Is it possible to write a great erotic story without sex?

[professor_jim]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new author. My first Literotica story, "A Professor of Two Minds," was published on Friday.

The story takes place in a classroom, and there's no sex in it. There's no dialogue. The two main characters never talk to each other.

Everything that happens (almost) happens in the minds of a Professor and a student.

Can a good erotic story have no sex? No dialogue? No contact whatsoever? Does a good erotic story have to end in orgasm, either the characters' or the readers' (or both)? (in the interest of full disclosure, the female student in the story does orgasm at the end of this story, though it's self-inflicted.)

It's my first story, and it has it's many flaws, but I was a little surprised to get the complaint that there was no "payoff." I took that to mean that the reader did not, himself or herself, climax when reading my story.

For me, "erotic" is a function of mental stimulation... Am I hopelessly out of touch?

P.S. I love porn and smutty, sexy, wild stories. I just don't think I'd be any good at writing them.

 

[sr71plt]

No, I don't really think a sexless story can be erotic. But if you are asking whether there can be an erotic story without an overt sex act, yes, I think they are fairly common.

I don't think dialogue is required for a good story, either. Some armchair critics at Lit. say it has to have dialogue, but I don't think that's true--that's just formula.

The hook you say you have for your story sounds like what could be a good erotic stories without a lot of the kitchen sink material some say has to be in a story.

 

[LZB]

I'd say yes, but they have to be well written. Just like films can be sexy without any sex. It's not an easy thing to do though. I'd say try it out, have a beta go over it, and work from there.
One thing, stories I've read without sex, or that take too long to get to it after endless teasing can be a pain. The last thing you want to do is annoy your readers, so be careful, and have it proof read.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

It can be erotically-charged without sex, but I'm not sure how many readers would like being left out in the cold at the end with no "pay off," if you take my meaning.

As to stories without dialogue, they can definitely be done and done well. I've written several, one of which appears here if you wish to have a look.

 

[LaRocha]

So, has anyone read this guy's story? I think he's asking "Is my story erotic, even though there's no dialogue or actual acts of sex?" I haven't.

What constitutes a sex act? The fantasy? The actual penetration? Kissing?

A good chunk of Proust's In Search of Lost Time is erotic storytelling, Marcel never really gets past the kissing phase, lying in bed and pressing his clothed body to Albertine. There's plenty of allusion to sex with the Swanns and Albertine, but there's no actual sex scene that I can recall. So I think it's possible to write a great erotic story without sex. Now that I think about it, I can't recall anything resembling a sex scene in Ulysseys and that's highly erotic in passages.

The payoff doesn't have to be "and he came all over her ass with his monster cock, fully satisfied, as you dear reader should now be fully satisfied with the graphic description I've just presented you..." The payoff can just be a kiss after a slow erotic buildup, a simple acceptance of the other's love after monumental hesitation.

 

[polynices]

So, has anyone read this guy's story? I think he's asking "Is my story erotic, even though there's no dialogue or actual acts of sex?" I haven't.

A fair question. I've just read it (A Professor of Two Minds by professor_jim) and I'd say it definitely qualifies as an erotic story.

The story starts off in a completely believable situation - a university teacher catches a female student's eye during a lecture and gets distracted by sexy thoughts about her - thoughts he believes she recognises and reciprocates. It then moves into a frankly erotic sequence where the student masturbates. She's somehow visible to the teacher but not to the other students. I found this much less probable - but then, sex stories don't have to be about reality. We're mostly dealing with fantasy and wish-fulfillment here, after all. (As an aside, though, it might have improved the story to make the public masturbation sequence a fantasy on the teacher's part - a fact that might be revealed at the end, just before he invites her to his office, maybe, with the intention of converting the said fantasy to reality.)

I find it a little odd that Professor Jim's original question - "Is my story erotic, even though there's no dialogue or actual acts of sex?" - distinguishes between 'actual acts of sex' and the girl's masturbation. I've always thought of masturbation as 'an act of sex'. It's certainly sexy - otherwise, what's the point?

I wonder if something like the Bill Clinton distinction is being applied here: 'I did not have sex with that woman', and so on. (Maybe not, though, as far as I remember, she sucked his cock a lot and he penetrated her with a cigar.)

Anyway, for me this piece certainly falls into the erotic story category, and I enjoyed it, particularly the set-up at the beginning.

