Monday is for shitpollsting about sex in fanfic

[lunabee34]

I was just commenting in china_shop's journal that I don't write much explicit fanfic anymore and that I don't really read it much now either. When I first got into fanfic, the porn aspect was novel for me, and almost everything I read was explicit. Now if I do read explicit fanfic, I'm just as likely to skip all the sex scenes so I can get to the good parts: Draco crying in the bathroom because Harry hates him or Tony crying in the workshop because Steve hates him or, you know, some other people crying and misunderstanding each other egregiously (like in ways that stretch the limits of credulity).

And that got me to wondering about what the rest of you think about sex in fanfic. Please discuss any and all points in comments! Tangents welcome.

Poll #22479 And then the taller man licked into the tallest man's mouth

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

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I often skip the sex scenes in explicit fanfic.

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yes, and I'm going to tell you why in comments
9 (25.7%)

no
12 (34.3%)

how much is often?
14 (40.0%)

Never thought I'd be reading fic that features __________, but here I am. Reading it.

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OT3's

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do not solve love triangles, sheesh.
8 (25.0%)

are the best way to resolve love triangles, sheesh.
24 (75.0%)

Effective sex scenes are really hard to write.

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yes; I mean you can't just write, "she tasted like strawberries, and sugar, and something uniquely her," TWO times in a single fic
14 (42.4%)

no; you get the right combo of elements (say, spanking, some egg custard, and a little light bondage) and *somebody* out there's going to find it hot
5 (15.2%)

sometimes
14 (42.4%)

Comments

[notasupervillain]

OT3s can work, but I think they need to be character based, not as a solution to a writer's problem.

In my mind, there are three kinds of sex in fan fic.

1. IKEA sex. Tab A goes into slot B. I could not be more bored when I read or write this.

2. Erotica about your faves! There was a neat bit of spoken word poetry going around Tumblr about this (I can try to find it if you're curious?), where the poet said she hated porn because it presented sex as body parts and not as whole people. So she loved slash fic, because it was a real person with a full personality and desires having sex, not a collection of parts.

3. Feelings sex. This is what I write. The characters have a lot of feelings towards each other, and they use (or don't use) their bodies to express this. You think Draco crying in the bathroom because Harry doesn't love him is intense? What about Draco, cock buried inside Harry, body purposefully positioned behind Harry so Draco doesn't have to look Harry in the eye and know that Harry doesn't love him. Sex can be a vehicle to intensify the emotions in a dynamic. I love reading those. And writing them.

[jackandahat]

Came here to say this about OT3s - for me it's not about love triangles, it's about a specific dynamic between those three character (or the dynamics between them as pairs).

My main OT3 is Leverage, Eliot/Hardison/Parker. (For clarification - M/M/F). Hardison and Parker are a canon couple. At no point is there any indication Eliot is trying to date Parker, take her away from Hardison, or any other love triangle trope. But they work for me as a unit and as combinations in between that.

(An argument could be made that they're a canon OT3 based on finale/word of god, but I was shipping them way before that.)

Sometimes it is love triangles - I've written Wolverine/Jean Grey/Cyclops before, but it's not about resolving the triangle so much as me looking at Cyclops fighting Wolverine and going "Are you mad because 'your girl' wants to shag him, or because you do?"

[notasupervillain]

Oooo I think I just understood something from reading your comment.

One of the things that bothers me about OT3 is when the answer is clearly that these people are POLY, not that these people are always in a triad relationship. In Reanimator, maybe Dan needs to date Megan AND Herbert, but Herbert shouldn't be left in the same room as Megan let alone date her. (Though, that also gets at one of my pet peeves - some people, like Herbert, are fundementally monogamous types and the author can't override that just to write an ending for their fic).

[jackandahat]

I think I get what you mean?

Like using my OT3 as an example, you have 3 pairs - Hardison/Parker, Hardison/Eliot, Eliot/Parker. Any one of those would work for me as a ship, even if you were just writing a pairing. (The last 2 you would have to explain why Hardison/Parker didn't work out since it's canon, but that can be done.) And none of them are people I see as *immovably* monogamous - there might need to be some thinking done, but it's a change of opinion rather than worldview.

