sex in your writing: protected or unprotected?

[BellaIsabella]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

 

[sunandshadow]

Well I write fantasy which is often about impregnation, so they don't use realistic protection. They might use an infertility potion (aka 1-dose birth control). Fortunately my fantasyland has plenty of healing magic which could cure any std one happened to catch, and brothels typically have an on-staff healer who scans every customer that comes in.

 

[Kitkat103]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

Its your story, its your fantasy. A lot of stories do not mention condom use but if it works for your story add it. I once did for a gay sex story, because he put it on with his tongue. (Never posted it) But other than that I never really mention it.

 

[HeyAll]

Unprotected, it's much hotter that way.

 

[RandallKinds]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

The sad truth is, being safe is generally not considered sexy. In my own private fantasies (both of them) the words condom or dental dam seldom appear. So, yeah, when reading or writing the sex train of thought definitely derails when it crashes into a condom.

I suspect I'd not mind as much if the story was about a sex worker - massage parlor kind of thing - or if it was made an integral part of the story (Mark boasted that he could have a dozen erections in one night so Ginger, Mary Ann, Morticia and Daisy Duke bought a box of condoms to see if it was true.)

 

[Kat73]

I don't use condoms, never have, and so I have never even thought about it.

 

[evanslily]

Might be more sexy not to mention protection but the odd reader will take issue with this and leave you a comment saying your characters should practise safe sex.

You can't please all the people all the time. My take on it - if your characters have time to consider such things, then hey, have them use a condom or think about whether they need one. On the other hand, if you're writing about heat of the moment, can't wait to rip each other's clothes off sex, you'll probably get away without condom usage. Of course, if you write Romance like I do, that means your readers will automatically assume your female character is about to find herself knocked up.

 

[Kitkat103]

Might be more sexy not to mention protection but the odd reader will take issue with this and leave you a comment saying your characters should practise safe sex.

You can't please all the people all the time. My take on it - if your characters have time to consider such things, then hey, have them use a condom or think about whether they need one. On the other hand, if you're writing about heat of the moment, can't wait to rip each other's clothes off sex, you'll probably get away without condom usage. Of course, if you write Romance like I do, that means your readers will automatically assume your female character is about to find herself knocked up.

I was reading a story and it was about two strangers having sex on the train. A part of me was like "ugh, he is a man in a suit, what if he has the clap? Bitch whip out a condom!" But then i'm like "Damn, this is getting hot..FUCK HER HARD!" But in the comment section I never mentioned the lack of protection. Like I thought it was irrelevant.

 

[ExoMani]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

Yes and no. It all depends on the story I’m writing.

I make it quite clear, however, whether my male characters are wearing them, or not.

 

[RicoLouis]

Wrote a story one time with a condom just so I could write a scene with the girl putting it on with her mouth. another with a girl finding a used condom and drinking out of it. I guess to me its all in how you write it. Usually you can get around the condom with the. "its okay i am on the pill." Line. and no one will question it.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Bella

You ask the wrong question. Your characters can't get pregnant or pick up STDs 'cos they're not human. In film, TV, theatre and books, characters don't have bodily functions unless the author/writer needs it for the plot. I giggle when after a raunchy Lit scene the woman goes to the bathroom to 'clean up'.

Be real, or rather not, these are characters on paper. Only bring in contraception or STDs if they are relevant to the story.

 

[Kitkat103]

You know what? I totally lied. I forgot that in one of the stories I posted on lit the father had a condom on and tried to jam it down the shower drain because he did not want his wife to find out. I never mentioned the condom until he was getting rid of it. It kind of added to the story, you know the length of discretion the narrator was willing to go through.

Hope your story is working out well.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending upon the mood of the story. Often, when there is no protection there will be a discussion as to why it was not used. Generally, disease is not an issue, although pregnancy may be. My stories are intended for titillation, only, and not for educational purposes.

 

[Bestroika]

Most of my characters are supernatural, incapable of becoming pregnant, and incapable of catching human disease. Makes it simple when it comes to worrying about protection.

Makes me wonder what other sexy ways you could write protection into a story??

 

[lovecraft68]

This may be a weird question, but when you are writing a sex scene, do you mention putting on a condom or just keep it out of your writing for fear it will break the mood?

Most of my stories are a long running incest series. I solved the problem early by having the sister (who was sexually abused at a young age) say she cannot have children. The brother was so afraid he would end up like his insane father he had a vasectomy at the age of 19. So they had free reign without ever running into "well how did he never get her pregnant" I also got to mix a little reality in. When I would have the sister with another guy I would write that he was reaching for the nightstand to get a condom but she would always tell him not to worry-when asked she was on the pill she didn't speak of her past-. So in general I gave myself an out early. But it depends if you are writing pure sex and "stroke" story no one cares if you have a plot and a lot of details people may expect it from you.

