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Sci-fi and fantasy, cheesy or elegant?

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Wicked_Nightmare

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What do you think when you read a phrase like "Set phasers to orgasm?"

To me, a line like this would feel like it's making fun of my taste for eroticized sci-fi, rather than catering to it.

I'm sure some people enjoy that sort of thing though.

But, if for whatever reason you're trying out writing sci-fi/fantasy and have been told, or just know that it's coming off as cheesy, I have a suggestion.

Think about candles, handcuffs, and clothespins. These things aren't inherently sexual, but can be used erotically. Try to think of what types of magic or futuristic science your setting might have for more conventional uses, and then imagine those spells or tools being repurposed in a more exciting way.
 
Wicked_Nightmare said:
What do you think when you read a phrase like "Set phasers to orgasm?"

To me, a line like this would feel like it's making fun of my taste for eroticized sci-fi, rather than catering to it.

I'm sure some people enjoy that sort of thing though.

But, if for whatever reason you're trying out writing sci-fi/fantasy and have been told, or just know that it's coming off as cheesy, I have a suggestion.

Think about candles, handcuffs, and clothes-pins. These things aren't inherently sexual, but can be used erotically. Try to think of what types of magic or futuristic science your setting might have for more conventional uses, and then imagine those spells or tools being re-purposed in a more exciting way.
Click to expand...

We are used to seeing a Phaser used in a particular way for a particular purpose.
If you want to have a tool to deliver, say, an orgasm, then surely a hand-held "Orgasmatron" such as found here.
Alternatively, you'll have to invent a new word for the thing.
 
There's no right or wrong with erotica. Everything is going to turn someone on, while others will either be grossed out or completely indifferent.
 
Didn't realize that my opening example technically fit my suggestion until it was pointed out.

Though in my mind a phaser just happening to have an "orgasm" setting does strike me as lacking in subtlety, so I suppose that's the key thing. An overt incantation like "boobicus expandicus" is another example.

So I guess what I'm actually saying is the genre is ruined for me if the writer gives magic or technology blatantly sexual designations.
 
Wicked_Nightmare said:
What do you think when you read a phrase like "Set phasers to orgasm?"

To me, a line like this would feel like it's making fun of my taste for eroticized sci-fi, rather than catering to it.

I'm sure some people enjoy that sort of thing though.
Click to expand...

For me it would depend a great deal on the type of story. If they're going for some broad humor, stuff like that could be fun. Such as the Roman soldier Gluteus Maximus in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

If the story is more serious, then things like that would likely not go over so well.
 
PennLady said:
For me it would depend a great deal on the type of story. If they're going for some broad humor, stuff like that could be fun. Such as the Roman soldier Gluteus Maximus in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

If the story is more serious, then things like that would likely not go over so well.
Click to expand...

My parody on Star Trek went over like a lead balloon in more ways than one. :rolleyes: :D But it was fun to write.
 
PennLady said:
As long as it was fun to write, that's what counts. :)
Click to expand...
"He's DEAD, Jim! Cute, though..."

"Captain, that is most illogi-" "FUCK YOU, FUNNY-EARS! Pass me the lube!"

"I dinna think the teledildonicolator can hold, Cap'n!"

"A new dilithium-powered anal vibrator? Make it so."

"Set your phasers to Orgasm."

"I don't care which Dax you are -- bend over."

"Oh fuck, not the Fifty Shades Quadrant again!"

"What happens on the holodeck, stays on the holodeck,"
 
Hypoxia said:
"He's DEAD, Jim! Cute, though..."

"Captain, that is most illogi-" "FUCK YOU, FUNNY-EARS! Pass me the lube!"

"I dinna think the teledildonicolator can hold, Cap'n!"

"A new dilithium-powered anal vibrator? Make it so."

"Set your phasers to Orgasm."

"I don't care which Dax you are -- bend over."

"Oh fuck, not the Fifty Shades Quadrant again!"

"What happens on the holodeck, stays on the holodeck,"
Click to expand...

Just for that, here's the link:

Star Trek, The Literotica Episode
 
I pretty much think that ever since Star Trek started to air, cheesy is the first thought of someone picking up Sci-Fi until proven otherwise. :D

Cheesy is popular, though, and can be fun.
 
