Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I'm talking the type of books where there are a number of sex scenes and they are the primary focus of the book. With the In Death books, the murder mystery is the focus of the plot and the characters. The sex is secondary and it's only one short scene.
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Yeah--I'm reading an historical murder mystery series, which I have found surprisingly enjoyable (I thought it was going to degenerate into a romance, which they so often do, but huzzah, they didn't) and the involved couple eventually marry, yadda. And they have sex a few times, maybe...IDK, twice (?) per book but it's perfectly suitable to the storyline and feels natural and organic to the story.
With something like (sorry to keep harping on this one) HBO's GOT, it felt quite honestly like prurient, titillating, puerile
PLOT replacement and film stretcher.
I really hated it when in discussions online, someone (or, I must be honest, seemed like the majority of the GOT-lovers) would rant at me that
"the sex is crucial to the plot!!!" And I would always ask, "oh, well, if you need to know that A slept with B, exactly what--exactly--is conveyed in a graphic sex scene that you wouldn't get if you saw A and B in a bed, post-coitus? What incredibly important plot information?
If you're going to say that someone is a sexual sadist, okay, I can see
good reasons to include more detail than two people in bed (in ye olden days, smoking a ciggie, but whatever today).
And,
if that's so damned important, SO crucial, such an imperative, then why is it it's 99% all the lady parts that are exposed, and almost NEVER the boy toy's wedding tackle? I mean, what, it's
so bloody crucial to understanding the plot, but somehow, your plot understanding drips out of your brain, if you see wedding tackle instead of lady bits?
What a bunch of bloody nonsense. You wanna be prurient? Knock yourself out. Seeing other people going at it fires up yor engine? Then just flipping admit it. Don't try to sell me illogical drivel about how it's "crucial to the plot" to include explicit sex. I can see it on occasion and I can see it done well, but it just seems as though over the last 25 years, it's nothing more than, as I said, filler and cheap filler at that.
Geeze, for the love of God, look at what happened to Laurell K. Hamilton, who almost created a publishing niche all by herself, had 4-5 terrific ABVH books and then...to this day, other than divorcing
the guy that MUST have been the brains behind the actual murder mystery plots, (as those disappeaRed the moment he did, I mean, THE MOMENT), and marrying some boy toy (speaking of boy toy parts), I have no idea what happened to her. Yes, yes, I get it; she laughed all the way to the bank, her books went to #1 hardcovers (that should tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the American "reading" public), but damn, I really enjoyed those early books and finally stopped reading her. I mean, talk about sex in lieu of plot! Ugh. Millions or not, I still think it's a shame.
Hitch