Sex in Fantasy

sounds like a little sex in fantasy and a little fantasy in sex. IMO leading the horse to water was more fun than forcing him to drink..so allow me to please finish the scene mentally. Most the time my imagination can fill in as well or better. That said- I apologize to any I offend that prefer the graphic details of each scene gloriously edified in raging hyperbole. (shrugs..to each their own.)
 
I guess it all depends on appropriateness to the actual book. In tales like the Mabinogion there's plenty of him lying with her and her lying with him after being overcome with lust, and the frankness and everydayness of the fact is something perhaps greatly to be desired! Tolkien say was just of his time - in the 19th century they didn't translate Aristophenes because he was too dirty (and he is) and they took all the filthy bits out of Shakespeare, and that continued well into the late half of the 20th century. So Aragorn and Arwen are somewhat sexless, and mightily idealised, but that's quite appropriate for that book. At the other extreme I've flicked through a few fantasy books which start with pornography and go on (probably the ones mentioned here, I never got as far as noting the author) and just find them a total turn off, and misogynist to boot. Sex scenes are the hardest things to pull off, if you'll forgive the metaphor, and they only work for me when there's a character and interaction that works -

but eroticism, ah, that's something else. I think there's plenty in fantasy. The withheld and imagined.

Alison
 
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books had quite a few sex scenes in it, and homosexual sex as well. In some cases it drove the plot. (not my favorite plot device...)

But I suppose you could argue that she's SF and not fantasy, though to me I've always categorized it as fantasy.

Susan
 
Rose of the Prophet has some sex scenes too. Didn't expect it going in since it was by Weis and Hickman and they had refrained form it before in DL Chronicles and Legends. FYI.

Guy Gavriel Kay's Lions of Al-Rassan also had more sex than I'd expected after going through the Sarantine Mosaic duology.

[This message has been edited by Bond (edited December 01, 2001).]
 
Wow. I haven't been on for awhile and this topic is very interesting. Thanks for giving me so many good book ideas- I am a hormone raging adolescent after all! LOL, now everyone's going to think I'm a pervert...
 
I think that any author worth reading should be able to create characters that draw you in and that you can envision; their features, their quirks, their personalities. Once this is done, do you really want to then read about them getting it on?

Maybe I am in the minority, but voyeurism has a limited appeal. And quite frankly, sitting on on two other individuals' grope and sweat session is just not my cup of tea.

The authors that do it well, do so in a subtle fashion yet with enough innuendo and hint that you can fill in the blanks.
 
Is sex in fantasy litterature a bad thing?


I personally don't think its bad as long as it has something to do with the story line. Some fantasy litterature that I have read has a lot of intrigue and back room alliances made and broken. In this setting a woman might seduce a man becasue it gives her family some sort of political advantage over the man's family. In this case it has a relationship to the main tale at hand.
 
I don't think that dealing with sexual matters is something that anyone is saying is bad. Seduction occurs in many fantasy novels. But it is how the scene is written and carried out that defines the matters of taste. And of course tastes vary.

A soft caress, a smoldering glance; both cliche and yet both fully convey the mood and intended course of action. Reading five pages of a woman licking her lover's nipple and I tend to feel I have fallen into the middle of the author's own little fantasies. And that is a little too much information than I care for.
 
<<Reading five pages of a woman licking her lover's nipple...>>

Martin has writen "worse" stuff!
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Though, he IS a good author (IMO, at least). Of course, he _could_ have "jumped" some sex scenes.
But, as JohnH said, it's all a matter of taste --personaly, I don't care.
 
To Janet, WAAY early in the thread:

Mission:Earth has no gratuitous sex? You seem to forget the main character has a penile enlargement operation, just to make this girl he marries happy? Then has sex with the nurses, so they can "test it out"? Personally that's when I stopped reading the series, I know the main guy getting distracted by earthly predicaments was the backbone of the series, but come ON...

Anyway, just wanted to remind you :P Mission Earth was dangling dangerously close to being cheap porn for awhile there.

Nefarien
 
Heh, from your discription I can imagine, though I haven't read that book.
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Now, *this* kind of books I think are crap. That's where the line is drawn for me.
 
someone actually finished Battle field earth?

I thought that battle field earth ranked in a separate category, together with Tolstoys War and peace.

"Books no one ever finished".

Sex in Fantasy? Very easy answer

Not enough not enough

:-)
 
Canaris, for the record, I finished War and peace, to save the equilibrium I didn't even start Battlefield earth
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Oh and I needed about one week for the war part, but three months for the peace part, even though the war part is twice as long.
 
War and Peace was interesting. More so than a dull book like Madame Bovary.
 
I know that I am writting some controversial things, I'm just trying to keep the debate going.

Would you put off buying a book because of too much sex in the novel?

IMHO, if the sex has something to do with the storyline. For example - a seduction that advances one family over another where both are competing for some sort of prize such as the throne.
 
sex, yes.
Gratuitous sex, no.

I don't any problem with anything - sex, violence, whatever, that is there to drive the story forward or improve character development etc etc in some way. It's sex/violence for the sake of sex/violence that irritates me.
 
I agree with Sam, I can handle graphic sex or violence, but there needs to be a reason for it.

If not, the book gets tossed in the recycle at used bookstore pile. Sometimes gets tossed across the room.

Susan
 
I guess than Magic: The Gathering Invasion Cycle books are out of the question. The characters in these books spend the entire trillogy doing nothing but fighting. Although there is a good reason for the fighting. You should have read the Artificats Cycle in order to understand the reason.
 
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