Great sex. Can it really be. . . funny?

[txstanford]

Some insights / opinions from Editors / Volunteer Editors would be appreciated. . .

I've contributed but one story to Lit so am about to return hesitantly to the fold.

The problem I have is that this latest literotica effort is longer, chapterised, and semi-autobiographical: part fact, part fiction.

But it's not the fiction that has me worried.

Rather, it's that one episode runs so counter to what I think are the conventional expectations of readers that it runs the risk of shattering both mood and illusion.

The reason?

Well, though I've written and re-written and re-re-written the damn thing, it still comes out as hilarious as it did originally, back at the time when it actually happened.

And because it happened, because it has a veracity I'd otherwise find impossible to conjure from mere imagination alone, I'm loathe to change it, still less discard it.

So I guess what I'm asking of the more experienced writers and readers here is:

When sex goes from priapic to panto, do readers go with it?

Is it wise to keep to only one kind of spasm -- because laughter really is a convulsion too far?



Thanks:

Tyler

 

[MichaelWest]

Why not?

I have had a few moments that started hot or romantic and ended up in laughter. Sometimes its those stupid things one says in the heat of passion or the mishaps of adventuresome sex. I would think it would be a relief to read a funny scene, its like the bloopers segment of the movie special features, its fun to see how the perfectly achieved or the amazingly gifted sometimes get it wrong (especially in the animated films). It makes them more human perhaps. So I would welcome it.

 

[txstanford]

Thanks for the reassurance, Michael. I'm astonished by your psychic insight, too: your phrase "the mishaps of adventuresome sex" is exactly what I was referring to.

And I really like your out-takes analogy as well, a reminder that love and sex don't always result in a polished production but an undress rehearsal where the direction fails utterly and the script gets torn up.


Tyler

 

[MichaelWest]

Precisely! I often comment that I wish life went as well executed as the script says so. When you write, you get to do it in pencil, erasing the mistakes or improving the draft, but life is written in pen, and only once at times. But aren't lovemaking and comedy the same, its all in the timing?

 

[txstanford]

"All in the timing. . ." Couldn't agree more -- I admit to finding Burns well-nigh incomprehensible, but all that ganging aft agley has certainly been no rarity in my experience. Perhaps that's why so many Lit stories leave me unmoved: the inevitability of perfection can be just so, well. . . Tedious.

 

[MichaelWest]

I like the notion of perfection, but the more I write the characters, mostly based on myself and people I know, the initial perfect gloss of memory or imagination fades and I like to reveal them as more real, with some imperfections. I would think that overly perfect erotica would be boring beyond a short story, otherwise it would begin to be too tongue-in-cheek really.

 

[Firebrain]

I think it can definitely work - but the characters need to be well developed. I'm not sure it'd work in a short stroke story.

When you get to know a character and you like them, they can be sexy regardless of what they do. But if you're just meeting them, a scenario as you're describing is going to cloud your judgement of them somewhat as opposed to arousing you.

I use humour in my stories; I especially like dry one-liners during or after sex scenes. I think it adds to the realism (how often do we take sex 'seriously'?). I am a character development whore, though...I can't leave 'em alone.

 

[txstanford]

Thanks Firebrain: your thoughts and Michael's really are appreciated.

Timing's great too: I've just uploaded the first part of the work I've been drafting -- I'm not out to plug it so won't mention it here -- point being that I decided, ah, to hell with it. It happened. Better live with it.

And I think that's the nub of the problem: the characters I'm writing about now are all drawn from real life, and it's the sheer waywardness of real life that I'm having to contend with. (Sometimes, working straight from the imagination's best.)

Anyway. To be true to the tale, to be faithful to the characters, I've decided to risk reader alienation.

And though I really do get bored with back stories (unless the writer's called Tolstoy) as a result of which I tend move quickly into erotic episode, I agree with you: short stroke stuff is actually short change.

The writer's not delivering on what she / he promised to the reader, and the reader's left without empathy or interest towards that which is being read.

I'm just hoping that the strokes are going to be long enough here.

Thanks again.

Tyler

 

[sara_adrift]

The first time I had sex, the guy came really, really quick. I seriously didn't care, because it HURT anyway. He was all upset, but I just tried to laugh it off.
I really didn't care, I liked the guy, and hey, things happen, right?
I mean...I just gave him my virginity!

But no, he got all mad and offended cuz I made a joke about it.

I wish at that point he would have had a sense of humor, we might still be together.

 

[littleblackdress50]

If sex isn't funny.... why is it that sex is the centerpiece of most commedians... (where the heck is my spell checker when I really need it?)

