Trigger Warning: This blog post discusses rape briefly.
To give you an idea of my relationship with the concept of maturity: I spent most of last weekend arguing with Peter V. Brett over the definitive function of a magical system as cast by a mysterious order of proctomancers known as Butt Wizards.
If that’s not clear enough, I mean to say I’m pretty fond of silly stuff. I don’t really buy into a lot of the traditional ideas of maturity as put forth by society today. I mean, if I did, I’d have to acknowledge fantasy and the writing thereof as a silly, frivolous endeavor and I’d likely be out of a job.
Perhaps, though, it’s inevitable that, as you get older, your priorities start changing.
Case in point.
I’m working on A Mortal Tally, the next book in the series Bring Down Heaven (more on this soon). Granted, my definition of “work” is also fairly untraditional, in that I’ve spent the last three nights sitting on a scene, trying to figure out how to make it perfect. This isn’t unusual for me, I used to do this all the time when I was working on The Aeons’ Gate trilogy, trying to figure out how just to make things happen in just the right way to make the audience enraptured.
The difference being is that back then I was working on combat scenes. Nowadays, the scenes that cause me trepidation are ones of emotional intimacy, such as sex.
The sound you just heard was a thousand readers rolling their eyes at once with such velocity as to give Harrison Ford a flashback to Raiders.
That’s to be expected, of course. Sex has traditionally had a bad reputation amongst fantasy readers. I can’t help but wonder if that’s one of the reasons I’m more interested in pursuing it, if that’s the next thing to be explored amongst a genre that has largely come to terms with excessive violence and bastardry. It’s a dialogue that interests me lately because I think we’ve been going about it the wrong way.
There are dozens of arguments against it, of course.
“It’s always written embarrassingly,” for example.
When you get down to it, sex is embarrassing. It’s a moment of extreme emotional vulnerability (usually, anyway), where both characters are at their rawest. It’s an awkward, gangly mess of limbs and exchange of fluids and grunts and everything you say is stupid but it doesn’t matter because hormones. I inwardly groan whenever anyone complains about Joe Abercrombie’s sex scenes being embarrassing because he’s writing about broken people trying to feel normal; it’s supposed to be embarrassing.
“It’s never written in an appealing manner” is another.
I think it’d be more accurate to say that it’s not written in a manner that appeals to the reader. Like anything else, from character to plot, sex scenes have a voice. It’s interesting that readers can agree with everything about a book up to a scene of emotional intimacy and then have a wildly different opinion. Did the voice of the scene change? Or does a reader’s perception just change that much?
“I’m okay with it if it’s written well.”
…you don’t say.
“It’s totally unnecessary,” though, is the big one.
And, interestingly, this is one that’s given me a lot of thought. Because for a very long time, I haven’t exactly been able to refute this.
Sex is frequently titillating, enticing, visually-arresting. In a lot of ways, it’s gratuitous by nature, since it’s something (presumably) a lot of us aren’t doing every second of waking life. Ironically, I think because of the special intimacy we attach to the act, it becomes something not often looked at in our genre and thus, seems gratuitous when we do.
For awhile, I was content to believe this.
The arguments that it didn’t add anything to the character, that it didn’t enhance the plot, that it didn’t start a conflict seemed to add up to me. The idea that it could only be there for gratuitousness was one that I felt compelled to admit had a degree of weight to it. This didn’t bother me overmuch–after all, I was fine with admitting that a lot of my combat scenes were gratuitous, as well–but there was still something about the argument that didn’t sit entirely well with me.
And it wasn’t until I was talking with my friend Jessica that it hit me.
I was ranting about a book I was reading that I had just put down because of a rape scene. It’s not that I was offended by the inclusion of the scene. Rather, I was looking ahead, deducing that, from this author’s writing style, I was about see another instance of Rape As Shorthand.
You know what I mean. You’ve probably read it yourself. A female character needs to be strong, but how do we make her strong? We can’t just have her strong. Better throw in some rape to excuse it.
As a note to writers: we should stop doing this.
So, I put the book down, as I had no real interest in seeing this trip rehashed and I went to rant to Jessica. She started wondering why, amongst all traumas, it was only rape that ever made a female character strong. Like, losing your parents and being abducted was never enough. Rape needed to be thrown in as the icing on Awful Cake.
