Can sexual content be used meaningfully and/or creatively?

So this is something that's been bothering me for a while, as it always seems like sexual content is either practically meaningless to a story yet played as exciting, or played for drama which is almost always just sexual violence of some kind. Then there's how everyone seems to act like sexual/romantic culture is universally standardized. Given how significant sexuality is to humanity, there's a lot of potential there for developing characters and telling stories.

However, another thing that bothers me is if the audience would even allow sexual-related content to deviate from the normal expressions. Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil really bugs me for example, as it feels far too black & white as well as elevating such pathetic losers to Super-Evil status. On the other hand, I'm worried an audience would flat out ignore Deliberate Values Dissonance when it comes to sexuality, such as an Ethical Slut society of Cubi for example.

Thus, if one is allowed to embrace Tropes Are Tools when it comes to sexual-related content instead of retreading the same material, just how much would you be allowed to do? There's a lot of potential across that whole spectrum, and personally I believe there is only bad execution of ideas than think bad ideas are real. Still, I'm not looking to get socially murdered, and I'm genuinely curious how much meaning & creativity other writers would give sexuality.

If the sexual content has no meaning or relevance to the plot, then it shouldn't bloody be there.

Everything in a work should advance the plot or tell us something about the character. If there is a sex scene, it should be relevant to one or more of those aims.

And by "tell us something about the character", it has to be more than just "yes, (s)he does fuck."

How much is shown should only be as much as is required to get the message across. Sometimes it could be no more than showing the couple vanish into a room and close the door or sink down on the bed kissing and then pan away to the fireplace - you've established that these two/three characters have a physical relationship (which is, for some reason, plot/character-relevant) , now time to get on with the other important aspects of the story.

If you have to show every bump and thrust, then there'd better be a reason.

Yes, sexual content can have meaning and it absolutely can be used creatively.

The problems you are having with sexual content are that many creators do not actually use it creatively and do not have it have any meaning (other than "providing titillation", which I do not count as one for the purposes of this thread). I don't really blame them since titillation sells well and you need money to buy food, but ... yeah, it sometimes leaves a distaste.

Sexual content can serve as an additional colour where you are painting the image of your world, as the way sexuality is treated in it can say quite much and for as long as it does not cause you to jump higher on the rating scale it's really quite a bit better to show something rather than simply tell about it. It can also serve as another colour when painting a character, as sexuality tends to be something fairly intimate and as such how characters behave during the time when they ... hmm, partake in sexual content, can say quite a lot about them and sometimes reveal traits that you wish your readers to know but have no other way to inform the readers about without resorting to implausible plots or just "telling".

As for creativity in using it, honestly, a lot of that goes to the fact that to use sexual content well it has to be balanced with other stuff, which means that the bits related to sex cannot overtake the actual plot and yet it cannot simply be a one-off random incident that is never thought of again. If you can do that, then you can use it to show the readers something, and what you get will quite likely be creative and meaningful both because the characters will be characters rather than stand-ins for a sex scene, people with actual personalities and quirks.

That said, I'll go back to Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil for a bit. Honestly, that one ... yeah, that one. As a woman I can tell you that rape, by itself, as something someone decides to do, is just petty. Oh, sure, it's an evil thing to do, but by itself it's no higher on the scale of evilness (or whatever) than just abuse. No, what makes it worse is that there are a lot of other factors involved: For one, it's abuse on a fairly intimate level, which makes it a potentially very damaging kind of abuse because depending on the person the victim might have less ... let's say "emotional barriers", behind which they can protect themselves emotionally. For two, at least some of the victims are stigmatised further by the society they are in for "not keeping their purity", and while some people don't need support to get over such an unfortunate thing being done to them, verbal abuse and alienation from those around them not only doesn't help but often is additionally damaging. For three, it can result in consequences that are not treated as bad by default, and at least in some places the means of nullifying those consequences are barred from them without any actual reason ("it's evil because any child is a fruit of love" is not a valid reason, for insanity's sake, and it's a really shitty thing to say to someone who is pregnant as a result of rape) regardless of their feelings and their circumstances, which basically means that the victim is now hurt not only by the perpetrator but also by all the "well-meaning" people around them, and that can make the person feel helpless which never helps anyone. So yeah, a lot of the fault of this one being a thing lies on the society and the cultural norms and things like sexism.

edited 30th Jan '17 12:04:30 PM by Kazeto

Yup, when used for the right purposes it can easily be the focal point of character development. The only problem is Sturgeon's Law is particularly ironclad in that respect since it's something the majority of people find innately fascinating and you have cheap shots from the forbidden fruit angle. It's also quite profitable as recent history has shown us, even if it's downright bad.

edited 30th Jan '17 5:36:05 PM by Slysheen

The answer to the question is yes, but it also kinda depends on what you mean by sexual content.

