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- Sep 1, 2008
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I had a laugh last night because one of my hard-core geek contingent beta readers (aka - one of my husband's friends who's life follows the path of the 20-sided die) sent me an email with his thoughts on my epic fantasy novel. One of his complaints is that I had "2 sex scenes" in it and that they were "rather graphic". He was offended that I would "taint high fantasy with something vulgar" like that.
So after I wiped the tears away from laughing (because my "graphic sex scenes" seem like junior high stuff compared to Laurel K Hamilton and some other writers out there), I thought I'd offer this topic up as fodder for the forum.
Is there a place for sex in traditional (epic, high, etc) fantasy?
And if so, how far would be too far in describing it?
My 2 cents is that it's how babies are made, and you need to continue the species (unless your world has some strange rules about procreation), so sex would be part of everyday life in fantasy world just was sword fighting and spell casting would be.
So after I wiped the tears away from laughing (because my "graphic sex scenes" seem like junior high stuff compared to Laurel K Hamilton and some other writers out there), I thought I'd offer this topic up as fodder for the forum.
Is there a place for sex in traditional (epic, high, etc) fantasy?
And if so, how far would be too far in describing it?
My 2 cents is that it's how babies are made, and you need to continue the species (unless your world has some strange rules about procreation), so sex would be part of everyday life in fantasy world just was sword fighting and spell casting would be.