Are you also interested to look at other gaystories-sites ?

[steph]

I also started out with Nifty - Didn't we all?? I remember "Dorm Encounters" and "The Road Home". Now I use AwesomeDude's best-of-nifty and I just joined GA.

 

So far I'm kind of confused with the preponderance of "I don't do sex in my stories"

 

To me the challenge is to write good sex scenes, into a decent story, so that the sex contributes to plot and/or character development. An awful lot of comments here seem to say "sex scenes are bad/icky/creepy and they don't/can't contribute to plot or character development.

Welcome, StueyNZ!

 

I agree with you... to a certain extent. Sex is just not the focus of stories here.

 

Gabriel Morgan is great at including a touching sex scene in practically every chapter.

 

Comicality, Bill W, Jack Scribe, Melina Catts, and I'm sure there are others, all include a healthy dose of sex in most of their stories.

 

Shadowgod does an excellent job at weaving sex into plot line. The sex scenes are few, but the character development that leads up to them really brings out the steaminess of the scene.

 

Duncan Rider is amazing at producing sensual writing without being explicit.

 

...and those are just some of the hosted authors! Don't forget about eFiction where you can search by rating.

[shadowgod]

I also started out with Nifty - Didn't we all?? I remember "Dorm Encounters" and "The Road Home". Now I use AwesomeDude's best-of-nifty and I just joined GA.

 

So far I'm kind of confused with the preponderance of "I don't do sex in my stories"

 

To me the challenge is to write good sex scenes, into a decent story, so that the sex contributes to plot and/or character development. An awful lot of comments here seem to say "sex scenes are bad/icky/creepy and they don't/can't contribute to plot or character development.

 

I'm going to have to agree with you there StueyNZ. While yeah some stories don't seem particularly suited to having a sex scene (I can name at least one prolific author) For the most part I find this resurgence of "writing sex is beneath me" puzzling to say the least.

 

Granted, it may not be because it is beneath them, but the simple fact that writing such a scene is one of the most daunting and scary things I've ever faced. What really gets me is when you have a group of readers who say they don't read them. It's frustrating. They take the longest to write, and are usually prone to double triple even quadruple edits. Only not to be read... supposedly.

 

Like steph said, its not the focus of a story. That is what Nifty is for, and I'm not knocking Nifty, I read plenty there, but if I'm reading at Nifty I'm not really looking for storyline if you catch my drift.

 

Shadowgod does an excellent job at weaving sex into plot line. The sex scenes are few, but the character development that leads up to them really brings out the steaminess of the scene.

 

Thanks Steph!

 

 

Oh yeah, Steve (wildone) mentioned blackheart over at CRV... psh that guy is a hack!

[kitten]

I'm going to have to agree with you there StueyNZ. While yeah some stories don't seem particularly suited to having a sex scene (I can name at least one prolific author) For the most part I find this resurgence of "writing sex is beneath me" puzzling to say the least.

 

Granted, it may not be because it is beneath them, but the simple fact that writing such a scene is one of the most daunting and scary things I've ever faced. What really gets me is when you have a group of readers who say they don't read them. It's frustrating. They take the longest to write, and are usually prone to double triple even quadruple edits. Only not to be read... supposedly.

 

As regards sex scenes - I agree with shadowgod. As a reader, I enjoy them if they are well written, and as a writer I appreciate how difficult it is to do well. For me, that means they need to be a part of the story (eg developing plot or showing insight into the personalities of the participants) and not just a bolted-on scene just for titillation and with no real relevance. Don't get me wrong - I've nothing against titillation and I can enjoy nifty-type stories in which plot can be a very minor part. However, if the story does have a serious plot, then I like the sex to be a part of it.

 

As an author, I can also agree with shadowgod's point that it's frustrating to think that many readers will simply skip over a section of the story that took a lot of effort to write. On the other hand, as a reader, there are some things that simply do not interest me in a story.

 

For example, sometimes an author will put a detailed description of a hockey game or a football game. Personally, I have absolutely no interest in, and no knowledge of, team sports. Admittedly, the outcome of a game may be important for the plot, as may be the fact that key characters in the story play well or badly and maybe help win or lose the game. However, if an author goes beyond that basic information and insists on writing a blow-by-blow account of the game, who tackled whom, etc, etc, then I switch off and skip over it.

