Easy to Read Smut

Well, I wouldn't want to read it.

Personally, I think graphic child sexual abuse is overdone in fiction, and ALWAYS borders on the highly questionable.

You can show someone has been through hell without having to detail every step of the way. How would the author of a book with such scenes in it feel if they found out, for instance, that a child predator had their book and liked to read over certain passages?

Or maybe they wouldn't mind....

We shouldn't ignore child abuse. It was kicked under the rug for far too long.

But I also don't think ANYBODY should get their kicks out of it. And if it's more graphic than it needs to be... well I wouldn't want any children of mine around such a writer.

And I don't care if that's unsophisticated of me or not!

I don't get what is meant by 'Romance genre level of detail.' The genre Romance today has everything from books with no sex to erotic romance so that's not a very good description.

Yes, I do think books today are more graphic, both with regards to sex and violence. The same could be said about movies in regards to violence, I think, if you look at the past 15 years or so. So yes, more graphic details I could agree on.

I wouldn't call everything with graphic sex 'smut' though. My definition of smut would be something meant to tantalize, not graphic depictions of sexual acts for other purposes. I haven't read "your" book so I couldn't say how it handled those scenes. All I know is that I haven't really seen much historical fiction that reads as 'smut' to me.

So while I do see more graphic descriptions in hist fic I don't really see any 'smuttification.' But that could be me reading the wrong books.

Flicka said:

I wouldn't call everything with graphic sex 'smut' though. My definition of smut would be something meant to tantalize, not graphic depictions of sexual acts for other purposes. I haven't read "your" book so I couldn't say how it handled those scenes. All I know is that I haven't really seen much historical fiction that reads as 'smut' to me.

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This.

I don't know what you're implying using the word 'smut.' I can't decided if you're wanting to say pornography, but are playing word games, or you're just being derogatory towards another writer.

I'm reading Ben Kane's The Forgotten Legion, the main female is a thirteen year old sold into a high-class brothel. Does that qualify as smut too? I call it the realities of the world 2000 years ago.

To me smut implies a rather laughable, tabloid journalism/dirty postcards/Sid James level of sexual innuendo - something which even 14 year old boys find hilarious and not at all sexual. What is being described here is far more than that....

And yes, there was a completely different attitude to 'child sex' in most historic periods. Bear in mind the concept of a 'child' (or, rather, calling anything between the ages of 5 and 16 a child) is a fairly recent concept (Victorian, from what I have heard but it could be earlier than this). In many cultures, you were considered adult and therefore sexually active and able to be married as soon as you hit puberty. It's a different moral compass. Many women were married by the age of 16 and there was a culture in poorer homes where everyone shared the same room and even the same bed so, by watching their parents, many children knew what sex was fairly early on.

This, of course, is why historic writing is sometimes difficult - that idea of putting yourself in the mind of someone who thinks such things are normal.

I haven't noticed such a trend, but I welcome it. If true, it could be a reaction? We're so used to a sexually cleaned up version of history that some authors might want to give a more accurate rendition. Just like today culture was highly sexualised. Sex was open and flaunted almost everywhere. But had to be shown and expressed in ritualistic ways as to keep up religious pretences. In the standard "history channel" version of history the fake surface placed on sexuality was the reality. Which it wasn't. In a highly patriarchal bad-old-days where women have almost no power in society or at home... guess if they were habitually taken advantage of? The further back we go the worse it was.

Just a thought. I also like reading sex scenes in otherwise non-erotica. It's a thing.

Many of the earliest Christian churches (those converted from paganism) were financially supported by an adjoining brothel. Stuff like this makes absolutely no sense to modern ears. But did back in the day.

DrZoidberg said:

Just a thought. I also like reading sex scenes in otherwise non-erotica. It's a thing.

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I'm plotting my new WIP at the moment, and my MC is getting up to some very naughty un-Roman behaviour with women who are strictly off limits.

Sorry, but...

although I haven't read the book which started this discussion I do wonder about the real reason for the 10 year old heroine. Sex sells? So what? How many ten year olds from her background had a similar experience at that time and place? Was her experience typical? Did it radically affect the heroine's life and have a valuable part to play as plot motivation or was it just in the book because sex sells?

And sorry DrZ, but what do you mean by a sexually cleaned up version of history? Everyone was at it were they, all the time, back then, whenever then was? Everyone was a Nero or Caligula? A Samuel Pepys? A Lord Byron? For every Pepys there were other men who behaved less promiscuously. Ditto the women.

There will always have been and will be the sexually promiscuous but you forget just how much social pressure, religious pressure, lack of medical cures for STDs and the lack of reliable contraception raised barriers for many people.

And where and when?
Many of the earliest Christian churches (those converted from paganism) were financially supported by an adjoining brothel.

my MC is getting up to some very naughty un-Roman behaviour with women who are strictly off limits
Why? Is it necessary to the plot, does it make for a great story? Or is it just to titillate or show you can write sex scenes?

I, for one, am sick of today's constant 'hello, how are you, let's have sex' attitude. It's boring. We have some very bad attitudes to sex. Pre 1900s working people, peasants and labourers probably had a good knowledge of sexual behaviour, but heavy physical labour makes for tired people, not much energy for sex. And sex didn't always take place in bed either. Rural couples, married with children, in the 19th and 20thC had so called
trysting places, the names of which can still be found in street and area names!

My opinion, there was a shift in historical fiction (and all fiction) back in the 60's - about the time books like Forever Amber and Angelique hit the market. Prior to that there was no more than a hint of things to come and the fade to black. Since then there's been an ever increasing inclination to tell all. My question is, and has always been, why do writers think readers are incapable of using their own imaginations?

