Sex in Wartime: Bad Endings in Porn Stories

[gauchecritic]

I'm not sure you can have detailed sex in 'literature' although I'm pretty certain you can have literature in porn.

I began reading a sci-fi book once and the entire raison for the aliens turning a guy into a superman was so that he could have sex with whosoever he wanted. I threw the book across the room at the first sex scene.

A short sci-fi story I read had the magnetically charming alien being inhumanly curious about how and why he could make the female character orgasm just using his finger. The entire conflict between them was that she wanted a 'lover' and the whole works and the alien would venture no further than digital stimulation.

I think explicit sex takes a reader out of suspension because it is too acutely personal to be engrossed in. It calls up or for emotions and reactions that aren't in tune with adventure, mystery or simple day to day picaresque.

 

[CharleyH]

I'm not sure you can have detailed sex in 'literature' although I'm pretty certain you can have literature in porn.

Here's a conundrum. I love it. However, I do believe you can have serious sex or at least "fetish" in literature. Lets say ... "Crash" by JG Ballard, or "PORNO" by Irvine Welsh.

 

[slyc_willie]

I tend to write happy endings and lately I've been getting down on myself for it, for being maybe too fluffy and doggedly optimistic, and I wonder whether I can ever take myself seriously as long as I write this way. That's why I started this thread.

It's silly to think that you have to be downbeat and cynical to be taken seriously, and yet when you look at the books and films that make a splash, it seems like you're usually looking at violence and grimness. (Or maybe that's just me? Maybe I'm easily impressed by that stuff.) One of my stories ends with an unexpected murder, and it makes the sex that happens earlier on seem suddenly dirty and tawdry. It's kind of a sleazy trick to play on the reader and I've often thought of changing it, but I leave it the way it is.

Having your characters make love beneath the specter of death certainly changes everything. It really makes sex seem much more obscene and exciting, but not necessarily sexier.

I've been thinking about this for a long time as well. In a thread on the SF ("The Library of Paragraphical Examination"), I posted part of a story that does not end well for the female character. Those who read the snippet told me it really "got" to them, especially since the death of the young woman was abrupt and not at all expected.

Would that make it literature? I guess opinions would vary. Would the story still be hot? I can imagine someone reading the sex scene, imagining themself in the moment . . . and then they read the death scene. Would they still find arousal from the sex scene? And if they did, what does that say about the reader?

A good number of PCs I get ask for more. Even if it's a stand-alone story, readers seem to want to know that Dick and Jane are still in their happy world bumping and grinding away. Porn writing is intended to titilate and inspire readers to think sexually and perhaps give them a fresh fantasy. If that's coupled with a tragic ending, that fresh fantasy becomes tainted.

That's not to say we can't write stories that are full of doom and gloom; in fact, if there's a lot of angst and conflict between Dick and Jane, I believe that pulls the reader in and makes them hope for that eventual happy ending, even if it doesn't seem likely.

I received feedback from Anonymous about my V-Day story about that. Throughout the story, they said, they weren't sure if the two main characters, Will and Michelle, would end up together. And that's exactly why they kept reading. Overall, the story has a sort of dark feel; the characters both live unfulfilled and depressing lives. But it's not a tragedy.

 

[TxRad]

The main reason for a happy ending:

In a nutshell, the reader has a hard time jacking off while crying. The screen gets all blurry.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The main reason for a happy ending:

In a nutshell, the reader has a hard time jacking off while crying. The screen gets all blurry.

Tears don't make good lube?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Not my personal fave, but it is a story that sends some into a frenzy of BDSM dogma.

Yes, and literary dogma as well... There were two endings, the other one let her live on at the mansion.

Tears don't make good lube?

The salt gets itchy as it dries...

 

[Selena_Kitt]

The salt gets itchy as it dries...

so does cum...

es, and literary dogma as well... There were two endings, the other one let her live on at the mansion....

Hey!
Really?

I read the "happy" version. Damn. Didn't know there was a director's cut!