The question 'Can a story qualify as erotic, even though there's no actual sex in it?' is certainly interesting, though. I attempted something like that a little while ago, with 'Love is ...', at:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=442300

It's about sex but contains no explicit sex scenes - and that may be why it's easily been my least successful story to date in terms of votes, scoring a pitiful 3.57 after 21. Despite that, I'm rather fond of it, and for me, at least, it is erotic, though not, perhaps as that's commonly defined on Literotica.

- polynices

 

[Stella_Omega]

Masturbation is most certainly an erotic act, and worth writing about. *nods*

I'm with you, Polynices, masturbation is sex. Toys are sex. Rubbing against each other is sex. Thinking real hard at each other is sex. A-peen-inna-veen is only one of the many things that are sex...

 

[driphoney]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new author. My first Literotica story, "A Professor of Two Minds," was published on Friday.

The story takes place in a classroom, and there's no sex in it. There's no dialogue. The two main characters never talk to each other.

Everything that happens (almost) happens in the minds of a Professor and a student.

Can a good erotic story have no sex? No dialogue? No contact whatsoever? Does a good erotic story have to end in orgasm, either the characters' or the readers' (or both)? (in the interest of full disclosure, the female student in the story does orgasm at the end of this story, though it's self-inflicted.)

It's my first story, and it has it's many flaws, but I was a little surprised to get the complaint that there was no "payoff." I took that to mean that the reader did not, himself or herself, climax when reading my story.

For me, "erotic" is a function of mental stimulation... Am I hopelessly out of touch?

P.S. I love porn and smutty, sexy, wild stories. I just don't think I'd be any good at writing them.

You don't know until you try, eh? I don't find it to be easy, and therefore, it's a great growth exercise. You can always do what I do after I struggle with my scene for a while, and that is ask someone to give you an opinion. People around here are nice about helping. But don't feel you must just because this is an erotica site.


Good luck.

 

[professor_jim]

Thanks for everyone's interesting and stimulating suggestions.

Yes, the story does have masturbation in it, though no contact. Maybe you're right that masturbation should be called sex; I don't think I would, but I'm open to suggestion on that one. The narrator does not have an orgasm, nor does he ever get to touch the object of his desire.

The story has actually done pretty well, voting-wise, I suppose: 86 votes in 3 days, for a 4.29. I'm gratified that a lot of people liked it, but was surprised when I got a couple of anonymous comments saying that without a "pay-off" they were disappointed.

See, I still think it's pretty hot, even though there's no mutual sexual contact. I appreciate everyone's opinion on this one. Hadn't thought of the Proust or Ulysses, but those are good examples. And how about all the great movies from the 60s and 70s that were incredibly sexually charged, yet contained no nudity--just a passionate kiss at the end.

Hadn't thought about making the masturbation scene a fantasy of the professor--I'd encourage you to take up that idea. It isn't really what I had in mind for this particular story.

I guess I just like the idea of erotic lit being extremely hot without sex in the story. Holding onto the dream!

 

[DeeZire]

I guess I just like the idea of erotic lit being extremely hot without sex in the story. Holding onto the dream!

I'm with you. What interests me is the character development that leads to sex. I'd much rather watch a network TV drama with sexual tension but no sex than a porn movie with wall-to-wall sex and nothing else.

It seems as though there are two camps at LIT - pure stroke, and erotica. Of course the pure stroke readers will be disappointed if there's no cum shot, just as the erotica readers will be disappointed if there's no plot, tension, or character development.

Just write the way you want to. It's not like it's going to affect your paycheck (unless you're Scouries, who is the only LIT writer who claims to be collecting royalty payments for his free downloads.)

BTW, it would be helpful if you posted the link to your story. Many of us have the link in our sig line.

 

[MaxSebastian]

it might have improved the story to make the public masturbation sequence a fantasy on the teacher's part - a fact that might be revealed at the end, just before he invites her to his office, maybe, with the intention of converting the said fantasy to reality.

Dangerously close to the worst plot twist of all time - the "what do you know, it was only a dream!" twist.

Stories can be erotic without overt sex, of course, but the general context of Literotica is that most stories are overt, so most readers come to expect it. Stories without it may well garner a worse reaction, and some inevitable trolls, but as long as you know what to expect, why not?

I like to play a little with my readers, tease them with the build up, drop in a few references along the way to keep the interested, may the odd false start. Readers seem happier with a pay-off of some kind, so even if it's just a reference to a pay-off, I'll usually put it in.

Personally, though, I steer clear of writing about someone's fantasy (there's a huge fantasy element to all of this, of course, but I prefer to write about things that are actually happening to the characters, not being dreamt about. I know it's only fiction, but reading about a character dreaming just makes me want to skip to the bit where they wake up and do something.)

