about actual sex scenes

I started to write in the comment box but it got long enough to be a post so here goes. So to answer Faerie (god, why is that so hard to type??):

PHF a damn slow reader, but it's not his fault. He's slow at lots of things, which sometimes is gooooooooood.

The sex in Taming the Tiger is much better than in Sovereign Legacy, well, more explicit beyond a kiss on the beach and then getting dressed in the next scene.

Though someone once made the comment about the Taming the Tiger
scene, "When did "it" actually occur?"

"You want me to point out the words or what?"

"No, I just don't get it."

I said, "It's a book. Use your fuckin' imagination." God, the MTV generation...

I think it's a nice scrambly, sweaty, urgent, against-the-wall scene that I hate to eclipse with an explicit finale. I tried it and it fell flat (tee hee). Maybe because I can imagine starting out against the wall, but not finishing against the wall. Write what you know, right? They definitely go s-f for this scene, and Aidan is hot hot hot. He's a cutie-patootie anyway.

But I feel I need to tread lightly with erotica in my fiction.

For one, there's nothing like someone else's version of sex to ruin the mood. Like this one guy I occassionally read (I won't say who because I don't want to offend, though if he reads me he probably will know who he is and is free to slam me anon in my commentbox) writes some good stuff, though there's a prevailing theme that bothers me. I've hesitated to leave a comment on his blog because I wasn't sure what to say: criticize or to make a request, and I hate to be pissy about it.

But it generally goes like this: the guy (first person) is pretty much doing the "poor-protesting-woman-who-didn't-even-realize-how-bad-she-wants-it-but-suddenly-does-by-the-mere-touch-of-his-tongue-to-her-nipple" a favor by fucking her. (I think she usually begs for it, but he's also a gentleman and lets her finish first. Of course, there's different theories of thought on that, and I hate to get into it here.)

A little "Man as a Sexual Savior" goes a long way for me, especially in FP, (kinda makes the guy sound like an arrogant asshole) though I'm sure some folks are into it. He also uses cup sizes as descriptors, and since my cup size is pretty much AAAAAAA that's another buzz-kill. (Ok, it's not that bad. Hate to ruin anybody's little fantasy about what I look like.) Funny thing is though, he seems to know the whole bra system pretty well, so perhaps he must speak from some sort of experience. Again with the write what you know.

Not to say that's all he writes. Sometimes it's that the guy doesn't get any, and these I regretfully suspect may be more in line with fact than fiction. But hey, at least he's doing it. Well, writing it. Who am I to say? Maybe he fucks every chick in sight and really knows what he's talking about.

Secondly, and more to the point, my erotica is just not up to par with the rest of my writing. I'm not really into the whole "he slid his throbbing shaft of love into her hot, damp, quivering chasm of desire" thing, you know, and that wouldn't fit with what I do. I like to leave something to the imagination. Someday I might do a bodice-ripper, just for fun; but it would have to be a sort of Shawn of the Dead vs Dawn of the Dead thing-- in other words, it would be a farce. Perhaps in the spirit of The Princess Bride.

So, yes, sex is in the books but it's not the main thing. I don't really even like to write sex scenes, or even imagine them. The real thing is good enough for me.

Unless, that is, I'm at Starbucks.