 

[Cicca_Jai]

Hmm...

This thread comes at exactly the right time for me.
Normally in my stories the couple are either totally unknown to each other, and thus protections is either used, or abandoned depending on the intelligence of the characters; or on the other hand, most of my characters are in committed loving relationships. Familiarity goes a lot farther in bed than the random one night stand IMHO.
Knowing that John knows exactly how ‘his finger tracing down Sara’s back, raising goose bumps across her skin.’ turns her on.
Is just my particular style. I have seen it done every way, none of them are ALWAYS right, and most never notice if the work is well done, and fully developed.
Just my two cents.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Haven't used condoms in my writing yet, but that's because I enjoy having some element of the fantastic in my stories in the first place to hand-wave off some of the real life practicalities. Honestly, most stories on this site seem to have people with superhuman libidos anyway.

I'm a little chagrined at myself on the topic, as I've never had qualms about using a condom in real life. I honestly think any guy unwilling to wear one for his partner doesn't deserve to get laid in the first place.

When I fantasize about getting laid, I don't think about wearing the condom. Sex is certainly more pleasant without one, so I tend to come up with a reason why it's unnecessary in the story. But again, I'm not writing for hard-core realism...

 

[SamScribble]

I think it depends on the story. Sometimes a condom is part of the story; sometimes it's not.

I think I can only recall one occasion on which a reader complained. That was when a mother slipped a condom on her son before she allowed him to enter her. I thought the condom suggested that the mother was being at least partly responsible; the reader thought I had denied the son 'his right'. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

 

[yuna1981]

Always unprotected in a story, precisely because IRL protection is so important. A lot of my fantasies involve cum, because you can't do everything that you may actually want to do with real life safety constraints.

 

[Firebrain]

I might mention it in passing the first time a couple sleep together -- I write contemporary stuff, so I think it's relevant -- but then I won't mention it again.

I prefer to say something about them disposing of the condoms afterwards, rather than let the line interrupt the sex. However if I think my character would talk about it then occasionally, I'll bring it up when they're putting it on.

I equate magical no-contraceptive sex -- when there is no context for not needing protection -- with bad porn writing, to be honest. I notice the lack of it and it takes me out of the text to slot it into the "stroke story" box.

 

[Kurokami]

So far, I've only written sci-fi stories to completion, so I haven't felt the need to introduce contraception into the story. I do often consider it, but the answer that springs to mind, as it so often does when I hit a logic problem, is this: They're living in the fucking future. Technology has advanced, my characters can do whatever they want. I know that probably sounds like lazy writing, but I do always formulate a reason why things are the way they are in my personal notes. Sometimes it just never shows up in the story itself, for the second reason I don't make a point of writing in contraception:

Sometimes it just doesn't fit with the fantasy. I have to use protection in real life. That's the way it is. But in my writing, sometimes it detracts from the atmosphere. Honestly, it's just such a mundane concept that it doesn't fit in with the rest of the universe.

 

[yuna1981]

Sometimes it just doesn't fit with the fantasy. I have to use protection in real life. That's the way it is. But in my writing, sometimes it detracts from the atmosphere. Honestly, it's just such a mundane concept that it doesn't fit in with the rest of the universe.

Mundane, that's it. What a great point. What is mundane is often the antithesis of sexy. (Ducking, waiting for someone to argue this point with me.)

 

[DeviantDreamer]

I usually like to use anal, oral, or coitus interruptus to circumvent the issue of pregnancy. They usually add some excitement to the whole thing anyway.

As for STDs... It's not that huge a suspension of disbelief that the protagonists are clean even after all the sex they have. It's about the same as what is required out of an adventure story where the main character lives through battles with a dozen men or runs out of an exploding building. Unlikely? Yes. superhumanly lucky? Sure. But protagonists of any good story are subject to unlikely events and drastic acts of fortune. On that note, the same could be said for pregnancy.

Protection is for acts which are presumably taking place with frequency, in which there is a small but dangerous chance of an undesirable effect occurring. When you're allowed to predict and influence the odds, their necessity disappears.

Not that I think protection has no place in sex scenes. It has a variety of useful applications, but most of them are for the purposes of plot after the sex, and don't really do anything to heighten the experience.

 

[estragon]

I did specify condom use by one character having sex with a stranger, and not by another with the same stranger, in one story. No reader picked up on it, but I quibbled it to myself as irrational behavior (but it turns out the character who didn't use the condom was really self-destructive). Nevertheless, in any story I write, any time someone has sex with a new partner, "no glove no love". I've walked in too many AIDSWalks the last twenty years. And been to too many funerals (even one is too many).

 

[sr71plt]

When in a recent story I had a character pull out a packet of Trojan magnums, I didn't have to give the type of anatomical measurement description that some readers object to in stories here.