of a meaningful sex scene and crude language without creating a scene that feels disordinant, like what happened in the case of the first story I mentioned. Either way, in my eyes, a sex scene, a love making scene, or whatever you want to call it will 99% of the time improve the story no matter the circumstances. |