It struck me as wildly gratuitous, but I was forced to admit that a lot of the sex scenes I wrote about were also gratuitous.
And that’s when she corrected me.
I should preface that I do not presume to speak of the effects this has on a person’s life, having never undergone it myself. I am only trying to discuss what I see being utilized in fiction time and again.
To paraphrase Jessica:
“Rape is just there. It’s in the story and there’s not a lot of ways to interpret it. Whereas consensual sex is the beginning of something more, a lot of emotions coming out and making themselves known. Fear, lust, desire, sometimes even hate. Things don’t get less complicated after you introduce those.”
And that’s when it hit me.
We had been thinking about sex entirely wrong. I had been thinking about sex entirely wrong.
You look at media today, traditional storytelling, it seems like sex is often the reward. Once the beast is slain and the couples unite, we get a sex scene. Once you do the right amount of side quests in Dragon Age, you get to have sex with Morrigan by the fire. Once everything is said and done, it’s all down to the sex.
I think I bought into this, too.
Which seems stupid, since I’ve been an ardent defender of romance in the genre by saying it’s as much a source of conflict as any dark lord. Sex is like that, an escalation of conflict, a raising of the stakes, peeling one layer of emotion off to get to something raw and bleeding underneath, something that makes everything more difficult in the story to come.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
“What about casual sex?” you might ask.
I can only really talk about what I’m doing here, but I honestly think that, because of the intimacy we attach to the act, every bit of sex has some meaning to it. There are novels out there that try to dissociate this meaning, but I think it’s inevitable that readers will attach emotion, even if the author doesn’t.
“Nonsense, I’ve read tons of stories and never felt emotional attachment,” you might say.
That’s also fine. I might argue that you haven’t found a scene yet that resonates with you on the kind of emotional level that I’d like my scenes to resonate with, but I’m hardly in the business of dictating how people should experience a book.
“I’m still not convinced and still don’t like reading sex,” you might say.
Sure. One of my dear friends, who is an avid reader of my books, is also not particularly fond of the scenes. She asks me to tell her where they are so she can skip them. I don’t take offense. They’re not for her. Since she’s a great friend of mine, I tell her and she enjoys the rest of the book just fine and I’m glad to have helped her out with that.
“Well, I don’t think I’ll read you,” you might say.
And that’s also okay.
In the end, this is only something I can do. It’s a discussion that interests me. In the future, maybe I’ll get bored of it and want to talk about the impact of feasting scenes on the reader’s psyche or something. But for right now, this subject is one I find fascinating as an emotional study and I’m interested in writing more about it.
Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading it, when the time comes.
Sam, I think you’ve nailed it exactly, especially in your mention of a feasting scene’s impact. In my opinion, every scene in a novel should either tell something important about the character, advance the plot or establish the setting. A really great scene does all three. And it doesn’t matter if the scene is about sex or eating or braiding your hair. If you can skip that scene and not have it affect the story, then, sure, do it.
If I skip writing that scene because I am too embarrassed by it, then I don’t think I am ready to tell that story. If I skip it because I don’t think my readers can handle it, then I personally feel I am insulting my readers’ intelligence.
Tell the story. Trust the reader.
You already tell a heckuva story. Don’t pull your punches. Fantasy readers can take the full force.
Aw, thanks, Robin!
And you’re dead on about trusting your readers. I know we’re all aware of how valuable readers are to us as artists and professionals, but sometimes I think the best thing you can do for your audience is to forge ahead and trust they’ll want to come with you. I sometimes wonder if a fear of losing our audience hampers us more than we’d care to admit.
I’m fairly new to this genre, I’ve only been reading fantasy pretty exclusively for about 3 years. I would say I was always more into Historical Fiction before I read Rothfuss and then I just got sucked in looking for something similar to his writing. Then I just got sucked in to some insane abyss of genre reading.