 

[LaRocha]

Sentimental Education by Flaubert is a highly erotic story. If I remember right there's nothing like a sex scene. Frederic at one point gets to declare his love and possibly sniff or kiss Marie Arnoux's arm as a climatic moment of their mutual infatuation. Then it's a whole preference and description kind of thing, what's erotic what's pornographic...I'm sick of that whole thing. In some of my newer stories for literotica I go out of my way to not have a sex scene. It's really hit and miss on the responses. Romance category readers might actually prefer less graphic, as long as the story is highly charged with eroticism. If you have to ejaculate at the end of a sex story for it to be good then you're a depressing mechanical robot.

 

[txstanford]

By way of an answer to the OP's question:

No. It isn't.

'Great' storytelling, whether in this genre or any other, is great by virtue of the challenges confronted and successfully dealt with by the storyteller.

Writing about sex is one of the biggest challenges any writer can ever confront -- witness the comical disasters that permeate mainstream fiction. Or the tawdry nonsense that's piled high and sold cheap in the erotica genre.

Written erotica that fails to embrace and explore human sexuality either because its author will not or cannot cope with the subject's power, complexity, and creative challenge, is Erotica Lite.

I've written in the 'romantic' genre and thoroughly enjoyed it -- not least because it's, well, easier. And yes, the erotic certainly enhances the romantic -- by way of a classic example, think back to that Faye Dunaway / Steve McQueen chess game in the original 'Thomas Crown Affair' (not its Godawful remake.)

But whereas the great romantic story plays with both heart and mind, the great erotic story impacts with visceral force.

That there are so relatively few of the latter says all there is to say about the difference between the three: Romance, Erotica Lite, and Erotica.

 

[professor_jim]

I'm loving these very thoughtful replies and examples of erotic lit and art. I'd love to hear more.

Here's a link to the story, by the way (thanks for the suggestion)

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=465784

I don't think my story reaches any high artistic level. It was my first try at writing erotic fiction, and it's not at the level that a lot of the excellent writers here have reached. It even has a really bad typo in the first sentence. Ugh.

But I really enjoyed writing it. I decided to try to explore the inner thinking of the professor in a class--a peculiar job in which one is both powerful and vulnerable; an authority figure who may be attractive to some students, and a person over whom some students may have extraordinary power, if they are bold enough to use it. It's a situation that lends itself to many erotic possibilities.

I may even try writing one more contact-free erotic story on this theme!
Thanks again. The feedback is fantastic for a rookie like me.

 

[oggbashan]

My answer to the thread title - Yes. I've done it.

See several of my stories.

Og

 

[professor_jim]

Does anyone else have recommendations of very good Literotica stories that don't include sex?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Amusingly apropros;

New IU study finds no consensus in definitions of 'had sex'

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Is it possible? Probably. Could I do it? Fat chance!

 

[mynameisben]

I think it's possible to write an erotic story without sex, sure. But a great one? Get real. That's like a woman who gives a great blow job without actually getting her guy off.

 

[LaRocha]

I think it's possible to write an erotic story without sex, sure. But a great one? Get real. That's like a woman who gives a great blow job without actually getting her guy off.

A great blowjob can be a prelude to great sex. You wouldn't say the blowjob was less great after orgasming on top of her instead of cutting short the experience in her mouth. The great erotic story would leave the clinical sequences up to your imagination. That's the importance of fiction, it's not a passive medium like television or video porno, you have to participate for the story to work.

 

[mynameisben]

A great blowjob can be a prelude to great sex. You wouldn't say the blowjob was less great after orgasming on top of her instead of cutting short the experience in her mouth. The great erotic story would leave the clinical sequences up to your imagination. That's the importance of fiction, it's not a passive medium like television or video porno, you have to participate for the story to work.

While I agree with you in part, your argument assumes there is more to follow after the blow job. And that "more to follow" is SEX.

When I get to the end of a "great" sex-free erotic story, I am not going to feel satisfied, no matter how hard I stare at the white space that follows the final page. I won't be in much of a mind to do any participation, either.

 

[professor_jim]

MynameisBen--

I have to say I completely disagree with you. The point of a lot of the really good erotica that I read here and elsewhere is not your "satisfaction," which you here define as your orgasm. It's so much more.

It's mental stimulation. It's sexual tension. It's exploring the possible. It's the internal fantasy life of everyday people.

If you're just reading erotic lit to "get off," how many stories a day can you read? Not every encounter with an attractive person to whom you're attracted has to end in sex, does it?

Can't something be "sexy" without sex? Isn't there something extremely arousing about the near miss, the tease, the eye contact, the certain smile, the suggestive look or movement or pose?