 

[CopperSkink]

One of my preferences in reading is that I have a good time. Since my brain likes to work overtime, I tend to be far too critical to the point that I don't enjoy what I'm reading. This is rarely the case when the story is funny. When it's funny, I know the author is having a good time. If it's true, even better. I like a bit of realism when I read, if only because it's easy to get sick of "smoking hot body with perfect tits and me with my huge cock." Once in a while "we kept giggling through sex, and dinner had made us both gassy to the point that we were doing more cracking up with each fart than actual intercourse."

Makes it even more romantic, being in bed with someone you can laugh with. Post the darn thingy.

 

[bronzeage]

Sure.

A man that can make a woman laugh, can make her do anything.

 

[txstanford]

Jeez. If I wasn't going to go for it before, I am now. . .

Thanks, copperskink, littleblack and bronzeage -- it's in (or er, out, as it were.)

Sara:

God, memories. And you're so right.

All guys have pricks.

But some guys are pricks.


Thanks again, everyone.


Tyler

 

[CopperSkink]

Make sure to send me a message once it gets through; I need a good laugh, especially one that comes with sex.

 

[txstanford]

CopperSkink: I've only now managed to catch up with the appropriately named Derrick -- I'm assuming this is an exercise in the subliminal, given the way he's such a gusher? God though, you really do write well! Thanks for the diversion.

As to my own laborings. I try to write tight and fast and short, so the "funny bit" I've been agonising over doesn't appear in the first of the whore correspondent's despatches.

(Sorry: should've said, that's the narrative's subject -- I've yet to read anything even remotely authentic on here about the organised recreational sex scene, so some corrective endeavour semed overdue. What I've so far encountered on Lit in this regard aren't erotic essays anyway but re-writes of flat-pack furniture instructions. By the time part number B6 has fitted into part number K27, I'm gone.)

Currently, Part 1 of my material is "pending" -- it was only uploaded yesterday. Later today, Part 2 will be uploaded (the episode that's given me so much trouble.)

I'm still finding my way around Lit so remain unsure of protocol. But I'll stick a link in here when the story finally goes live. Assuming the pieces get through Lit's approval process.

Thanks again, then, for all your thoughts; the contributions of everyone here really have addressed the question I raised in my OP. (Though I'm still not sure how it's going to play on the night.)


Tyler

 

[CopperSkink]

You mean "Derrick" actually means something? Crap; I was just grabbing it after an old boss I didn't really like. Thanks for the praise, though it's a bit nausiating to everyone else for me to say so in public I'm sure.

What's your personal description of "an organised recreational sex scene"? It's a bit too vague of a description for me to latch onto.

 

[txstanford]

I believe it's called "swinging".

Though it's been slightly more hammocky, in my experience.




* My apologies, I meant to add a Wikipedia link to "derrick".

There you'll see that a certain type of Derrick is used in respect of "other drilled holes".

Hence when I looked at the travels of your eponymous hero, I assumed. . .

 

[CopperSkink]

Yar, I saw from Dictionary.com

I thought it was an interesting comparison, and it indeed makes for a nice accident. Now if only "Becky" meant something nifty too...

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... Now if only "Becky" meant something nifty too...

How you work them in I don't quite know, but four things come to mind:

Rebecca, the leader, dressed as a woman, of a group of rioters who demolished toll gates in South Wales (UK) in 1843–4

rebeck, A medieval musical instrument with usually three strings and played with a bow; a player on this in an orchestra etc.

beck, a brook, a rivulet; specifically a mountain, hill, or moorland stream

beck, a bow, a curtsy, a gesture of acknowledgement

 

[txstanford]

Mmmm, supercharmbrights.

Well spotted.

Woman as brook. Woman as rivulet. Woman as stream.

Always assuming, of course, that Derrick can make them flow.




Tyler

 

[CopperSkink]

Hey wait that's hot. Her first name is "Elizabeth" btw, though of course only Derrick ever calls her that.

 

[Rubyswallows]

Hey wait that's hot. Her first name is "Elizabeth" btw, though of course only Derrick ever calls her that.

It is? Damn,I've been using Rebecca Elizabeth Gains, not Elizabeth Rebecca.

 

[CopperSkink]

Woman, you've got to start paying attention.

Why am I posting to you on a public forum while I've got an open IM with you?

 

[sr71plt]

I think erotica can be funny. (In reality, the whole sex act is hilarious.) I don't think readers tend to think that it can be funny, though. Of a whole bunch of anthologies across the preference range that I have in publication, the one suggesting humor (Smiles) is selling the least.

 

[txstanford]

I think erotica can be funny. (In reality, the whole sex act is hilarious.) I don't think readers tend to think that it can be funny, though. Of a whole bunch of anthologies across the preference range that I have in publication, the one suggesting humor (Smiles) is selling the least.

Thanks for that -- confirms my worst suspicions. . .