You don't have to show any actual sex a lot of the time, just have two characters in bed together having a conversation. The sex was implied, it's how they talk to each other and behave afterwards that's the interesting part. How they react to the circumstances and intimacy.

I think there's too much of an assumption (and has been for a long time) about how standard sexuality is among people, given the growing awareness of asexuality and the like, but it's still an important part of human nature for good or ill.

Just don't be tasteless.

Just my perspective, but I hate reading about sex and if a book has sex in it, I'll just flip through it until it's over. This is almost always fine because rarely does something plot-relevant happen while characters are having sex. But if you wrote a book where plot-relevant things happened during the act of sex, I'd skip over it and then miss it. And I would certainly not want to re-read the sex scene. Maybe I'm not understanding the question correctly, but I'd save putting meaningful dialogue or action before or after sex just in case.

i also like to add on what constitutes as sex.

Well, when I said sexual content, I was using it more as an umbrella term for all things closely connected to it. Honestly, I couldn't care less about sex itself (I just want to be a dad), but how it factors into a story or character's personality makes it extremely fertile ground for creativity. So I do apologize if I was misleading about my question, yet so far these posts have been very helpful.

Thus, I suppose my question is better phrased as "Can specific facets of sex & sexuality be allowed creative use", given how a lot of these things have been generalized into very specific forms. Like for example, I'm interested in writing a method actress who deliberately tries defying Hide Your Pregnancy as self-invoked Enforced Method Acting, if mostly because I couldn't find an example of that anywhere.

Yet I'm also interested by the idea of a Kid from the Future protagonist being stuck with the Sadistic Choice of preserving or preventing their own conception, which is a pretty insane scenario to end up in. Though really, I provided these two examples just to help explain what I meant.

He he he heh... "fertile ground"...

Talking seriously, I'm actually quite grateful with my dear friend KK for bringing up light to this topic. Because of my asexuality, exploring intercourse and other sexual aspects in my stories was something I wasn't interested at all... and yet, because of my conversations and discussions with KK, I've come to the conclusion that, yes, there's plenty of unexplored territory on the topic for a creative mind to experiment with.

I take it as a creative challenge... An asexual author writing about a sexual topic might bring some really interesting perspective to the table. Exploring something genuinely alien and nigh incomprehensible... like Lovecraft and his Eldritch Abominations... except, cosmic monsters that defy human reason make more sense to me than sex... but, anyway, I digress.

Also, I've mentioned before that I dislike writing about rape... not because I adhere to the "Rape Is an special evil" mentality, but because in the 95% of cases I consider it a cheap and tasteless trick used by hack writers to infuse drama into a character's backstory (SPECIALLY female characters' backstories, as there's a definite bias towards them when using the "rape as backstory" trope) while using the least amount of effort possible. Maybe if rape was part of just of the many reasons... but even then, it just comes as gratuitous and lazy... just a cheap way to tug the audience's heart-strings.

There are many, many, MANY other ways to traumatize women than just raping them, people! Believe me, I'm an expert when it comes to finding new and increasingly brutal ways to break an innocent girl (and none of them involving rape)... or so KK says. (._.)U

edited 1st Feb '17 6:34:08 PM by VPhantom

That originally wasn't intentional, but I couldn't think of a suitable replacement. I'll wait first until there's more posts before writing another full-fledged post, though V's post helped me sort out my question: I want to know just what stuff stands out when it comes to all facets of sexual-related or connected concepts, as well as know why audiences may not be willing to accept its inclusion (like how most rape in fiction is cheaply used as V pointed out).

edited 1st Feb '17 7:51:59 PM by Kkutwar

Both of those examples seem tertiary to sexuality, though. Like, they could involve sexuality and that might add to them in some meaningful way, but they don't really require it. Meeting past versions of your parents and pregnancy are both concepts that get used in plenty of family media without really getting into the nitty gritty of things.

So in that sense I think your initial question was a bit misleading, yes.

I'm just kind of waiting for western society in general to get out of it's awkward "I can't decide if sex is awesome or scary" phase, to be honest. Many stories either tip-toe around the subject or barely mention it at all, or gratuitously add some breasts in the background of every other scene because they can.

Violence on the other hand, has been normalized to the point of absurdity and gets used for horror, drama, humor, and everything in between. Humans are weird...

Where would you say A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones stands on it in that regard?

