The OF Blog: Is this a bad sex scene?

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Is this a bad sex scene?

Quoted from Jamy Gordon's 2010 National Book Award-winning novel, Lord of Misrule:

You're going to shut up, starting now.  Do you hear me?  Do you understand?

What do you want? she said very low.

I want you to capitulate.

All right.  All right, she whispered.

And then she was falling, falling.  But he didn't let her up.  He pushed farther, and curved them, his fingers, hard against the wall of her.  And his thumb found the other moist portal and curved around inside her to meet them, and hooked her.

She was spinning upwards.  Her loosened jeans bound her knees together.  One hand under her belly, he lifted her to himself.  And then some small thing gave way and he pressed to her center.  Somewhere he laughed at her, not unkindly. (p. 46)

Umm...umm...is it me, or did Gordon just attempt to describe in mostly chaste language a woman getting the Shocker?

9 comments:

Tom said...

Awful. With sex scenes, the author shouldn't make the following mistakes:

1. Using words that people wouldn't use during sex (e.g., "capitulate")

2. Using words to describe the process that people can't readily understand

3. Making men sound like women in their approach to sex, or vice-versa

As far as I can tell, that scene violated all three points. Garden variety erotica does a better job; serious authors should not be afraid of inserting something openly graphic into their works if they're going to attempt to describe a sex scene at all.

Larry Nolen said...

Exactly. Even worse, Gordon violates this several times with other types of character interactions. It was quite jarring and took a story that could have been compelling and made it into something that was a bit of a mess to read. I might review this later this week, after I catch up with my backlog of reviews to write.

Harry Markov said...

Intense... The portal bit kinda made me imagine the Atlantis Gate open in her loin area. Hilarious to read. First he besieged her, then he cast a spell and found her portal. Kinda like a generic medieval fantasy.

Definitely imaginative

Larry Nolen said...

Ha! I guess he pulled out his Dragonlance and explored her Forgotten Realms, then? ;)

Harry Markov said...

You did not just say that! LOL You killed me... *dies*

Larry Nolen said...

Well, it's an old quip I've seen on a few fantasy fora over the years :P

Brenda said...

There wasn't any part of that passage that was sexy, but then I'm not a huge fan of sex scenes to begin with. But that one was just bad.

Eric said...

I'm so hard right now. I mean, I'm so adamantine right now.

George S. said...

Just saw this. It's hilarious! Makes me appreciate Ken Follett's sex scenes more. He tells it like it is without all the D&D references.

 
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