[hildea]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

And yes, I freely admit I'm moderately interested in sex, including sex in fiction. Why is that a bad thing? Why should it be a bad thing?

Not every scene in a book is meant to move the plot forward. Most descriptions don't. Many musings, thoughts and inner monologues of characters don't. Many dialogues don't. Yet they're all important parts of a novel.

I agree with all this, and I do find it mildly annoying (OK, maybe more than "mildly") that there seems to be a higher bar for sex scenes than for any other type of scenes.

Originally Posted by Quoth

The explicit sex scene in Uprooted (Novik) fantasy novel seems totally out of place and out of character for the author and character.

I had forgotten that, so I had to look it up to remind me of it. Spoilers for Uprooted:

Spoiler:

Hm, out of place? This is a book where the young women talk about the risk of rape at the beginning of the book, and the protagonist is worried about being raped by the scary magician she has to work for. I think there's also a rape attempt from a visiting noble?
During the book she grows in self confidence and power, and the Dragon becomes an ally instead of a frightening boss, enough that she takes the initiative in them having sex. I didn't reread everything preceding the sex scene, but as far as I remember it didn't seem out of place to me.
I didn't like that scene because I like Agnieszca and don't like the Dragon, and didn't feel like that relationship between them was a good outcome, though.

Originally Posted by DNSB

One of my favourite comments on sex scenes:

Heh, I don't agree with that either To me a sex scene is like any other scene, and a scene can be written very well without giving the reader any wish to take part in it. I'm very satisfied with my non-dramatic, mundane life, and have no desire whatsoever to live a life that would make me an interesting protagonist in a book