Do you like sex/love scenes in the stories you read?

[sunnysmiles]

I don't like graphic descriptions and best left to the imagination.

[mike_bike_kite]

I don't like sex scenes in books though I'm far from being a prude. Sure, I can accept it if it's essential for characterization but usually it's not. Most of the time I just get that feeling that the author doesn't get away from their type writer that much and I'm just having to wade through their private (public) fantasies.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

I don't like sex scenes in books though I'm far from being a prude. Sure, I can accept it if it's essential for characterization but usually it's not. Most of the time I just get that feeling that the author doesn't get away from their type writer that much and I'm just having to wade through their private (public) fantasies.

That sounds just like my thoughts. If it is essential then I have no problems. An ebook I read a few months ago (self published, good reviews) didn't have sex scenes but had a character in several scenes imagine themselves with homosexual tendencies. This had absolutely no bearing at all on the story, nor did it reflect the character in terms of the story. It was just way out there and really distracted from the story.

[shanghaichica]

I like Romance in books but not sex scenes. Also I don't like books that are entirely based on romance like Mills and boon or whatever. Romance can be sweet in a book if oy is not OTT and doesn't dominate the story.

[Falbe Publishing]

Originally Posted by Piper_

LOL Fresh sweat is ok. What you get after 2 weeks riding horses through marshes and forests, from battle to bloody battle, wearing the same pair of underwear... mmm... not so enticing.

I agree. I've written more than one love scene when the woman says hey wait you need a bath.

[Freeshadow]

more than one love scene when the woman says hey wait you need a bath.

and where the guy answers - "So what - even if I'd bathe now I would still need another after we are done."

[8annika.yael]

where would we be without sex scenes? even if they weren't explicitly included in a plot, readers would create them on their own, so, essentially a sex/love scene is inevitable, no?

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

and where the guy answers - "So what - even if I'd bathe now I would still need another after we are done."

... but then the woman can say - "But you can share the second one with me..."

[Poppaea]

Napoleon Bonaparte wrote from the battlefield to his lover the Countess Maria Walewska: "Don't wash I am on my way to you." (Or maybe he wrote: Don't wash I'm coming?? Ah, the joys of translating )

The odour of a loved ones body can be very sexy!

OTOH Maria Waleswska was married at age 18 to Count Walsewska who was then 70. It is perfecty possible she was used to some strange old odour

[ruddran]

Yes, I like stories weaved with sex and love, it makes the story alive.

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I would answer "it depends on the book". A book like "Pride and Prejudice" without love scenes (love scenes - not graphic sex) would be meaningless. Love scenes in a hard SF novel are probably irrelevant.

That's the option I wanted too. If I read erotica I would obviously want it to contain some hot and steamy sex, but I don't. In every other genre I find that anything more than a very short and superficial scene just becomes annoying, so I chose the option one.

[QuantumIguana]

I don't find any of the poll options fitting. Unless I'm reading erotica, I just don't care about the sex lives of the characters. I don't feel that it really helps me get closer to the characters or to understand them any better.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I would have preferred to select this option:

The abundance or lack of sex in fiction is unimportant because only the writing matters.

The truly moral decision is not in one's choice of subject. It's in one's word choices, devotion to craft, emotional bravery and willingness to subjugate vanity to truth.

[Yapyap]

I really don't care for or want either love scenes or sex scenes in my reading. I stay well away from romance as a genre, and find romance in other genres badly done and uninteresting 99% of time - and with a romance I find badly done and uninteresting, with a male partner I don't find hot in any way, the sex scenes become repulsive. Plus, well, incredibly tedious - there are only so many ways to describe tab A going into slot B in detail.

My problem isn't so much with the concept of romance but the way it's done in the majority of published books, which just doesn't work for me - in general, I find the relationships developing too fast (without me seeing why the protagonist suddenly finds herself lusting for that guy) and the descriptions of the male love interests physically off-putting for me.

I can skip a sex scene or two in a book, but if there are more of them or if the books become too romance-focused (without a love interest I actually find interesting or appealing or attractive), I likely won't be reading more of that series/author in the future.

[Prestidigitweeze]

But isn't part of the fun of reading novels the prospect of getting to know characters whose tastes, mental processes and lives are vastly different from our own?