Sex Scenes...

From Booking Through Thursday:

Do you have "issues" with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) "romantic" scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them? (grin)

Issues? No, no issues. I love romance. I love good sex scenes, and they are sadly rare. I'd like to find more.

I suppose I do have an issue with sex scenes that are written as if the author didn't want to deal with sex - metaphorical flights of fancy, contrived euphemisms, lack of inspiration. I think sex scenes need the same values of all other writing: good concepts, careful word choices, convincing characterization. Above that, they need a sense of sensuousness. Funny how many sex scenes just skip that.

Scenes in fanfic can be much better than sex scenes in published stories because they are not constrained by formula or censorship. I think the odds are greater, too, that the writer is writing about sex because they want to, not because the think they ought to for sales or genre expectations.

If I've closed a book because of the sex in it, it's because the sex was boring. Occasionally I have stopped reading a book because I found the language distasteful or the attitude to sex unpleasant, but in these cases I didn't like the writer's style with other subjects either. Invariably these writers are men. And the problem is not usually sex, but sexism.

The good ones...

This one relates directly to the question from Sept. 13. From Booking Through Thursday:

Imagine that everything is going just swimmingly. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. You’re practically bouncing from health and have money in your pocket. The kids are playing and laughing, the puppy is chewing in the cutest possible manner on an officially-sanctioned chew toy, and in between moments of laughter for pure joy, you pick up a book to read . . .

What is it?

I might just go on reading The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, the perfect all-purpose read. Or pick up another one of my favourite authors: Lois McMaster Bujold, Guy Gavriel Kay, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Maria Doria Russell, Annette Curtis Klause, Megan Whalen Turner, Diana Wynne Jones - what is it with these tripartate names? - Karin Lowachee, Ellen Kushner, Georgette Heyer, Tolkien....

Or just randomly try something new.

Happy Birthday...

To toraks:






I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful year - good research, good reading, happy times with your family and friends.

Barrowman and a birthday...

This evening I took my friend Donna out to Sushi Kan for her birthday, and then we went back to my place and I showed her the last episode of Torchwood which she hadn't seen, "End of Days", and then we both watched the first episode, "Everything Changes" on regular TV because it is at last being shown on the CBC.

It was wonderful.

A nice ending to a stressful day.