I've written just one story for literotica, "A Professor of Two Minds," and it's full of flaws, but I think it's sexy even though there is no dialogue and no physical contact (though there is masturbation at the end).

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=465784

I'm not saying it's great (it's definitely not), but I have read great literotica stories that don't culminate with the usual sex scene.

I guess I'm trying to say that I'm not writing with masturbating readers in mind, and I really don't want to. Maybe I'm just stupid. And I can't help but wonder if the "rating" for my story would have jumped a few tenths of a point if the student had just given the Prof a nice blow job at the end.

But literotica is loaded with great blowjob stories. I visit many of them often. But I wanted mine to be a little....different. At least for the first story.

Ah, ya gotta write what you wanna write. Otherwise, what's the fokkin point?

 

[mynameisben]

Well, I'll tell ya, Professor Two-Brains. I don't get how you can "completely disagree" with me. I never actually expressed my point, at least not nearly as exhaustively as you have. But since you appear to take an interest in my opinion, I'll try to state it more clearly.

I don't see us in disagreement at all. We may be at odds over a simple matter of definitions. I agree with so much of what you have just said. Great erotica is about mental stimulation. It is about attraction and sexual tension and fantasy and exploration, and it is about so much more. That last little bit bears repeating: Great erotica is about so much more.

You initially wrote, asking if it were possible to write great erotica without sex. Taking your question at face value, I focused on "great" and on "without sex," and I answered No. While I agree with you that Great erotica encompasses all of the ideas you explicitly stated, I disagree that Great erotica can be written without sex. I also believe it is not possible to create a great musical without including a song and dance number, or to give a great lecture on the Holy Roman Empire without ever mentioning the Pope. Learned artists can and do produce both, but are their creations truly great? Not in my mind. I will always be left unsatisfied. I will be thinking, why should I read erotica from an author who doesn't have the sac to carry his story to climax or dare to use profanity when situations demand it? I mean, what's the fokkin point?

I read your story. You muddied the waters of the point I was trying to make by writing an erotic story that indeed has sex in it. "…and it [sex] is so much more," you wrote, and I agree. Foreplay is sex. Wordlessly peering into the eyes of a young woman, and knowing she knows that you know she has intuited a secret lust -- that is sex. Teasing him mercilessly in response to the revelation of mutual attraction is sex. And, of course, a sexy young woman masturbating in front of a man who is helplessly restricted from taking action is not merely sex, it is the essence of great erotica.

Completely disagree with me if you must. I'm no professor, and I may have gotten your story all wrong. Maybe your story has no sex in it. Maybe Melissa was bored by your lecture like all the rest and wanted to kill a little time somehow, but she forgot to bring her iPod to class that day. She was a lacrosse team member, after all. Maybe she had jock itch and her waving fingers were wet because they were still covered with anti-fungal cream.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Jim,

I am sure that a good erotic story doesn't need the porno 'money shot' but I think you conflate sweaty sex with writing. Good erotic writing owes nothing to sex scenes.

Everyone here knows that I think first person is best avoided until you write like Hemingway and that not using the emotional grab of dialogue is putting the writer at a disadvantage.

Your story lacks emotion and eroticism, not because there is no sex but because there is no emotional relationship between the protagonists.

Erotic is in the head, but your story just takes a rather one-sided approach to a relationship that has to be mutual.

 

[CharleyH]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new author. My first Literotica story, "A Professor of Two Minds," was published on Friday.

The story takes place in a classroom, and there's no sex in it. There's no dialogue. The two main characters never talk to each other.

Everything that happens (almost) happens in the minds of a Professor and a student.

Can a good erotic story have no sex? No dialogue? No contact whatsoever? Does a good erotic story have to end in orgasm, either the characters' or the readers' (or both)? (in the interest of full disclosure, the female student in the story does orgasm at the end of this story, though it's self-inflicted.)

It's my first story, and it has it's many flaws, but I was a little surprised to get the complaint that there was no "payoff." I took that to mean that the reader did not, himself or herself, climax when reading my story.

For me, "erotic" is a function of mental stimulation... Am I hopelessly out of touch?

P.S. I love porn and smutty, sexy, wild stories. I just don't think I'd be any good at writing them.

A story can have anything you want. Can a good story have no sex, you ask? Of course it can. Can it have no dialogue? Of course it can. Can an erotic story take place in the minds of the character? Absolutely. Don't let anyone tell you what you can or cannot write or can and can't do as a writer. My best advice is write first and worry about criticisms later.