 

[Katyusha]

How about the mixing of the two. I have a novel going that I'm writing two ways. One has the regular fade to black sex scenes and the other has the full graphics. It'll be interesting to see if either sells or maybe even both.

I have a novel with a couple of graphic sex scenes in it as well, and I've often wondered if it would sell with that scene or if I should take it out (guess I should query some publishers and find out if it'd even be worth taking a look at first). I wonder, though, if those scenes would be considered "too graphic" with the direction our society seems to be going in relation to sex and depictions of it.

 

[TxRad]

I have a novel with a couple of graphic sex scenes in it as well, and I've often wondered if it would sell with that scene or if I should take it out (guess I should query some publishers and find out if it'd even be worth taking a look at first). I wonder, though, if those scenes would be considered "too graphic" with the direction our society seems to be going in relation to sex and depictions of it.

The exact reason I'm writing two versions, that and the cut to black would end up in Non-Erotic here on Lit.

 

[elsol]

Porn differs from mainstream literature in many ways, but one of the most striking is in the ending. Porn commonly has a happy ending. There's something about an uhappy ending - a murder or a tragedy - that makes the sex that's come before seem especially tasteless or gratuitous. This avoidance of tragedy or serious themes gives porn a naive and pollyannish, unreal and glossy feel.

Few serious books seem to have happy endings. More and more books deal with such violence and degradation that porn looks positively wholesome compared to them, but porn also comes off looking false, artifical, and contrived. If porn's ever going to be taken seriously as literature, it's going to have to find a way of dealing with the negatives of violence, murder, and loss that mainstream fiction's already concerned with. Is this even possible?

Is it possible to write serious porn? Or is it by its very nature the stuff of fluff and must it always remain so?

Yes, it is possible to write porn that reaches out of the perceived boundaries as long as you define our genre very much the same way that say 'Romance' is defined by a central theme. In the case of porn, I define it as having graphic sex that is clearly meant to titillate. That's the only structure I give myself when writing 'porn'... people have to FUCK & my intention has to be to make the target audience HOT! under the collar.

In my case, I don't like happy endings. I prefer the triumphant ending... the character beating his external or internal conflict, but that doesn't mean the character is better off than when the story started.

I wrote a Teen Mind Control story for another site, that hardly comes in under the happy ending clause most people would define... the character had to come face to face with the fact no matter how easy or satisfying for her he made it, he was doing rape. The story ended years later with him still making it up to the women he'd done it to.!)

 

[starrkers]

I wouldn't say that it needs to be fluff, but for my own personal tastes, that is what I prefer. I don't read porn for social commentary. I read porn to excite my libido and have some fun with private time. The more seriousness is written into a porn story, the less I care about what I am reading, the more I consider reading something else.

Well and succinctly put, thee.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Well and succinctly put, thee.

Even though I forgot the second part of my post?

I was going to say that people can put as many downers in a story as they. it is their story after all. Just don't expect some of us to read it.

 

[keeblercrumb]

'The Story Of O' was deemed literature because the character suicides at the end.

I always thought "The Story of O" was porn... but then, despite reading it hundereds of times, I never read the ending....

-KC

 

[rachlou]

I always thought "The Story of O" was porn... but then, despite reading it hundereds of times, I never read the ending....

-KC

I was told The Story Of O was porn too...so i read it with much excitement... and didn't really enjoy it. I never found it terribly erotic - not in the same way as other sexually explicit books. I guess it just wasn't my thing.

 

[keeblercrumb]

I was told The Story Of O was porn too...so i read it with much excitement... and didn't really enjoy it. I never found it terribly erotic - not in the same way as other sexually explicit books. I guess it just wasn't my thing.

I uhhhh. ahem.... of course did not find it.... uhhhh erotic either.... What? Do you think I am a pervert or something?



I mean



-KC

 

[rachlou]

I uhhhh. ahem.... of course did not find it.... uhhhh erotic either.... What? Do you think I am a pervert or something?