I might be a bit unfair here since I haven't watched all of them, but HBO shows in general seem to be on the "because we can" side of things when it comes to sex. That doesn't necessarily mean that the shows are bad or anything, but it usually feels like more of an "added feature" than anything integral to the story. (Perhaps with a few exceptions though. Not sure.)

I'm not sure whether to attribute that to the work itself or just the fans word of mouth. While it isn't revolutionary or progressive in that regard I suppose a drunken stumble in the right direction is better than nothing at all.

So I basically went from asking "Are sex scenes okay" to "Is anything even barely and not necessarily related okay" neither of which are exactly my question. Honestly this has been so difficult to explain because I desperately don't want to come off as some maniac, and I know society loves punishing people instead of helping them or acknowledge they're actually innocent despite being super creepy (like the Cannibal Cop just being a dark fetish roleplayer).

Okay, I think I got it now: Dimension W taught me that certain possibilities can only occur under certain scenarios (like how one of the story's characters only exists because another died before them). Thus just because the sexual connections aren't necessary in general, the precise version can only be told by factoring it in.

I suppose Sexy Losers is ultimately a pretty good example of my question: Sure the content is very NSFW but actual stories are being told, which are extremely variant from each other as well. So does that clear things up?

Sexy Losers also sounds like Sunstone to me, which is mostly just a slice-of-life webcomic about BDSM with lots of strong characters.

What question of yours does Sexy Losers pertain to, though? Are you asking if it's okay at all to have a story with an actual plot and developed characters that also happens to include sexual topics? Because that's going to depend on your audience, and maybe if you're aiming to get traditionally published.

I don't think anybody on this forum is going to kick your ass or write you off as someone just looking for fap material after you've made it clear that you're not interested in writing straight-up porn or erotica if you just be specific about what you're asking, and what your end goal is with this.

edited 4th Feb '17 9:24:37 PM by CrystalGlacia

Yeah, I'm basically wanting to know if I'm allowed to tell stories that pull up sexual-related topics. Tropes Are Tools after all, and the fact sexual(ly taboo) content is so narrow & gratuitous makes me want to show it can be done in more meaningful ways. So I won't lie, one of the examples I was more worried about was a story where a character tears down Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil via delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the villain, who feels so arrogantly powerful just because they sexually enslaved a demigod.

How significant the sexual component is to a story varies wildly, and honestly the majority tend to enable plotlines or shape present characterization- Like Destiny Drive Third's list of dramatic Overshadowed by Awesome including the morally bankrupt practice of raising artificial lifeforms to be consenual sex pets, which is only so ignored because humanity has to constantly fight world ending horrors.

That's an element I want to include because I'm genuinely afraid humans would end up sexually abusing artificial lifeforms if nobody convinces them the artificial are alive as well. So overall, I'm wanting to tell not just creative stories but also ones to hopefully enlighten my viewers to terrible (potential) issues or societal flaws.

I get what you mean. Some people will get squicked out and call you a creep no matter what you do, but that's their loss. I wouldn't mind seeing more people attempt to use sexual themes in more meaningful and varied ways. (And while this may not be relevant, I wouldn't judge you even if you were just writing straight-up porn, just fyi.)

People can absolutely use sexuality in a creative way. But as mentioned, Sturgeon's Law means that it's mostly only used to make things Hotter and Sexier or Darker and Edgier. Your premise definitely sounds different from those two options.

Me, I'm using sexuality to characterize people in my superhero play Takotsubo.

I filled my story with hot Asian-American guys because for the past century or so, the Asian and Nerdy stereotype in America and Europe has caused a lot of people to think that think Asian men LITERALLY CANNOT BE ATTRACTIVE. It's bad enough with straight media where 90% of Asian men are dorky nerds who fail at socializing, but I found out it's even worse in the LGBT community where people straight-up say "I don't date Asians." And if they DO date Asians, it's only because they want 1) a cute, short Uke guy who faints/blushes a lot, 2) a living encyclopedia for "Asian" culture, or 3) brownie points so they can say "I'm totally not racist because I fucked an Asian guy!"

So my Asian-American superhero Cord is a hot Asian punk/scene boxer with craptons of piercings and tattoos, and he finds a lot of excuses to take his shirt off and flirt with both genders. On the other hand, it's Played for Drama because he's suffering a lot of Internalized Categorism and an utter lack of self-esteem. Cord's boyfriend Thad notes that he has a hard time saying no to sex, and he tells a lot of not-funny jokes about how "if I say no to the wrong person, I'd get shanked" or "the cops won't listen to an Asian kid who ran with gangs in high school anyway, so why bother?"

