VIII. Good girls read smut only for the advancement of the plot and the development of the characters?

…and ‘good writers’ would never write erotic scenes for anything but advancing the plot and developing the characters, either.

They’d never ever write an erotic scene to arouse themselves or their readers.

Arousing sex scene = Titillation = Gratuitous = Bad

Because that’s would be titillation. And gratuitous. And prurient.

Good girls don’t want something like that. Only bad girls do.

(But since we’re all modern and empowered nowadays, we can at least proclaim that while arousing scenes in ‘normal’ novels are bad, porn as such is good, and porn writers are brave people.)

(Go us.)

Bullshit.

Most human beings are sexual beings.

Surprisingly enough that includes both women writers and women readers.

Sexual beings are interested in sex. They have sex and they want to have sex. They think about sex, they fantasize about sex. They want to be aroused.

What people find arousing depends on many factors: sexual orientation, culture, age, personal preference…and definitely, gender.

And gender matters in the context of sex scenes in fiction, because—at least statistically^[1]—stories are what inspires female sexual fantasies much more than pictures. For female sexual fantasies context and plot matters. What women regard as PWP, as ‘porn without plot’, in fanfic, many men don’t see as arousing, because there’s too much text.

Sex scenes in stories form the inspiration for female sexual fantasies.

I don’t think it is possible to limit arousal to ‘proper porn’. If it’s true that stories and characters form the essential ingredients for female sexual fantasies, shouldn’t sex scenes that are part of ‘real’ stories or novels be even more arousing than those in trashy romance novels or plain porn? And: Shouldn’t sex scenes that also happen to advance the plot and develop the characters provide even richer food for female sexual fantasies?

An interesting test for fanfic readers: Check a few stories that contain explicit sex scenes but are not PWPs.

How many of the comments about sex scenes refer to how those scenes advance the plot and develop the characters? And how many refer to the reader’s sensual experience of those scenes?

I also don’t believe that a certain sense of arousal can be dismissed as a positive ‘side-effect’ in a sex scene.

Just think that argument through for a humorous scene. (‘It’s possible that this scene may make readers laugh. But it’s really just about advancing the plot and developing the characters.’)

Another interesting observation: I’ve never heard similar caveats about action scenes. And gratuitous violence compared to gratuitous sex?

Obviously there are sex scenes that do not arouse and are not meant to arouse—scenes of rape, abuse, bad sex, parodies.

Arousal is okay!

But if a sex scene is meant to portray sex as a positive experience for the characters and it doesn’t feel the least bit sexy, not at all arousing, sensual, erotic…then I believe that scene is a bad sex scene.

Summing up:

• Arousal-the fact that a positive sex scene feels ‘sexy’—is not an undesirable side-effect when writing positive sex scenes.
• Stories form the food for female sexual fantasies. It’s okay to feel aroused by a sex scene. Both as a writer and as a reader.

^[1] For example, ‘Gender, Romance Novels and Plastic Sexuality in the United States: A Focus on Female College Students’ by Huei-Hsia Wu. Similar: ‘Warrior Lovers – Erotic Fiction, Evolution and Female Sexuality’ by Catherine Salmon and Donald Symons. Yale University Press 2003.