How do you feel about sex in novels?

Answer 1

I don't mind it so long as it isn't a commercial stunt and has its place in the story.

Answer 2

Sex is a part of life so I feel that novels should have plenty of it. Now, some authors can't create a good love scene.Just stir up the emotions a bit between the characters and have the romancing come afterwards, but then...hardcore. I also read Love Inspired and it has all the romance without the sex, and it leaves me hanging sometimes...I need the sex scenes:D

Answer 3

I feel that most of it is put in gratuitously because the author and/or publishers think the book will sell more with it there.

By and large I think it usually detracts from the story, and that in this case less is more.

Look at the old 40's films. Sex may be suggested, but it isn't in your face. I think it's all the more powerful for that. You get the point that these people are attracted to each other powerfully,
but you don't have to sit there and watch a make-out session,
or worse.

Women's dress is the same to me. The sexiest dress I ever owned covered me head to foot. The dress was sleeveless, slightly scooped neck, but it was topped by a coat, Nehru collar, almost straight lines (slightly curved) to the floor in green satin with blue brocade. That dress turned heads, and did my boyfriend in. Mystery has been lost in this world, and to my mind, we've lost more by it's loss, than gained by all the putting it all out there, whether in books, in movies, or in our daily dress.

Hey Ho, Maggie!

Answer 4

Why not my favorite Novels of all time " A song of Ice and Fire" have a lot of sex, and whores, and what not but that adds to the way life was in mid evil times and makes the story so much more interesting.

Answer 5

I am all for it - but many authors use it to disqualify/discriminate negative characters - bore me. And some think there has to be that one obligatory sex scene - boring.
I love it when they try to find a way to describe sex like no other author has done before - for instance in Yoko Ogawa's Ringfinger (unluckily not yet translated into English) the only 'sex' scene describes a man pressing a woman to the edge of an (empty) swimming pool - they're fully dressed and nothing else happens - but you know that for them it's like having sex.
Or in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, when Pribislav Hippe and later Clawdia Chauchat give Hans Castorp a silver (mechanical) pencil - says it all.

Answer 6

Its either waterdowned to the point it is childish or way to much thought is put into it where it seems just too fake like watching a soft core porn or something. Tasteful when done right but if done wrong it can make a whole book become lest interesting.

Answer 7

It is fine as long as it is tastefully done and moves the plot along. Sex for the sake of sex in books doesn't seem to work, in my opinion. It is usually very cheesy.

Answer 8

I find it interesting. It often deepens characterisation by showing the characters in such a personal situation if handled well. It's not a problem.

Answer 9

I think it patronizing to add it gratuitously, but appropriate if an integrated and fitting part of a literary work.

Answer 10

It depends on what your reading. I've read books w/ and w/o it. And I've never been surprised or upset, It fit into the story that I was reading at the time.