Sex Vs. Porn Vs. Erotica Vs.What the hell was that?

So, I was thinking about this last night. Sex scenes. They come in all flavors. It generally breaks down to:

* Painful to read
* Obtuse to the extreme
* Detailed and clinical
* Pornographic
* Tastefully erotic
* What the hell was that?
* YAOI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* Medieval

The PR is a scene written with obvious distaste, poor descriptions and language bordering on the 18th century.

O to the E - So vaguely written you aren't even sure they had sex until thirty pages later a side character makes a joke about it.

DC - Reads like a medical journal/textbook.

Porn...duh.

Tasteful - difficult to achieve, using appropriate language and detailed descriptions.


WTHWT? - When after you read it you exclaim, What the hell was that? Different from O to the E because you knew sex occurred but cannot imagine why anyone would do/say any of that. Ever. For any reason

YAOI!!! - Well, if you've been on the internet the past few years you'll probably not need any explanation, however, I suggest you head to your search engine if you must look it up.

Medieval - "Please, sheath your sword." I think that says it all really.


To avoid the cliche's, one must practice, let other people read the scenes and you need to read some good scenes to get your start. This means you have to know what good sex, realistic sex and tasteful sex are.

This can boil down to the old adage "Write what you know." Well, I've seen a whole lot of young fanfiction writers out there writing sex scenes. They base these scenes on A) Porn. B) Other fanfiction and C) Erotic novels from their mom's bookshelf.

Generally speaking these youngster have a skewed idea about sex that involves lots of hot dudes having sex with one another and use of the words "member", "shaft", "sword", "spear", "staff", "stave", etc. Innuendo is king amongst our virginal writers.

That's not to say a person who has no personal experience can't write a sex scene, they can. They just need to get a better idea about the difference between Porn, Erotica, and Tasteful Sex.

Each of these things has their place. Porn has no place in Literature. What defines porn precisely? Well, porn is when the goal, focal point, of the story is sex. The End Game, as it were. Erotica is a story based around sexual encounters and steamy romance. Tasteful sex is found all across the genres.

If you want to write porn, that's fine, erotica, fine. You should know, both of those things can be just as difficult to write as tasteful sex. Just because it's porn doesn't mean you can have a typo. It makes you look sloppy. Though I do doubt the teenage boy reading it will pause because you put their instead of they're.

Erotica is a high-volume industry. Dozens of titles are published every year in that genre in various flavors. Most of those titles are...trash. They're monikered dime store novels for a reason.

I suppose my point here is that you don't need to be a sex-fiend to write good sex scenes. You just need to be well - informed, well read and you could always go talk to your doctor if you have any questions.

We will always write based upon our personal experiences, and when it comes to writing sex it needs to a bit more personal and a lot less popular. Popular perception will nearly always steer you the wrong way when it comes to this subject. And as always, get a good reader and practice, practice, practice.