Sometimes I wish there was a Porn Blocking 101 class, because too many times people wind up in positions that have no basis in reality.
When reading, nothing takes me out of the moment faster than the thought, "Not even porn stars bend like that." Which of course, means that writing good smut is about as sexy for me as a writer as I imagine sex scenes are for actors. It's all "Ok, that finger goes there, the elbow can't do that, gonna have to change positions to get there from here, blah blah way too analytical blah." For actors I expect there is a certain amount of "Ouch, you're on my hair!" and "Could you please not put your knee there!"
I've read some nice stuff where the characters actually do occasionally knee someone or stick an elbow in the eye, or even just start giggling so hard they can't do anything. Which is much more enjoyable for me than clever sexual choreography.
I'm more of a fade-to-black writer, myself. Saves having to do all that pesky organizing.
I imagine one of the root causes might be that so many of the people whose fanfic I've run across seem to have no firsthand experience with sex themselves.
I don't understand why that means they suddenly don't know the limits of the human spine, though.
I mean, I get a certain degree of "people don't actually do that for real" or "it doesn't go down the exact same way *every* time". But I don't have to have been in certain positions to know they can't be held. Also, there's a mega-shitload of porn out there. If the positions were all ones that flexible porn stars could do but no one would bother in the intimacy of their own bedroom, I'd get that too.
It's
only
bad research to me. Even if you've had sex, please check how many hands a given action takes. It's just polite.
Also, I'm glad to see it's increasingly a gland, not a bundle of nerves.
I imagine one of the root causes might be that so many of the people whose fanfic I've run across seem to have no firsthand experience with sex themselves.
Dunno how big a problem that is, I'm still rather proud of the smut I wrote while I was a virgin. But again, thinking things through helps and I s'pose it is up there with "read too many cheesy romance novels so now think 'throbbing manhood' is
de rigueur."
One thing that is a big challenge is precisely how much detail to put in - I get sick of the thing, want to be done with it, and start wondering how much I can get away with leaving to the imagination of the reader. But there are ways to do that with finesse, too.
Lithiumdoll is changing webhosts, and she's not moving all her vids over, just the most recent. If you have a great fondness for some of her old stuff, grab it now:
[link]
I have had her friended for yonks, and even I didn't know she had all those vids!
Interesting discussion of 50 Shades of Grey, which Vintage just picked up after the author really successfully self-published it, and which started life as Twilight fanfic.
What's interesting is that Vintage is saying this is completely original, even though the Dear Author blog did a comparison between it and the original fic, and it's barely been changed at all, aside from the names.
The bigger question is, does it matter that it started as Twilight fanfic? It was so AU that it bore very little resemblance to the story of Twilight aside from the characters' names.
Why would Vintage take that position, since it's so trivially disproven? Because they think the people that disagree won't get heard or taken seriously?