 

For me, the same goes for fight scenes in 'action' stories - I want to know who won and how they did it, but I rapidly get bored if there is a detailed blow-by-blow account. However, I realise that for some readers such a detailed account of a fight is an exciting part of the story. So, I guess it all boils down to the fact that the author will be writing for a particular type of readership and just has to accept that readers not in that group will skip over it. Having said that, though, I have a gut feeling that a greater proportion of readers will be interested in sex than will be interested in hockey!

 

Kit

[RJ Santos]

Granted, it may not be because it is beneath them, but the simple fact that writing such a scene is one of the most daunting and scary things I've ever faced. What really gets me is when you have a group of readers who say they don't read them. It's frustrating. They take the longest to write, and are usually prone to double triple even quadruple edits. Only not to be read... supposedly.

I've been searching the right words for how I feel about this subject, and I just found it. Thanks! *Two thumbs up!*

 

 

Rad

[Cynical Romantic]

I have a gut feeling that a greater proportion of readers will be interested in sex than will be interested in hockey!

 

Hey, not to knock sex or anything, but are you putting down hockey?

 

(Yes, I've been to some hockey games that were better than some sex. All depends on the hockey. And on the sex. )

[Graeme]

I'm going to have to agree with you there StueyNZ. While yeah some stories don't seem particularly suited to having a sex scene (I can name at least one prolific author) For the most part I find this resurgence of "writing sex is beneath me" puzzling to say the least.

 

Granted, it may not be because it is beneath them, but the simple fact that writing such a scene is one of the most daunting and scary things I've ever faced. What really gets me is when you have a group of readers who say they don't read them. It's frustrating. They take the longest to write, and are usually prone to double triple even quadruple edits. Only not to be read... supposedly.

 

Like steph said, its not the focus of a story. That is what Nifty is for, and I'm not knocking Nifty, I read plenty there, but if I'm reading at Nifty I'm not really looking for storyline if you catch my drift.

Firstly, I don't think I have ever said or implied that "writing sex if beneath me". I know Steve wasn't making that comment about me, but I'm in the camp of those who don't write sex scenes. The reason is pragmatic and personal -- my wife reads everything I write and she's told me she doesn't want to read a sex scene.

 

Secondly, I agree that writing a sex scene can be very daunting and scary. I've contemplated including one in my stories from time to time (and warning my wife, so she doesn't read it), but I've never done so. Part of that is because I'm not sure I could do a good job of it. Readers expect sex scenes to be erotic and exciting, though I can think of a few stories where they weren't (deliberately -- it was important to the story that the sex was not erotic). Having said, I keep wondering if I should be including a sex scene in my current novel. It could be interesting I probably won't, though, but you'll have to read the story to find out

 

Do I read sex scenes? Not often. I tend to skim them, rather than skip them, to see if there is something going on that I need to be aware of (plot-wise, for those of you with minds in the gutter), but I don't deliberately not read them. As I'm beta reading for Steve (shadowgod) I went through his recent sex scene very carefully (and it was interesting what I found ). I've got no objection to doing that -- my skimming of sex scenes is usually because it's 'more of the same', not because I dislike reading them. I read the first sex scene in Dom Luka's Desert Dropping story carefully, as an example, because it wasn't more of the same.

[Duncan Ryder]

Well....I'm one of those people who said I don't write sex scenes, I write love scenes... but I sure didn't mean to imply that I thought they were beneath me. The distinction I was making was about the purpose of the scene. I don't write sex for sex (like a lot of the Nifty stuff); it's always a metaphor. But I think I write fairly....sensually. At least, I sure try to.

 

Having said that...I really like writing love scenes a lot. I don't find them difficult. I work at them (from a craft perspective I find dialogue much much easier to write) and often go through for or five revisions to make them sing the they way I want them to, but it's a labor of love. In fact, I often start with a love scene...that's what comes to me so I write it first. And then I try to figure out what I want the characters to learn from it, and what got them there, and that often kind of drives the plot.

 

As for back to the original topic... I was already hosted on another site, and I started and will continue to post on Nifty, though with a time lag. As a pretty new writer to this genre I've had enormous encouragement from writers who've been around awhile, here at GA, and from several of the other sites. GA seems to have a stronger reader community re the forums etc, but personal supposrt of other writers, and of the hosts and administrators, at least in my experience has come from various hosted sites and I am touched and grateful for it all. Speaking as a writer, it's wonderful to have "homes" for these children of mine, where people can read and enjoy them, and I hope all the sites succeed.