(photo Aniram via Dreamstime)

S is for: sex scene or no sex scene?

It’s the first day of seventh grade, and I’m a hopeless loser. I mean, hopeless–just like the clichéd awkward teen you see in the movies. The one who makes you cringe. The one for whom the capital L on the forehead defines. Loser teen is I. And of course, I’m lost. I’m wandering the halls after the bell has rung looking for my biology class, frightened of my own shadow.

I find the room and enter just in time for Mr. Landers to say to the class, “What is sex?”

Utter silence. Then the class breaks out into titters of laughter. Then silence again. I’m just trying to find a seat. Naturally, the empty seat is in front. You can hear my feet tapping the linoleum all the way down the aisle.

It turns out the answer Mr. Landers was seeking is gender. Sex = gender. Oh.

Mr. Landers was correct. If you look in the dictionary, the noun sex means gender, and the verb sex means to ascertain gender as in “Let’s sex the lizard.”

Kinky.

Still, gender is not what most people think of when the word comes up in conversation, is it?

Lately I’ve been pondering the role of sex scenes in fiction. Mine and everybody else’s. Lately sex scenes are leaving me colder than a wet shower. (For our discussion, I’m excluding erotica and fantasy because, although I’m a genre-hopping, opportunistic reader, I don’t have much familiarity with erotica or fantasy.)

I see definite genre distinctions in the writing of sex scenes. In mysteries and science fiction, often sex scenes occur offstage. Perhaps some kissing and fondling, and then the door or the chapter closes. I often find the same thing in literary fiction. When I see a sex scene in literary fiction, it’s quirky or perhaps violent and usually serves more than one purpose. In Young Adult, sex is emotional and tender.

I guess that leaves Romance. Romance has many sub-genres, including what they call “clean” as well as Christian Romance. You would not find sex scenes in these sub-genres.

Sex in the rest of romance is beginning to feel clichéd (like me as Loser Teen) and overwritten and, more often than not, pulls me out of the story.

Some examples:

For a long time, every Nora Roberts book I read included the climactic expression “She shattered.” Really? And then there are the naive heroines in Amanda Quick novels who squeal, “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to fit!” Inevitably, they do, of course, fit. Now, if they didn’t, that might be interesting…

Is it just me? Am I turning into a jaded prude or a has-been biddy?

What is your take on sex scenes in fiction? Too little? Too much? Too boring?