In a recent-ish Wednesday Links post, I featured an article from author Yulin Kuang about the art of writing a good sex scenes. This is such a subjective element in reading and commenter Emily C. thought the idea of what really makes a good sex scene is a great topic for discussion post.
Here are some of our thoughts:
What makes a good sex scene?
Sarah: I have a confession: I often skim or skip sex scenes. It’s rare that one is interesting or engaging, in part because I’ve read so many romances that the language and mechanics become repetitive and the progression to the orgasms is often boring. So that diminishes my ability to say with any authority what is or isn’t good. Grain of salt for the following.
When I was researching Beyond Heaving Bosoms, Lisa Kleypas said in an interview (I’m paraphrasing here) that an effective sex scene causes as many problems as it solves. I think that is the baseline of a good sex scene for me. Think of how many shows jump the shark because ‘they did it,’ and thereby eliminate all the tension between the characters. A good sex scene will likely alleviate some of the sexual tension that’s been built up, but will also introduce or be a catalyst to more tension.
As I’m writing this I realize that much of my desire in my reading is for emotional interiority and internal conflict as the driving motivation and conflict in the story – I’m not much for external conflict and danger boning, I’m afraid. I’m not as into “The world will END if we do (or don’t) go to bonetown” plots, and much prefer “MY world will end if we go to bonetown (or don’t).” So a good sex scene for me addresses the primary sexual tension between the characters, but also adds additional tension so that the remaining story isn’t flaccid and uninteresting because the tension is all gone.
Mary Robinette Kowal gives a workshop about nesting conflicts like HTML code. When you’re writing HTML, any codes that are opened have to be closed in reverse order so that they nest correctly, and the same is true for conflicts. The conflicts/problems that are introduced have to be alleviated in the reverse order or the resulting conclusion can feel uneven. So the timing of addressing pants feelings is very important!
I’ll think on this more, but a good sex scene for me is, to cite Kleypas, one that doesn’t alleviate all the tension, and often causes more problems for the characters. I don’t much care about the language unless it’s funny (TURGID MEMBER. WANTON CAVERN.) because I’ve read so many: they blend together into a mass of writhing parts.
Elyse: I need the sex scene to fit the book. I don’t read based on how explicit the book is/isn’t but I’m really taken out of a story when the sex scene doesn’t match the rest of the narrative. I’ve noticed, maybe due to the influence of BookTok, that a lot of books have sex scenes that feel like they’re more explicit than what the narrative calls for and it comes across as awkward or forced.
Lara: I need a huge amount of emotional connection in order to enjoy a sex scene in a book. Like Sarah, I often skim or skip them, especially if they get repetitive within the book. If they’re too formulaic, that’s also a no no for me. I’m with Elyse that I need the sex scene to feel like it belongs to the rest of the book. Their sex actions must be in line with their other actions in the book.
Sarah: Oh, that’s a good point – sometimes the sex scenes include dialogue or choices that really don’t fit the characters. I remember reading a letter from a listener on the podcast who said they’d realized they were demisexual in part because of their reaction to sex scenes in books where the characters didn’t have an emotional connection beforehand.
I wonder if our perspectives are similar because we’re all readers from a specific time in romance, and if readers who are younger than us, or readers who have discovered the genre where it is right now, are looking for a different sexual component to their romances?
When I think about historical romances from the 90s and early 00s, and the sex scenes therein, woo, boy, were they different in emphasis and in, uh, performance.
Sneezy: I appear! A younger(ish) reader! In a puff of smoke!
So growing up, my reading experience was shaped as much by the internet as published books, plus manga! I tell you, the underground ring of horny manga trafficking – half of our parents thought manga and anime would rot our brains and ruin our future as doctors and lawyers, and the library would RIP OUT pages if there was so much as half a panel with a girl making out in her bra. But with fanfiction, web novels, and web comics, with no publishing industry or censorship legislation to keep us in check, we ran wild, and we were HORNY. They were safe spaces to explore our sexuality and comfort anxieties we didn’t have the words for yet.
I’m one of those people who like to indulge in the fantasy of being intensely desired on occasion. Apparently this is a common fantasy for women, though now I also wonder how much this varies from generation to generation. Combined with the unhinged glory of fanfiction.net and a shit ton more sites, it made me a reader okay with gratuitous sex scenes all throughout a story if that’s what I’m expecting. Sometimes I just want a big, dumb story where they’re pretty much just fucking the whole time, because they’re just that into each other, and Orgasm Orca is splashing about 24/7. Or maybe I’m in the mood for a super low stakes story where the characters are just happy and chill and having great sex all the time. It just depends on my mood.
It’s not that emotional resolution isn’t important, or that all levels of dumb are fine. Even when I’m looking for porn-without-plot, I’m not looking for an isolated sex scene, I’m looking for an entire fantasy. I think this might be why erotica is so trope heavy. Tropes not only let the story speedrun world and character building, but also let the reader know what headspace the story is in. Same with why PWPs work so well in fanfiction. No one wants to spend much brain on learning about the cell structures of aliens with retractable tentacles just then, we just want to know what they do with the tentacles!!! But if you just tell me there’s an alien boning a human, that’s not enough either!!! I need to know if the alien did an amazing mating display, if their mating call is vibrating all the way through their tentacles because they just THAT horny for their lover, who whisked who off to an entirely foreign planet so their lover could never ever leave – that’s all part of the fun! And at the end of it all, whether they’re in a cuddle or a puddle, I need to get a sense of how their lives continue. Partly to round out the fantasy, and partly for a sort of cerebral aftercare. Eroticas and PWP stories might have simpler emotional conflicts, but without that throughline being drawn through the story and given space to breathe and resolve at the very end, the sex scene is dull and meaningless.