But yah, I’ve been taken aback more than once at how some people approach sex. The idea it’s gratuitous is a bit stretching for me, I think that’s just a masking excuse for “it makes me uncomfortable” which is fine. However, lets face the facts here, sex is something we’re all going to do. For a genre of fans that complain so much about realism, I don’t get why we have such a big problem with sex. What’s more fucking real than that? It’s the psychological constant of a lot of good and bad choices many of us make. On the other hand, it was a big turn off to me when I read Goodkind, so many rape scenes. I’m not against the use of it, but in another light, I do find it a bit disrespectful on the front of the realism that we all seem to desire so much from fantasy writing. (which in and of itself is a bit weird I guess, but that’s a whole different can of worms) It’s not so realistic that a women gets raped and suddenly she’s some badass strong character. It’s a trauma that’s hardly ever fully or tactfully addressed as far as the mental side effects it has. Can it make a person come out the other side stronger, absolutely, however that’s usually quite a long road to ho so to speak, and I dislike that those elements get downplayed. That’s when it crosses over into shock value from my viewpoint, they use this singularly charged moment to distract from their inability to write within the emotional context of normal social interaction.
In my honest, and not so humble opinion, if a writer cannot put out a decent consensual sex scene, they have absolutely zero business putting out a rape scene.
Sex doesn’t need to be pretty, or perfect, or even good, but avoiding it altogether seems really weird (to me) when writing a novel catered to adults.
Just my two cents. Also, good post! Looking forward to your new work.
you definitely put a lot of observations in to this but the terry Goodkinds books example should be noted that all major female characters were already extremely badass and did not become more or less badass after anything even similar rape.
Often sex scenes are written as they are in movies where it all fades to black and theres a sense that you have absolutely no idea what happened.
I think that when you’re building a relationship between 2 people its definitely not a topic to be avoided. We all know it’s there and ignoring just makes the book feel too young and immature. The reader starts to wonder what else will be avoided or censored. This is life we’re reading and although its fiction, it still needs to be believable or all of a sudden you’re just reading words on a page and not a story.
When it comes to casual sex, if it’s what would suit the character and story than by all means. I think that including that in a character would speak a lot about them. For example the character of Vi in Brent Weeks night angel trilogy. It speaks about her inability to open up emotionally and her detachment from her physical form, using it as a weapon. A big part of getting to know the character.
I’ve dabbled in sex scenes in a few novels, but I’m crossing a new bridge with the second book in my fantasy series, and I’m worried I can’t pull it off to satisfy readers. The relationship of two characters has been building since the first page of the first book, so I don’t want to take it lightly.
The sex scene is not used as a reward, but I understand exactly what you mean; I’ve seen it used this way in many stories.
Thanks for posting this blog. I’ll bookmark it and return to read it again when I’m editing the sex scene.
I agree with you about the rapes. I’ve seen that technique used many times. Raping the woman to give her strength is the lazy way.
I’m hesitant to describe it as “lazy,” but it certainly has become shorthand. Like, can we really not even think of any other type of trauma?
I hope the scene you’re editing turns out well!
The idea of rape as shorthand has been knocking around in my head after reading this blog. So many authors believe that sex is the only feasible way to create change in a female character. From maiden to woman, from woman to mother, from weak to strong. Why is it so impossible to imagine that female characters can evolve emotionally and through their own choices? I guess that would be anti-genre?
I don’t have an answer to this, but I definitely have a sense of frustration as a female reader who loves action, wit and messy visceral sex and is often given fade-to-black mystery.
Thanks for helping create some personal mental debate, Sam!
[This is a timely post, for me; thanks to Robin for sharing it on FB.] First, would parents forbid their teens from reading my books if my characters have sex? I don’t want to lose readers because their parents are reading over their shoulders and collectively having a cow. My intended readers are young adults, and my 15-year-old character lives in a time when women married very young and, presumably, had sex shortly thereafter. If Harry Potter had sex, JK kept readers in the dark about it. Which brings me to another point: in my everyday life, I don’t think other people’s bedroom activities are any of my business. My characters are people too, so I feel like a bit of a panderer when I share with complete strangers a blow-by-blow of my characters’ intimate moments.
Difference being we are reading your book specifically to know about your characters’ business.
I’m glad to see an author tackling this issue head on. As a long time reader of fantasy I have often wondered why there is so little sex in fantasy worlds. It appears that many authors avoid the issue completely, and for me this detracts from the realism of the story, it gives it a sanitised “written for children” feel.
I also find it bizarre that violence is shown in all its gory detail (in books, films and games) but that sex or nudity (particularly in games) is often censored. The issue of conflating nudity with sexuality aside, I think this says something dark and unpleasant about modern society, that we are so accepting of violence (it is fine to smite your enemy) but sex, whoa, now that is presented as dirty, evil or shameful.