Think I've figured out what bothers me. It's a lack of effort put into building the fantasy setting.

So my problem with a weapon just happening to have an orgasm setting is that I find it jarring and it seems lazy.
 
Wicked_Nightmare said:
Think I've figured out what bothers me. It's a lack of effort put into building the fantasy setting.

So my problem with a weapon just happening to have an orgasm setting is that I find it jarring and it seems lazy.
Click to expand...

Ah, but what happens if the phasers don't actually have that setting? Perhaps there's a simple "disorient" setting and our fine young space cadets use this level for a very minor skirmish and find the new settings rather more interesting than originally planned.
 
re: Orgasmatrom

a poem I wrote a while back

Hotwired

Hotwired the orgasmatron
headed out on sixty-nine
know there’s nothin up ahead
and even less behind.
Pagination, pixilation
nothing seems to work
maybe just I’m gettin old
maybe just a jerk
off that is
gee whiz
can’t ya take a joke?
Lost in smoke
years since last toke
days since last drink
I think.
As ya'll can see
rhyme don't agree
with me,
so back to blank
slate, mate
and the cheque's
on you.
Iambic to the core
commonman’s snore
such a bore.
Straight from the soul
infinite whole
or is that hole,
wasn’t this
supposed to be
erotica?
Never know
have to go
Now.
 
glynndah said:
Ah, but what happens if the phasers don't actually have that setting? Perhaps there's a simple "disorient" setting and our fine young space cadets use this level for a very minor skirmish and find the new settings rather more interesting than originally planned.
Click to expand...

A team of rogue Federation scientists produced an enhanced phaser with fine-grain settings, especially in the 'stun' region of the PSF (Psycho-Sexual Force) spectrum. These phasers are issued only to select senior officers and include a range of Orgasm levels and types -- oral, anal, genital, full-body, core-deep, skin-only, etc -- as well as ranges of Stimulation levels and types -- hetero- and homo-sex, submission / humiliation, fetishising various objects, forbidden underage-bestial-alien-robot sex, groups, incest, etc. The most restricted phasers also have Transformation settings, very handy for turning the target into whatever sex object is desired. Oh my, Spock has become a female bonobo for an hour!

After inventing the handheld Dimensional Dilator space-time machine in my story A Matter of Time, the PSP (Psycho-Sexual Phaser) described above was a walkover. The tech trick to make sure the dilithium crystals are soaked in banana-slug enzymes for a precise time. No problem.
 
PennLady said:
For me it would depend a great deal on the type of story. If they're going for some broad humor, stuff like that could be fun. Such as the Roman soldier Gluteus Maximus in Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Click to expand...

Hey, the guy was a real ass (sorry, couldn't resist.)
 
Wicked_Nightmare said:
What do you think when you read a phrase like "Set phasers to orgasm?"

To me, a line like this would feel like it's making fun of my taste for eroticized sci-fi, rather than catering to it.
Click to expand...

I think people often opt for broad comedy and parody of sci-fi or fantasy in erotica because playing it straight isn't actually all that easy to pull off: it takes experience with good source material in the genre, a sense of the tipping point between the serious and the absurd, and work even in a short-story format to make sure that everything about the setting and the premise fits together. Parody is a lot easier and a lot safer, there's no better way to shield against mockery than pre-emptively laughing at yourself... and in fairness it can be fun and genuinely funny.
 
R. Richard said:
Hey, the guy was a real ass (sorry, couldn't resist.)
Click to expand...
But what about his buddy Biggus Dickus?

CyranoJ said:
I think people often opt for broad comedy and parody of sci-fi or fantasy in erotica because playing it straight isn't actually all that easy to pull off: it takes experience with good source material in the genre, a sense of the tipping point between the serious and the absurd, and work even in a short-story format to make sure that everything about the setting and the premise fits together. Parody is a lot easier and a lot safer, there's no better way to shield against mockery than pre-emptively laughing at yourself... and in fairness it can be fun and genuinely funny.
Click to expand...
Parody is usually easy. But GOOD parody is not so easy, especially when clumsily bundling a cognitively-challenged ideological viewpoint. (I recall an old Batman comic with new text extolling the KKK.) I tried for gentle parody of LIT psychosexual tropes in A Matter of Time (which could be the pilot episode of a sometimes-parodic time-travel series). I tried to minimize the satire in A Fall of Stardust. Hmmm, around somewhere, there must be tutorials for writing satire and parody. Oh boy, more to study...

