Active Users:817 Time:23/12/2024 02:22:41 AM
This request is causing me a great deal of distress. Tom Send a noteboard - 11/04/2011 04:12:19 PM
First of all, I found that sex scene absolutely atrocious. It seems to me that Tanith Lee obviously never intended to read that passage aloud because the words just sound all wrong and smashed together in a haphazard way. It doesn't flow, it doesn't drag me along with it the way a good sex scene in a book should.

The problem is that, in trying to find something really good, I keep going back to books that are properly styled erotica. I'm not sure if there are a lot of good sex scenes in books that aren't about sex.

When I think about good sex scenes, I think of L'Histoire d'O, ?????? ? ???????, or La Nouvelle Justine, and I'm not sure if it's fair to compare books written expressly to describe sex with books where sex is incidental to a broader story.

There are some scenes I hesitate to mention for other reasons, such as Lolita, where the sex scene is not as graphic due to the words used. In order to really find it "exciting", though, I also need to do mentally what Stanley Kubrick did explicitly in his film adaptation - make Lolita older than she really was. Perhaps one of the best examples I can come up with is American Psycho, which has decent enough sex scenes if you take out the murder component (perhaps others don't need to ignore the murder but that sort of thing doesn't really turn me on, particularly if it's not ritualistic).

I suspect that my choice of reading may also be contributing to the situation. Of the more contemporary authors that I read, most tend to either the philosophic (like Kundera, Eco, Mahfouz or Sartre) or the hallucinogenic (Hunter S. Thompson, Viktor Pelevin). Bukowski writes about sex, but he intentionally makes his descriptions unpleasant (read into that what you will).
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
Reply to message
Your favorite sex scene (post here) - 10/04/2011 08:04:15 AM 1833 Views
Romulan + Iulette - 10/04/2011 08:23:27 AM 825 Views
Sandman: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman. - 10/04/2011 07:02:28 PM 1044 Views
That is good. *NM* - 11/04/2011 01:52:31 AM 368 Views
Gaiman's American Gods. - 11/04/2011 09:17:14 AM 920 Views
This request is causing me a great deal of distress. - 11/04/2011 04:12:19 PM 1073 Views
*nods* - 11/04/2011 07:43:48 PM 954 Views
You have to type up some samples for me, b/c so far I think your crazy. I love that paragraph. *NM* - 11/04/2011 11:42:26 PM 290 Views
"you're", not "your". And the paragraph was awful. - 12/04/2011 12:28:02 AM 753 Views
Yes, and punctuation marks go inside the quodation marks, "like so." - 12/04/2011 05:16:55 PM 908 Views
Wait... they do? - 14/04/2011 03:26:10 AM 725 Views
No they don't, at least not in my reply. - 14/04/2011 05:44:50 AM 780 Views
Re: No they don't, at least not in my reply. - 14/04/2011 04:38:37 PM 710 Views
That would be wrong and ugly. - 14/04/2011 04:51:05 PM 726 Views
... *NM* - 14/04/2011 04:52:20 PM 321 Views
Substantive critique of that travesty of an attempt at writing: - 14/04/2011 06:00:16 AM 809 Views
Re: Substantive critique of that travesty of an attempt at writing: - 14/04/2011 04:30:58 PM 791 Views
Once more into the breach - 14/04/2011 05:27:37 PM 918 Views
I agree with you on some points, disagree on others. - 14/04/2011 06:57:07 PM 978 Views
Only in America - 14/04/2011 04:36:38 PM 896 Views
I understand why you like this. - 12/04/2011 02:35:37 AM 763 Views
Would one I wrote myself count? - 14/04/2011 12:23:43 PM 761 Views
No. *NM* - 21/04/2011 04:35:47 AM 320 Views
I read a good one last night... by Tanith Lee! - 16/04/2011 08:38:52 PM 677 Views
Re: Your favorite sex scene (post here) - 17/04/2011 11:24:28 PM 944 Views
Oh that Roman erotica - 22/04/2011 10:14:21 PM 730 Views
I really enjoyed that. - 23/04/2011 06:20:57 AM 712 Views

Reply to Message