His new gang recruit Juliana thinks that Cord's trying to joke about something in his gang history to cope with things. She got half of the full reason since it's a literal story about how Cord ran into a Dirty Cop who found out his Secret Identity—which means they instantly found out that he shot a guy in revenge, since that's what his gangster alter-ego is infamous for. Cord got blackmailed into keeping the guy quiet through sex until one of his friends found out and she "convinced" the cop to "move out" of the city. Through Pistol-Whipping.

The bastard cop comes back and tries to get Cord arrested. Which is technically lawful, but also makes the cop a social pariah, thanks to Cord's gang now being firmly established as Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters. When the public finds out he assaulted Cord on threat of arrest, then STILL tried arresting him, he becomes such a Hate Sink that a rival gang-leader steals Cord's gangster outfit and shoots the cop to shut down the trial. They view it as revenge AND a Mercy Kill since 1) they don't like Cord's gang, but they HATE crooked cops and 2) if the cop had lost the case and been sent to prison, he'd get killed MUCH more painfully.

This doesn't affect Cord in the "Defiled Forever" way so much as "this happens to a LOT of poverty-stricken minorities, even to a superhero." Most superheroes are middle/upper-class white people, so this particular type of cop abuse toward civilians is barely talked about—I make it a point that when Cord tells his friends and boyfriend about it, they're pretty wrecked, but they're not SURPRISED because they're used to cops stepping all over them. The only character who gets surprised is the idealistic new white cop—he finally realizes that this is why Cord refuses all attempts to get him on the police force, and also why so many people call GANGSTERS for help instead of the cops.

Think of sex as dialogue. Characters can be professing their love for each other, or acting out their base instincts, or using pleasure to fill an emotional void.

Basically that. Sex scenes used at their best help to dig into the character's psyche or understand new elements of their development (sex for comfort? You don't overall think of the act itself later on but its consequences can affect you ("i slept with this person. i don't want anything more out of them, neither do they, but we're still hanging around each other. what should i feel?")).

It also helps when you're writing a romance to establish certain points of the relationship. If they're sexually attracted to one another, how much, have they desired to have this moment...

I have yet to see a detailed sex scene that's actually use skilflully, and cannot be replaced by a less explicit scene without losing its meaning. Even when sexuality is a theme, there's often little to no need for explicit details outside sex-based genres.

I feel like it really could be used creatively if given attention to the right places.

I actually mulled over this idea about a scene where protagonist Bob and deuteragonist Alice plus buddies discover a hotel in a ghost town and while exploring end up dispersed but come back together. In reality, they're still split up and the missing members who came back are shape-shifting creatures that lure people into seduction with their familiar faces and aphrodisiac-pheromones, strong enough to put them in a trance-state which makes them more willing to "get it on". (And then eat them when they're in too deep, or something stupid. Point is, you die.)

The focus goes to Bob and Shapeshifter!Alice while they're alone. SS!Alice plays the "main" and Bob the "lead" as he lets her make the moves—stripping, teasing, touching, etc. He's going with the motions but his mind still feels uncertain and afraid even of "going through with it". She goes in further and pounces him onto the bed. The pain from his head hitting the wall snaps him back to his senses.

Of course the mood of the chapter purposely focused more on evoking feelings of horror through danger slipping in while one is most vulnerable or "naked" (sorta like those scenes in the horror movies where the couple gets killed in the bed) rather than trying to make it genuinely sexy. It's intended to be unnerving and uncanny. In the long-term it's an experience that has Bob reevaluate his "true" feelings for Alice. Maybe it's too safe since it's not the real Alice, maybe it's a horrific BLAM moment. I'm still on the fence myself and I don't think I'll go through with it but it was an interesting concept to ponder on: "How can I use sexuality as the main fuel for a horror scene?"

edited 22nd Feb '17 6:14:10 PM by SkullySnot

I feel like there is a fairly big difference between portraying a sexual situation to give a better grasp of the characters involved, create some sort of plot momentum, and generate a particular mood, and simply including a sexual scene to titillate or shock to the detriment of the plot; but contrary to what others here might suggest, while the latter tends to be more explicit than the former because of conservation of detail, the degree of explicitness is ultimately not directly correlated to a scene's deftness or necessity: A scene that verges on the obscene may, in certain circumstances, be entirely appropriate to the sort of story one is telling, just as a fairly tasteful one may be shoehorned in for fanservice. And while there is nothing wrong with titillation—pornography has its place, and really ought to be written with the same care and thought as tamer romantic materials—it can be jarring or even outright break the suspension of disbelief if handled poorly or simply introduced inorganically.