I mean



-KC

PERVERT!!

I preferred Emanuelle.

 

[keeblercrumb]

PERVERT!!

I preferred Emanuelle.

Actually.... the earliest sexual fantasies I had was having lots of slave girls to be my every bidding.... I wasn't exactly sure what that meant (my "bidding") but I was sure it would be cool.

I also liked Jimmy Moore's mother a lot. And it wasn't because of her cookies.

Well maybe it was... she had great..... cookies.

-KC

 

[Stella_Omega]

Keebler, did you ever read the Gorean series?

(NOT literature, and NEVER a 'bad' ending.)

 

[Remec]

I don't think those reading Oedipus Rex in the incest category would be at all happy with the ending. We'd just get a ton of critical comments suggesting that we toss out the hanging and blinding scenes and, instead, have Antigone get it on with her brothers

Or, at least grumpy ole Uncle Creon...

 

[Remec]

One of my stories ends with an unexpected murder, and it makes the sex that happens earlier on seem suddenly dirty and tawdry. It's kind of a sleazy trick to play on the reader and I've often thought of changing it, but I leave it the way it is.

Having your characters make love beneath the specter of death certainly changes everything. It really makes sex seem much more obscene and exciting, but not necessarily sexier.

If Death is looming over them in some fashion, be it an illness or medical condition known to be terminal in a very short time or a forthcoming execution or just a Damoclean sword waiting to fall if the wrong choice(s) are made, then I think it would, indeed, colour the sexual encounters. How it does so depends on what the encounter is and who's involved, I think.

But when something happens more or less out of the blue (foreshadowing not withstanding), I don't think it changes the sexiness of the act(s) in question. Rather, I feel it would give a different sort of emotional feel to reliving the images conjured by the sex and leave the reader with an impression upon finishing the story/book that wouldn't be the same as the one they'd have if Death was known to be a possible outcome of things.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

If Death is looming over them in some fashion, be it an illness or medical condition known to be terminal in a very short time or a forthcoming execution or just a Damoclean sword waiting to fall if the wrong choice(s) are made, then I think it would, indeed, colour the sexual encounters. How it does so depends on what the encounter is and who's involved, I think.

But when something happens more or less out of the blue (foreshadowing not withstanding), I don't think it changes the sexiness of the act(s) in question. Rather, I feel it would give a different sort of emotional feel to reliving the images conjured by the sex and leave the reader with an impression upon finishing the story/book that wouldn't be the same as the one they'd have if Death was known to be a possible outcome of things.

Someone once said that all love stories are sad stories. Maybe someone wants to comment on that.

 

[TxRad]

Someone once said that all love stories are sad stories. Maybe someone wants to comment on that.

I'd have to disagree. Most love stories are happy and uplifting unless you or they are talking about the tragedies. That's not to say that there aren't unhappy endings to love but they don't start out that way. If they did then no one would go there.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Someone once said that all love stories are sad stories. Maybe someone wants to comment on that.

Someone mistook aphorism for wit, perchance?

 

[WRJames]

I don't think there's anything wrong with a happy ending -- but are we talking about porn, or romantica, as being the limitation? Isn't it a requirement for a romance novel that the it have a happily ever after or a happy for now ending?

A lof of porn stories, particularly the ones in the BDSM category end rather morosely -- someone is enslaved and imprisoned. You don't often get a happy ending there!

There has been a lot of angst writing in the last half of the twentieth century. Whether it is really literature, or just depressing pseudo literature is another question. American Beauty and The Ice Storm come to mind as over the top, depressing stories.

The most profound literature finds a resolution. Maybe not an ending that is exactly happy, but one that is satisfying.

 

[sr71plt]

IThe most profound literature finds a resolution. Maybe not an ending that is exactly happy, but one that is satisfying.

For many of us, the "satisfying" ending is the one that works with the story (and maybe surprises us a bit while being a convincing ending). That doesn't require it to be "happy."