Yes, truly sexy F&SF is a challenge. For most, fantasy is too easy (because ANYTHING goes), and SF is too hard (because NOTHING is real). Sure, we can embed the usual F&SF backgrounds behind the usual sexual encounters. Get in the time machine and fuck around with the past and future. Conjure a demon and get hellishly fucked. And don't forget the tentacles, talking dogs, were-unicorns, secular zombies, and more fucking vamps than you can shake a wooden stake at. Most of those DESERVE a parodic treatment, not sensual, not horny. I don't want to meet readers obsessed with zombi sex. Ewww...
 
Hypoxia said:
Yes, truly sexy F&SF is a challenge. For most, fantasy is too easy (because ANYTHING goes), and SF is too hard (because NOTHING is real). Sure, we can embed the usual F&SF backgrounds behind the usual sexual encounters. Get in the time machine and fuck around with the past and future. Conjure a demon and get hellishly fucked. And don't forget the tentacles, talking dogs, were-unicorns, secular zombies, and more fucking vamps than you can shake a wooden stake at. Most of those DESERVE a parodic treatment, not sensual, not horny. I don't want to meet readers obsessed with zombi sex. Ewww...
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this. Writing erotic fantasy or sci-fi often seems to come down to one of two things:

Wicked_Nightmare said:
"Set phasers to orgasm"
Click to expand...

. . . or a more concerted effort to write an original F/SF story, including background material, quirky magic or tech, strange races and so on . . . and then just having characters conveniently jumping in the sack. I don't really think I've read a good erotic sci-fi or fantasy story in which the erotic content was actually necessary to the plot. Or, if I have, then it was a parody that depended upon an overabundance of hokey comedy to move it along (in which case I, personally, didn't see it as being any good in the first place).
 
Oh, I've got one where the sci-fi element (on a space ship, although with minimal setting up of that world) is the sexual aspects of the humans being enhanced through surgery and therefore humanoids being built and rebuilt explicitly as sexual relievers able to accommodate the enhancements of the enhanced humans. Can't have sex much more necessary to the plot than that, I don't think.
 
glynndah said:
Ah, but what happens if the phasers don't actually have that setting? Perhaps there's a simple "disorient" setting and our fine young space cadets use this level for a very minor skirmish and find the new settings rather more interesting than originally planned.
Click to expand...

In that case, we're dealing with an author that weaves a little more (believability, rationality?) into the fantasy world than saying "It's magic/science!" as a way of instantly making something happen, which is exactly what I'm talking about.
 
sr71plt said:
Oh, I've got one where the sci-fi element (on a space ship, although with minimal setting up of that world) is the sexual aspects of the humans being enhanced through surgery and therefore humanoids being built and rebuilt explicitly as sexual relievers able to accommodate the enhancements of the enhanced humans. Can't have sex much more necessary to the plot than that, I don't think.
Click to expand...

Suppose I need to look for that one, then.

My personal problem when it comes to writing anything sci-fi or fantasy is that I place too much emphasis on the genre and characters, and less on the erotic aspect. My mainstream published works are SF/F with very little erotic content at all. That's not because I don't think erotic content belongs there, it's because I'm not thinking about explicit erotic content when I'm writing them. So far, I believe the most I've included, beyond "fade to black" scenes, is an implied blowjob that ends when the woman's lips reach the top of my character's belt and she starts to undo it while looking up at him and saying something about "feeling hungry."

I think I'd like to challenge myself to actually write an erotic SF/F story in which sexuality is a core component. Maybe something akin to a A Boy And His Dog, or Logan's Run, but with more emphasis on the erotic nature and its necessary inclusion.

Alas, that's going to have to wait . . . .
 
It can be a hard balance to find. On the one hand SF&F content is rife with erotic potential -- there are all kinds of skeevy erotic scenarios, from the Orion slave girl through to sexy elven maidens -- that positively beg for flat-out porny treatment that they can rarely get. On the other hand the sheer amount of headspace and page-space needed to establish a setting and its rules can easily get in the way of the erotic or make it seem peripheral. Fine line.
 
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