The Battle of the Sexes - The Problem with Sex Scenes & Why I don't Write them - And My Discussion Regarding Fantasy Fiction with Copernican & Man Behind the Screen

The Battle of the Goons & the Sexes

I’ll admit… once upon a time I wrote a few sex scenes. Yes, I must confess to this egregious sin. It was college and I was at the height of the influence that my profs (even the negative ones) had over me, and I wanted to be edgy so I wrote a couple of extended scenes into Chute d’Innocence. Since then though I’ve gone back to look at them and was privately horrified so I deleted them, or shortened the rape scenes. Why? Such things shouldn’t be done to ‘shock and awe’.

The reason has to do with changes in belief, in evolution of character and a different vision of the role that such things play into our lives. It happens that for one thing I went from an atheist or something approximating that to a Catholic. I also went from someone who had a certain set of beliefs regarding the Genre I most ardently believe in, to being better read and having a better appreciation also of ‘children’s literature’ (special thanks to my friend Max who changed how I looked at such things, as he advised me that it was serious business, him and his wife advised and counselled me a lot on such things).

The thing about Sex Scenes that I find particularly discordant is that to me it has always been something very private. I’ve similar sensibilities as Hugues Capet which is to say I don’t think it should be public, it should be private. It is not for me to know what others do in the bedroom, what they like or what they don’t like. I MUST respect their privacy.

Oddly I have a strange milquetoast outlook on others writing Sex Scenes. If people want to write it, fine. I just won’t read the scene. I might not even read the story. Why? Because it feels uncomfortable to see someone in that state. That said, there’ve been some masterpieces that have examined the role of sex in characters lives such as Pillars of the Earth amongst others.

So go ahead, write what you like, if it isn’t for me great. That said, if you have a ‘cut to black scene’ that’s fine for me (I use those a lot in Chute), now will I call Erotica or Porn Literature? Nope. Sorry, actually not sorry. It isn’t Literature. It’s something else. As Literature is the highest state fiction can aspire to.

In my eyes though I may come down hard on the likes of Dost, Austen and Dickens and others they are ABSOLUTELY Literature in my eyes. I love Great Expectations, I love Brothers, I also kind of love Mansfield Park as there’s some scenes in there that still fascinate me (I really want to write a Cozy Fantasy story about a Playwright or something, with some topics discussed like in Mansfield Park!). Tolkien, Howard and even Lewis are Literature (sorry, I’m not sorry

Hyun Woo Kim

buddy, they are).

But if you ask me if porn is Literature, it isn’t.

That said, I mind my own business. I might have a snobby side with regards to the Fiction I read, but when it comes to writing I hate censorship and do not believe I have the right to dictate to people what they can or cannot write or even read.

It has to do with the fact that I’m flawed. I see it everytime I look in the mirror. I see it everytime I read my works, or miss a deadline or fail to write 10 pages a day. I see my flaws on full display when I go out for a date, when I get bored partway through (a regular occurrence for some reason, it’s just there’s no

Charlotte Pendragon

s of my generation or French gals in my area so I’m perpetually bored on dates). I’m flawed. Especially when I think of my Dad, who was even more flawed when he was young and yet he turned it all around and became one of those Mega-Dad types overcoming smoking, drugs and drinking with little difficulty and even took to a minimalist life-style and tackling one flaw after another every year until he became a kind of guru who embodied every Christian value (I still dunno how he did it).

So yeah, I just don’t think that any man has the write to tell others what to think, let alone millions. And thinking is exactly what writing and reading boils down to. It is thoughts put to paper.

I cannot stress it enough that while I may not like these things, I refuse to do more than turn away. People don’t like busy-bodies, and people shouldn’t. Because we are meant to figure things out on our own, to scramble around in search of the light and to walk the path set before us by Destiny.

