The PIV POV Problem

I’ve had scenes that I’ve written, awesomely hot, intense, emotional scenes, that were ruined by sex.

I’m maybe being a little harsh but it’s true. there are times when I’m writing where it just feels complete. There’s nothing much that can be added by the insertion of a (usually) penis into a (usually) vagina. But I do it. Obviously I do it in a way that’s sympathetic to the feel of the scene, but there are times when I really feel like it’d be better just to let it slide in a way that twelve-year-old me hiding under the bed covers would find infuriating.

And to be honest it feels like I’m pandering. Not just to that twelve-year-old I used to be, but to others, the readers, the publishing world, on some level to society as a whole.

I was talking to someone a while back and the conversation (as seems inevitable with me) got onto the subject of female domination:

“I don’t get it,” said the other person.

“What do you mean?” said I.

“Well you’ve got a Dominatrix right?”

“Yeah.”

“But still at the end of the day she gets fucked?”

“Umm, no, not really.”

And it occurred to me than, as it occurs to me now, that there are certain dynamics, certain activities that literally cannot work if they are shoe-horned into the paradigm of everything is sex with bells on.

Sex is not sex. Some of the people I know with the worst sex lives… also have the most amazing sex lives.

Something’s broken here.