of course he’s good in bed, he’s Edward Cullen
Alright, so in most books that have sex scenes (I’m not talking about erotica or NC-17 fanfic or whatever, I’m talking about general books that feature sex), all the characters have really, really good sex. Every time. Even the first time. Including if both parties involved are virgins.
This is something that happens specifically in stories where characters lose their viriginities– the only story I’ve known that has a realistic portrayal was one of Orson Scott Card’s Earthwhatever novels*.
Impressionable children that are not learning about sex from porn and prefer to read something more romantically enclined are going to be learning about it from fiction. (Some people are going to learn about it from their friends, but very few HS students are willing to tell their friends that oh yeah they had sex for the first time last weekend and they were real bad at it.)
These unreasonable expectations are one of the byproducts of the weird angle society looks at sex, and, judging from conversations with friends as well as the gigantic piles of advice columns I read on a weekly basis, people go into sex expecting something very different from what they get. (This is people of both/all genders/orientations too.)
Society as a whole seems to have pretty much figured out that the non-sexual, romantic bits of love don’t work in the way they do in the movies, and girls don’t honestly have the expectation that boys are going to stand outside their windows with boom boxes to woo them.
So, here’s the question: Do authors have a responsibility to portray sex, particularly in loss of virginity scenes (and we’re seeing more and more of these in YA literature of all genres– if you don’t believe me, go pick up Little Brother by Cory Doctorow or Tamora Pierce’s The Will Of The Empress, which features both lesbians and casual straight sex), in a way that is more realistic than they do? Or is it like all parts of a story, where it’s okay to leave out the boring parts, since most of the time no one cares what the characters ate for breakfast and how often they poop?
Bonus: Is this different for YA authors as opposed to with everyone else? What about with people writing about gay characters?
*This terrifies me, because OSC is a batshit crazy homophobic asshat. Those books are actually the books of Mormon rewritten in scifi format. Not that that makes them any less well written, just… weird. Especially with how they deal with the gay character.
Disclaimer related to the title: I haven’t actually gotten far enough in the Twilight series to know if Edward Cullen is good in bed. I’m assuming. I mean, he sparkles.
on February 9th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I think you just haven’t been fortunate or random enough to read some books that cover this well. In the YA genre, for example (where writing about anything sex related is really tricky if the author would like to sell books), a couple of examples that spring to mind that do the “awkward” side of things well:
1. John Green’s “Looking For Alaska” (and that got him in trouble in at least one US high school: as he describes here).
2. Justine Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness trilogy. Only one sex scene (in the third volume), but it seems to be written fairly realistically.
I’ll agree in advance that two examples don’t prove the rule, but I’m sure I’ve read others and can’t accurately quote author/title combos right this minute.
Outside of the “responsibility” angle, the author/reader contract is that the author will entertain the reader. Sometimes that is intellectually or with very realistic explanations. Sometimes, the details are glossed over to make the story move on and entertain, just like all the “ums” and “uhs…” are removed from novelised speech.
on May 18th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
JUST wait until the 4th book “breaking dawn” you’ll REALLY find out if he’s good in bed. i won’t ruin it for you!
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