The Nature of my Fiction

Swords and Saturday: The Brothers Krynn and The Man Behind the Screen

If you want an example of my view on art, Fantasy Fiction and the like check out the chat I had with

Copernican

and

The Man Behind the Screen

just the other day. In there we laugh, we chortle and we talk over each other in the most excited manner imaginable. It was some of the best fun since I’ve hung out with

Alexandru Constantin

and

Phisto Sobanii

(two fine gents who should have ten thousand more subscribers than they already have).

The thing about Fantasy Fiction is that it is meant to look back to the past. It isn’t modern by any stretch of the imagination, and the reason for this is quite simple; it is Medieval and Classical in nature (as I expound in the podcast). It is also something that has a serious problem already with Sex-Scenes, as there’s been a lot of that used to attract an unpleasant sort of audience to the Genre.

What Copernican calls the ‘gooner problem’ which is a legitimate issue to take with a lot of people who dive into the Genre. The publishers have utilized the motto ‘Sex Sells’ to taint the whole of the Genre with nothing but Sex.

The thing is though that Sex Scenes as a whole I don’t think belong in the Genre, if only because it cheapens it. But as mentioned above if you’re gonna write those sort of scenes, knock yourself out. I’ve no write (I love this pun) to dictate to you what you can and cannot do. I might even be able to say with some measure of confidence; you’ll probably sell better than I do.

Why is that? Because Sex does indeed Sell.

But does that make it right? And will it even last?

Because if I’m to be completely honest, I don’t think Erotica or Porn will necessarily last down through the ages.

And what are we writing for if not in the hopes that our Fiction will become Literature? What are we doing if not hoping to leave our mark on History in some way? These thoughts haunt me, but recently I’ve begun to think ever more about a certain scene from Pillars of the Earth.

The scene in question involves Tom Builder telling his stepson and son that all he has in the world is a single chest. Okay sure he has a house, he has money and a lot of other things but tells them that all he considers truly his are his work-tools and collected possessions that involve building. But he goes on to say that very likely he won’t see the Cathedral finished. He even suggests neither of his sons’ will.

And the reason for which this thought haunts me is that I’ve recently begun to wonder if maybe like Tom Builder, like many builders of Cathedrals in the Medieval Period, and like even J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard, and Alexandre Dumas, I won’t see my works completed. I won’t see them celebrated. I hope I do. I’d like to die knowing I finished it all and was recognized for them as Ludwig Van Beethoven was.

But I can rest easy if I can just finish all my works, and leave them to an heir. The reason being? They must be published and made available to as many Readers as possible. Because my works will live on in my Readers. My hope is not to simply write Fiction but to write Literature.

It is my deepest, greatest hope. If I can transcend the box I’m in, transcend and improve my skills in both English and French I could do what so many have done before me.

But that cannot be done with cheap Sex Scenes. Erotica has its price I think.

The price you must be willing to pay is your story’s legacy. Now this doesn’t mean that all your stories will end up that way. I’m guilty of having written some slop even in recent years myself (I mean just look at Empire of Shadows). But if you must write slop, do it once and put it behind you.

What do you do once you have it behind you? You devote yourself to writing what you were meant to. This is the only advice I can give to you. Think deeply on what you’re writing. Think about what it is that inspired you to write; was it porn? Or was it deeper than that?

Do you want to write deeper stuff like

Eric Falden

,

Ian Dunmore

, Black Sun Archive (seriously I can’t find him on Substack, so if you’re reading this BSA, send me a comment or message, let’s stay in contact!) and myself? Or do you want to write something that is temporary? Something destined to fade away?

Are you a blade of grass to be tossed about in the wind, or are you a willow tree? The grass upon which your characters rolled is nothing. It matters not. But the willow-tree they would not roll thereupon will remain forever, growing thicker, digging deeper roots and spreading its arms further and further out.

Think deeply upon your goals, your aims and why you write. Because slop, erotica, sex… these things will fade, but you know what will last? The Transcendent, the beautiful and the uplifting. These things will always last, because they are not swallowed up in shadows but rather reflect the light of this world and the brilliance of all that is beautiful.

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And also, do consider also reading my new story the Sword of the Western Seas;

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