Too Much Sex?
This is number nineteen in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
IN 1971, a British farce premiered in London’s West End titled No Sex Please, We’re British. In 2014, the play was named the longest-running comedy in British stage history. It was not so well received in America and lasted only 16 performances. The movie version in 1973 also received a lukewarm welcome and is rated 5.3 stars out of 10 on IMDB. While there are many double and triple entendre, and a couple of call girls running around in their underwear, there’s no sex in the show.
The reception, though, shows a vast difference in audience appeal, and there is just as vast a difference in the appeal of sex—even in erotica.
If you are familiar with my erotic works, you know that I tend to like a slow burn in my writing. It’s often two thirds of the way through the first book in a series—or even later—that there is actual intercourse. I think building the tension and expectation is especially savory.
Not all readers feel the same. I’ve had several readers in the past respond with comments like:
“This would be a lot better if there was some sex in the story.”
“Twenty chapters and no real sex!”
“This kid needs to get laid sometime soon.”
Of course, I receive just as many emails and comments that say:
“This would be a great story without the sex.”
“I just skim over the sex scenes. You don’t need so many.”
“I know this is a sex story site, but do we have to have so much?”
What’s an author to do?
In my currently running “Photo Finish” series, it wasn’t until chapter 29 of 36 in Full Frame that the principal character had intercourse. But every step of the way had a new experience: first girlfriend, first kiss, first touch of a breast, first bare skin fondling. There are so many firsts to be enjoyed along the way, and I took my time describing and enjoying each one. To hear some readers talk, the pressure, so to speak, was building intolerably.
But there is a cycle in fictional sexual relations, just as there is in real life. It may be better described as a bell curve. It starts out slow and gradually builds. When you reach the tipping point, the curve accelerates and it seems like there is always a drive toward more sex. Then life starts to interfere with the sex. There are no longer as many partners to be had. There is a job to go to every day and get home feeling too tired to do more than mow the grass that seems to be growing at the rate sex did at first. There are kids. There’s travel. There are disagreements. You suddenly find that you’ve been on the downslope of the curve and didn’t even realize when it had changed.
I’m on very good terms with my ex-wife. Love her to bits. We just couldn’t stay married. But I keep uncovering bits and pieces of our past (as does she) and we share them back and forth. Old photos, old journals, trip diaries, etc. In twenty-five years of marriage, we accumulated a lot of stuff. Last year, I came across the trip diary from a wonderful three weeks we spent taking Eurail from place to place and riding horses. I transcribed the journal, as written, and sent it to her and to our daughter.
“My God! We had a lot of sex!” Treasure said.
I didn’t remember it as being too much, but agreed it was a lot more than at any time after that trip. There were jobs and houses and a baby. Taxes to pay, meals to cook, cars to maintain. Another college degree, a new business, travel. I didn’t write any new books for nearly twenty of those twenty-five years, so sex wasn’t the only thing to decline.
When I got married the first time, I was told (warned?) that if I put a toothpick in a jar every time we made love in the first year of marriage, and took a toothpick out of the jar every time we made love thereafter, I would never run out of toothpicks!
The point is that characters (and fictional works about their lives) go through much the same kind of bell curve. We ultimately find ourselves on the long tail of the curve remembering what it was like back when.
In the “Photo Finish” series, six/sevenths of the first book is gone before intercourse. Then they make love as often as they can. And over the pages of Shutter Speed (book 2), new lovers are added and many many models come to have their inner being exposed in Nate’s photos. “Inner being” is somehow linked to their nudity and seduction. In Exposure (book 3), we find the independence of going off to college with its attendant opportunities and discovery of a new patron to drive a continuing batch of new experiences, but the increase is slowing to a peak.
In F/Stop (book 4), we find ourselves at the apex of the curve. There are still some new partners and new models, but the episodes are briefer. We’ve settled down with the family we want to stay with. Nate begins to question his lifestyle and why he would want anyone other than the women in his household. In Over Exposure (book 5), a lot of pressure builds to maintain his household, to get out of college, to deal with the draft board, and get the perfect picture. Finally, in Follow Focus (book 6), sex is almost an afterthought. It is focused on his immediate family as he has to go to work full time in a position that requires as much as 80% travel. And when another partner is introduced, it nearly tears the family apart.
There, I’ve given you spoilers for the next three books in the series as only books 1, 2, and 3 have been released so far.
Too much sex? Not enough sex? It will depend entirely on your taste and what part of the story you are in.
I believe the right amount of sex is what contributes to the storyline or the character development. I don’t—normally—write stories that are simply about the sex. I write stories in which sex is a contributing factor to the story or character.
SOL has five ratings for sex content: No sex, Little sex, Some sex, Much sex, Stroke. With any of my stories, my ex-wife would rate them “Too much sex.” That wouldn’t be equivalent to “Stroke” because it wouldn’t turn her on. I consider the stories to have “Some sex.” It’s there. You might be able to skip the sex scenes and still gather the impact from what happens after, but there is purpose to all the scenes. You see the cycle of character development described in the previous post, “Character Arc.” By the end of the cycle, you will see what kind of man Nate has become, and what kind of family he holds together.
The Photo Finish series will continue public posting through approximately the end of April, 2024. The first three books have been released. Book 4 will release on July 27, 2023. Book 5 will release on October 15, 2023. Book 6 will release on February 22, 2024.
Mentioning the Photo Finish Series, which is still running, made me think of the whole topic of writing historical fiction. There are a lot of traps here, but I’m going to tackle “Naming Names.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
