Skimming the sex scenes.

(I'm having typing issues, and decided I was feeling too lazy to try to actually type it up there.)

(It took me three times to type it here without making horrible typos.)

I started skimming the sex scenes early in my fandom life, both because I used to read fic at work (I don't anymore) and because I figured out pretty quickly that very few of them add more to the story than saying "and then they had sex" would.

I pretty much skim the sex myself, unless it's an author I adore. I'm always harping on there being too much sex in stories, but it's more of a "does this advance the plot or characterization?" point of view. Otherwise I start feeling like somebody who watches TV with a checklist of things they're going to complain to the FCC about the next day.

Huh. I pretty much read Batfic *only* for the sex.

I won't say I skim the plotty stuff, because Batfic writers (the good ones) manage to advance the plot through Teh Sex, mostly b/c the Batfam is so incredibly emotionally fucked-up.

I pretty much read Batfic *only* for the sex

All right, I'll confess to that foler on my computer that holds the *special* stories (see authors I adore remark above). Sadly, there are few of those.

And now I'm thinking of Batman's suit as being a giant condom. I think I need caffeine.

Well, there are fics you read for the sex, and then there are fics you read for the story that happen to have sex in them. Like, I'll read (total secret shame, here) PWP Buffy/Faith entirely because I think it's teh hott. But if I'm reading a 200 page Spike/Buffy epic, and the first sex scene doesn't either ring my bells or advance the plot, or I'm in a situation where bell-ringing would be inconvenient, I'll skim the rest of the sex.

"You can ring my be-e-ell, you can ring my bell."

Where's my disco CD?

I think I was born a BOFQ. Or, to be fair, I think I'm just attracted to a lot fewer of the fanfic principals than everyone else in the world. I'll actually read a sex scene if I actually, like, wish I were in it; but that's a smallish percentage of sex scenes for me.

I have my standards, yo.

So, if you categorize fanfic by how central a role sex plays, you have:

1. PWP: The story exists just for teh sex. Doesn't mean that you can't have funny, meaningful, in-character PWP, and I adore it when the writers can do that.

2. The romance: in which having the characters getting it on is ultimately the goal, but there's more of a build-up to it.

3. Plotty fic with some sex/UST thrown in.

4. Gen, be it character vignette or plot without sex.

For 1. and 2., sex/romance aspect is of the paramount importance, so of course the emphasis lies there accordingly. I've read and enjoyed a lot of these, although if you read heavily in one pairing, one story starts looking like another after a while, unless the writer has a distinctive prose style or a knack at spot-on dialog, etc.

What bugs me is when I'm enjoying story type 3, and sex is just perfunctorily thrown in every couple of chapters to "spice things up" or because the readers expect it or whatever. I love me some long, intricate, well-characterized plotty stuff, and unless the sex is advancing the plot or playing a vital role in the characterization of the person engaging in it, it throws me entirely out of the story, no matter how hot it may be. Now, you can have your story be equal part romance and plot, where the plot moves the relationship and the relationship moves the plot, but it's tricky to do this well, I think. Shalott's first Sheppard/McKay fic did this very well. Sounds like her second story wasn't entirely successful in that front.

Hmmm. Not sure what the point of writing this all out was. Ah well. Oh! I want to thank whoever linked to the Fourth Vine a bit earlier, because whoever she is, she is hysterical. She posted on fanfic peeves last night, and I had a good chuckle over reading that.

What bugs me is when I'm enjoying story type 3, and sex is just perfunctorily thrown in every couple of chapters to "spice things up" or because the readers expect it or whatever.

Yes!

I'm also running into requests for sex for Nessuno where I don't think sex is justified. Oodles of UST, especially unrecognized UST on the part of the young man who's grown up learning to be a priest, but the confines of the plot don't lend to the happy hot groping that several readers are asking for. I guess I'm going to have to go Sex Nazi on them. "No sex for you!"