And I'm fine with ones where a third person balances things out and makes it healthier (like say you have A and B who Do Not Talk Feelings, and C who is great at that, or A and B are both Very Serious and C is more light hearted) but you have to still have all the combinations work at least short term for me to enjoy it.

[lunabee34]

I was mostly joking about the OT3 solving love triangles. It seems like every argument I see about OT3s involves either joy or consternation at the suggestion that an OT3 could solve a love triangle problem.

"Are you mad because 'your girl' wants to shag him, or because you do?"

I love that so so so much. And what a perfect OT3 for that dynamic.

I really love team OT3or4 (like the Gate teams on SGA). My osmosis tells me that Leverage is a team show, too. Is that what draws you to OT3 them, the whole die for each other got each other's backs thing? Or something else?

[lunabee34]

I am mostly kidding about the way I framed the OT3 question. Reading FFA has taught me that people on both sides of the OT3 divide can be extremely indignant about them with the solving a love triangle accusation thrown about quite a bit.

I would be interested in seeing that. Thanks!

#3 is definitely my platonic ideal of the way the sex scene should work. I don't think I find myself writing as many of those as I'd like.

The Things They Carried

[executrix]

I'm interested in "what does the way this character have sex tell us about the character?" So in my intoabar fic, I mention the pas-de-deux structure of that one time Jenna and Avon had sex, for not particularly admirable reasons, but without details, but I do mention what they brought along for a nooner.

BTW the ultimate "it's a fair cop, guv" is when a B7 fan said "You only write Blake POV so you can perv more over Avon."

Re: The Things They Carried

[lunabee34]

Ahahhaahhahaha. Isn't that why Blake exists?

Re: The Things They Carried

[executrix]

No, Blake exists to teach us How Not to Run a Rebellion.

It occurs to me that somewhere in this thread there should be a sub-thread called "Reply to An Entry."

Re: The Things They Carried

[lunabee34]

Bless his heart as we say.

[notasupervillain]

So, trigger warning for rape on the poem. The words are here, but it's well worth seeing her speak it on YouTube https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poetrylyrics.tumblr.com/post/125615167355/ask-me-what-kind-of-porn-i-am-into-and-i-will&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjn4Lexue_jAhWxoFwKHSy_Dr8QFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw1wC5hipd7l1A1e0D7FatUy

‘Fantastic Breasts and Where to Find Them’ by Brenna Twohy

If you would like you read some very explicit fan fic that I consider the ideal #3 to strive for, I'll send you a link to that as well?

[lunabee34]

Oh, wow. That is fantastic if you will pardon the bun. Thank you. Really powerful stuff.

Link me up, please!

[notasupervillain]

Yeah, if all of slash fic exists solely to generate that poem, I'd say it was worth it.

Here we are! It is very explicitly porny, but it is also one of the saddest fics and might be my favourite fan fic I've ever read. I don't know if you've watched the reanimator movies, but you don't really have to for this one. Herbert is a Mad Scientist whose sexuality is never established in canon, but who it's hard not to read as gay and desparately in both love and lust for his classmate/roommate/reluctant partner in Mad Science, Dan. Dan is most certainly canon straight because he has lots of sex with women and he is definitely not bisexual because he is a Man. Their particular batch of Mad Science is bringing the dead back to life, in whole or in parts.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309933

[lunabee34]

I am familiar with the Lovecraft; my husband is a huge fan and wrote his MA thesis largely on that story. I know I've seen the movie, but it's been 20 years?

*goes to read*

[notasupervillain]

Tell me what you think! Unless you hate it, don't tell me then.

[lunabee34]

I did not hate it! I think it's really well done.

I love the way that Herbert is always thinking of Dan in parts or as parts that add up to a whole, etc. His ruminations on life are really appropriate for the character. The way he's an experimental scientist the whole way through, issues of control.

This is a perfectly good example of a sex scene that's in service of character.

Thanks for linking me.

[notasupervillain]

Yay!

It's what I want to be able to write.