Length of sex scenes

[patientlee]

How do you decide how long and detailed a sex scene is in your stories, especially in longer stories that aren't just stroke material.

I try to set the tone and give the reader a mental image of what's happening, but I tend to move them along. It seems like describing every single detail might be monotonous. I like to let the reader fill in the blanks, if you will, based upon their own experience and desires.

Am I just being lazy?

I was thinking about this today. I don't get too many good or bad comments on my sex scenes. I've always kind of assumed that people skip over them.

 

[Swilly]

I was thinking about this today. I don't get too many good or bad comments on my sex scenes. I've always kind of assumed that people skip over them.

Nope. You do a damned good job on them. I think...maybe.. Because your stories are so good, that becomes the focal point instead of just the sex.

 

[49greg]

I try to pay attention to things like which hand is where and who is doing what to whom. Sometimes my first draft sounds too clinical. I try to make them long enough to be fun, but not so long as to be unrealistic or boring.

I have been trying to put in some sort of tease and build up before the actual sex happens. I don't think I write for the "Stroke only" readers but I hope if they do read it they won't be too disappointed.

 

[lovecraft68]

I am on the lookout for something to use instead of "moan, groan" but there are not a lot of options for that particular sound.

Yelp, squeal, whimper, purr, gasp, sigh.....those work in different places, but aren't the same.

I read a story where someone used this expression "Oh, God!" he ejaculated, loudly.

I had to stop and was "Wait, does ejaculation make a loud sound?" followed by, "She had just started touching him, did he come that quick?"

Took a reread and a minute to realize he meant it as "exclaimed" not a great word choice during a sex scene anyway.

 

[49greg]

I am on the lookout for something to use instead of "moan, groan" but there are not a lot of options for that particular sound.

Yelp, squeal, whimper, purr, gasp, sigh.....those work in different places, but aren't the same.

I read a story where someone used this expression "Oh, God!" he ejaculated, loudly.

I had to stop and was "Wait, does ejaculation make a loud sound?" followed by, "She had just started touching him, did he come that quick?"

Took a reread and a minute to realize he meant it as "exclaimed" not a great word choice during a sex scene anyway.

Seems like I've heard the word 'ejaculated' before in the sense of a sudden sound. I just checked my old Webster - the first definition was to "to utter suddenly ...."

So maybe the author was talking about the "Oh God!" as an ejaculation.

Yeah yeah yeah. It's weak.

(posted just for laughs)

 

[patientlee]

Seems like I've heard the word 'ejaculated' before in the sense of a sudden sound. I just checked my old Webster - the first definition was to "to utter suddenly ...."

So maybe the author was talking about the "Oh God!" as an ejaculation.

Yeah yeah yeah. It's weak.

(posted just for laughs)

I'm pretty sure that word came up in some required reading in high school. Wish I could remember what it was. I only remember the snickering.

 

[JKendallDane]

I'm pretty sure that word came up in some required reading in high school. Wish I could remember what it was. I only remember the snickering.

Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. ‘The Lord help us!’ he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.

Wuthering Heights ~ Chapter One

 

[49greg]

I'm pretty sure that word came up in some required reading in high school. Wish I could remember what it was. I only remember the snickering.

There was a story we had to read in High School, I think my Sophmore year (actually 4th form since it was a Brit school.) In the story the female character is thinking of running off with her beau. She mentions that she has a "Screw".

We were taking turns reading aloud and the teacher interrupted the snickers to tell us that it was an old fashioned word meaning a bit of cash saved up.

There's got to be lots of words like that around with obscure old fashioned meanings.

Even more off topic, but staying with the snickering school kids, much earlier in my education we were discussing an English King and during the lesson the teacher discussed an illegitimate son said king had. He stopped for a second, then explained that a man and a woman didn't have to be married to have children.

We all knew that, and there weren't just snickers, but chuckles. I still remember poor Mr. Hollies' red and pained face.

No-one got too rowdy because corporal punishment was ever present, ("Go to the headmaster and ask him for 6 of his best" - meaning strokes of the cane.)

 

[Hypoxia]

There's got to be lots of words like that around with obscure old fashioned meanings.

I had a copy of a mainstream 1950's paperback titled A POCKET BOOK OF BONERS -- where said 'boners' were student essay mistakes, not erections.

I won't go into the evolution of 'gay' or 'nice' which have fluctuated over time. 'Intercourse' used to mean communication, of which 'sexual' was merely one variety. And to flip the paradigm, we often use 'fuck' in non-sexual contexts.

Language is fun. Especially the French tongue...