What the tropes are also lets me know what the ‘rules’ are for the fantasy space the story is in. ‘Rules’ is a crude word, but basically, the story can’t do anything to break the fantasy. This is where tags are so important. Different tropes and sub-genres have their own sets of conventions, and if the story steps too far out or goes against the core intention of the fantasy, it’s not just unsexy, it’s a broken trust and I wouldn’t read anything by that author, mangaka, or comic artist again. If I’m going into an alien erotica, I’m there for the otherworldly, the strange, the anatomically impossible sex for humans to have. But if the story goes into body horror, that’s a completely separate thing, one I find particularly upsetting, and needs its own tag. If I know the story is a dub-con dark romance with a yandere (or more), the fantasy is being told you’re a good girl being given all the orgasms and foot rubs and great food by an overtly enthusiastic partner with none of the energy or anxieties that comes with making decisions or asking for them. But if the story with the same tags has the main character cooking and cleaning, on pins and needles to please the love interest, then dumped on the side of the road in the pouring rain, the love interest is not a yandere, probably not even a love interest, this is not what I’m here for, be banished to the eighth ring of hell. That’s the ring where all the books yeeted in fury and disgust go to burn.
Jokes aside, it’s a broken trust because I’m in a vulnerable headspace where I’m opening myself to taboos and desires I don’t feel safe engaging in anywhere else. Being caught unawares in that headspace is extremely upsetting. The difficulty is of course that line not always being clearly defined as it’s subjective in some areas. I’m very fine with tentacles sprouting more tentacles, but that could be a bridge too far for some.
It also matters if it’s a het or queer romance. In queer romances, I usually want super fluffy, no one’s in danger, nothing bad ever happens, and conflicts are either the realities of how two people fit together or how the couple has to convince their sentient mushroom neighbour to stop covering their house with spores. On the occasion I’m reading a more intense story, the sex scenes still have to be loving and free of cis-het coding. With het romances, that’s where I have bandwidth for dark romances.
I’ve heard people say sex and sexual desires are inherently transgressive, hence the ways anxieties get expressed and explored through taboos and sex in stories, and I agree. I think for people who experience sexual desire, different anxieties get linked with sex in their minds. The expressions of those fears and desires could also be different even if the underlying link is the same. I think that’s why one group of people who enjoy vampire romance and erotica might be aghast at people who enjoy billionaire romances and erotica or vice versa.
From the examples I gave, you can probably tell I’m also looking for sensory stimulation in sex scenes. Not necessarily to fill up my wank tank, though there’s nothing wrong with that. The stimulation I mean are more along the lines of the cozy feeling of seeing how caring the characters are for each other, the psychedelic acid trip of impossibilities in monster sex, the activation from triggers that would send me into fight or flight in real life transmuted to amplify pleasure instead. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but basically if a story is a meal, sex scenes are the dishes I want to be spicy or crunchy or tender or refreshing or with Q all dialed up 100 and higher. Because no other dish can handle those elements with such intensity in quite the same way.
Sarah: That’s really interesting, especially since we approach reading and sex within our reading so differently. If I’m seeing sexual stimulation external to myself but within my own imagination, I don’t look at romance – which is HILARIOUS now that I’ve typed that out, but given that I’ve made reading romance into my job, it also makes sense to me. Because my analytical brain is often fully engaged when I read romance, it’s harder to connect to the emotional/physical reactions that are being encouraged by the book. Oh, how funny. I’m so amused at myself right now.
Shana: A good sex scene has some fluidity in its power dynamics, for me. It’s always annoying when well-rounded characters become one-dimensional gender caricatures in bed. Nothing pulls me out of the book and into analytical romance reader mode like a heroine who lacks all agency or opinions during sex. And intentionally letting someone else run the show counts as agency. I like to see even the most arrogant and demanding alpha heroes have moments of vulnerability, receptivity, or uncertainty during erotic play.
I tend to skim or skip sex scenes if they happen too early in the book, but once you’ve hooked me into being invested in the couples’ happiness, I’m happy to read them having sex again and again and again. I love a sex scene for no narrative reason other than joy.
Tara: I very much agree with Elyse that I need the sex scenes to fit with the rest of the book. I’ve read some romances where the vibe and tone fit with a closed-door romance and I was surprised when that was very much NOT the case, including terminology that would only ever show up in an erotic romance. I’ve also been surprised by the opposite, where everything fades to black, but everything up to that point made me confident that at least one great sex scene would be delivered.
It’s also important to me that sex scenes do something. This is probably similar to what Sarah was talking about above, with scenes creating new problems, but a scene needs to advance the relationship, plot, or both. If a sex scene is just there and doesn’t have any point, I get bored and resent that I bothered to read it.
How about you? What makes a good sex scene? Do you even care about these scenes in the first place? Let us know in the comments!