The reality of course is the other way around, sex is a normal part of life, violence is not, so why do our stories not reflect this?
Very interesting post.
I believe sexual encounters in fiction should vary in tone the way they do in real life. Some are fun, some are intense, some are regrettable. Some are between soulmates, some between friends, some more or less a financial or power transaction – which doesn’t mean they can’t be some or all of the above at the same time.
I think some people avoid writing about sex in a direct and realistic way because there is a lot of nervousness, still, around the subject. Writers can so easily be accused of being gratuitous – and some of them are. But better people should attempt to write realistic, messy, human, occasionally embarrassing sex than soft-focus soft-porn reward-cookie sex. That sort of thing only gives excuses to those who accuse genre writing of having nothing to do with real life.
I’m with Gaie on this – it’s good to have a variety of approaches to sex scenes, depending on whether they’re significant to the story or not. I also agree with other commenters that it say a lot about us as a culture that graphic violence is far more acceptable than explicit sex. I’m not saying that every SFF novel should include graphic sex scenes – I just wish it was more common to see consensual sex (in whatever level of detail) rather than the tired old “rape as character development” trope.
For my own part, I think the sex scene I’m proudest of in my Elizabethan fantasy trilogy is the awkward, totally non-explicit one – it’s all about the characters and how they relate to one another, not “Tab A goes into Slot B” anatomical detail 🙂
More consensual sex, yes, in all its many forms. I find who people *choose* to sleep with a lot more interesting than when it’s *forced* on someone. The former gives characters more agency, and can actually introduce an incredible amount of tension (and plot problems!). The latter tends to be lazy writing, and is generally handled in really offensive ways.
I almost closed this article after the first paragraph, but on recommendation carried on reading it. It’s a good argument. My take has always been that sex scenes are like battle scenes; if you put them in you’ve either got to do it exceptionally well or you have to accept that it will alienate/bore part of your audience.
By the way, the reason I nearly skipped the article was the Peter Brett reference – *SPOILER ALERT* – the character in The Painted Man gets raped, then a few days later is sleeping with the protagonist. I put the book down at that point.
I finished the book, but now feel disinclined to read the rest of the series. I think it was a serious mis-step by Brett after an excellent start, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to get why readers didn’t like that development doesn’t give me confidence in how he’s handled female characters down the line.
“…the kind of emotional level that I’d like my scenes to resonate with…”
Sam… I am another step closer to finally reading your books. Hang in there (o:
“…the kind of emotional level that I’d like my scenes to resonate with…”
Sam… I am another step closer to finally reading your books. Hang in there (o:
Just a note on the comment above about the Peter V Brett rape-then-sex-a-few-days-later “issue”… I’d just like to point out that different people will react differently to being raped. Some people will be put off sex for a very long time, maybe forever. Some people will be in a hurry to try to get back into it with someone they really fancy, or already have a relationship with. Some people might be in a hurry to be in a sexual encounter in which they feel “in charge”, while others might be keen but timid and just need to take things slow… The character will deal with it how they will.
The thing that bugged me wasn’t Leesa’s reaction so much as the bait’n’switch aspect of the whole incident. This is a character who spends most of the book being an independent young woman who is more than capable of protecting her own virtue, but as soon as she teams up with the male PoV characters she turns into a damsel-in-distress. She’s gang-raped in the presence of the younger one, then rescued from corelings by the older one – it’s all about the guys and how the event affects *them*.
That’s what’s so offensive about the storyline, not the fact that a book about a brutal and dangerous world includes a rape scene.
Yep. This. I see this in film and TV all the time, too: horrible things done to female characters so the *men* can grow and change, so we can focus on *men’s* trauma/reaction. It treats women as things. It’s not about sexual assault at all. It’s about an offense to a man’s honor.
Which is why pretty much every time I see an author deploy this lazy “plot point,” I stop reading. They aren’t really writing about women at all, 99% of the time.
I really loved this post – not just because I agree that rape is relentlessly overused in fantasy fiction, but also because you made me think about sexy-times writing in a different way. I’ve usually steered clear of including sex scenes because I’ve been uncertain of how much they can actually add to the story (and also, if I’m honest, because I love a long drawn out will-they-won’t-they situation)but the idea of sex as an escalation of emotion and emotional conflict is potentially more interesting than sex as a reward. I will definitely have a think about this for future books.