I personally do not care for the tell all types of books, but unfortunately it seems that modern society wants to be entertained and titillated. (But, is it really the readers who want that or that agents think the readers want that?) Puma

I don't see why sex should be handled differently than other things in literature. Include it where it serves a purpose, exclude it where it doesn't and shock-value is never a good reason.

But sex is and has always been a vital part of human existence and cam be a very important factor for story and characterisation. Sex does not equal promiscuity but can come in many, many forms. Nor does, in my opinion, all descriptions of sex equal smut or erotica (not that there's anything wrong with writing or reading that - I'm just saying that it's not an all or nothing case).

I'm reading a book now, set in modern and historical times, and I remember at least two scenes with sex in - one depicting a wedding night (the outcome of which is crucial to the characters) and one where the modern day character has very very disappointing sex for the first time. I personally didn't find anything smutty about those scenes and think the book would have been poorer without them, but to each their own.

In regards to the OPs example, though, I have to say I often have a problem with how rape is handled in fiction but that is a separate issue for me.

DeleyanLee said:

...fiction novel..

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KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

AllieKat said:

Personally, I think graphic child sexual abuse is overdone in fiction, and ALWAYS borders on the highly questionable.

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Always? Really?

Wow.

Luckily, I'm of the opinion people can write whatever the hell they want and I acknowledge they do have reasons for such.

AllieKat said:

You can show someone has been through hell without having to detail every step of the way.

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Yes, and we can not bother to write books at all but we still do.

AllieKat said:

How would the author of a book with such scenes in it feel if they found out, for instance, that a child predator had their book and liked to read over certain passages?

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I would be perfectly okay with that, given that I believe child predators (one assumes you mean those who prey on children, not children who are themselves predators) are responsible for their own actions.

I don't blame J.D. Salinger for what Mark Chapman did, after all -- although many judgemental people do.

AllieKat said:

Or maybe they wouldn't mind....

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Like I said, I wouldn't.

AllieKat said:

We shouldn't ignore child abuse. It was kicked under the rug for far too long.

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I thought we were talking about fiction.

AllieKat said:

But I also don't think ANYBODY should get their kicks out of it. And if it's more graphic than it needs to be... well I wouldn't want any children of mine around such a writer.

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Wow. That's very...reasoned...of you. I guess you should keep your kids away from me, then.

AllieKat said:

And I don't care if that's unsophisticated of me or not!

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Says it all.

pdr said:

And sorry DrZ, but what do you mean by a sexually cleaned up version of history? Everyone was at it were they, all the time, back then, whenever then was? Everyone was a Nero or Caligula? A Samuel Pepys? A Lord Byron? For every Pepys there were other men who behaved less promiscuously. Ditto the women.

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There's a weakness in what I wrote, and that is that it depends on what we read. If we look for it we'll find it. But in mainstream historical work (and academic papers) sex is only mentioned indirectly, if at all. Considering the importance sex has to... humans... I find it strange that it's treated like this.

For example, whenever we think of Victorian values we think of an image of the world that was sexless and shamefilled. It wasn't at all. Industrialisation had lead to a greater inflow of desperately poor young women to cities than ever before. The market reacted. Victorian variety theatre was extremely dirty by any age's standard. The so called Victorian values was only image and a wishful reaction to what was happening in the cities. I don't think this is at all reflected in how this period is typically portrayed.

pdr said:

There will always have been and will be the sexually promiscuous but you forget just how much social pressure, religious pressure, lack of medical cures for STDs and the lack of reliable contraception raised barriers for many people.

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...and there was also no mass media, no photographs, no DNA testing, no sex offender registry, a hopelessly corrupt police force (any age), no sex ed, very little education of any kind and loads and loads of religious shame preventing victims to speak up. Different cultures and ages have had different methods to restrict access to women, but rape and the exploitation of women was still most likely rampant. We have of course no reliable sources of this. We have to infer from sources indirectly. We can barely trust rape statistics from today. But it'd be naive to think that problems we're only recently managing to get under control (somewhat) were in any way better in the past.

You're also viewing things like STD's and pregnancies through the eyes of a modern scientifically trained mind. That's a pretty new way to look at the world. People used to believe all kinds of magic and nonsense would protect them. Many still do. In a world with extremely high mortality rate life is cheap, and are treated as such. Mortality rates have only been dropping. All violent crime rates have always throughout all ages always been dropping.

We can also make inferences from poor countries like the Congo in Africa, where they have all the above mentioned problems and extremely high ethical standards (on paper) and still has an AIDS epidemic. A lot of people are obviously having sex on the sly, willingly or not.

pdr said:

And where and when?
Many of the earliest Christian churches (those converted from paganism) were financially supported by an adjoining brothel.

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I've read it in several sources. I think it's in "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong.

It was often how pagan temples supported themselves. When they were converted to churches this kept going for a couple of hundred years. Maybe out of necessity? It was eventually banned by the Pope.

pdr said:

I, for one, am sick of today's constant 'hello, how are you, let's have sex' attitude. It's boring. We have some very bad attitudes to sex. Pre 1900s working people, peasants and labourers probably had a good knowledge of sexual behaviour, but heavy physical labour makes for tired people, not much energy for sex. And sex didn't always take place in bed either. Rural couples, married with children, in the 19th and 20thC had so called
trysting places, the names of which can still be found in street and area names!

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I'm pretty sure you're making sweeping generalisations that don't universally apply. In Viking society it was perfectly fine to have sex in the presence of one's extended family, and farm animals. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to see my parents go at it. Farmers/labourers also worked longer hours, but they didn't work as intensely as we do in the modern world today. If they were tired it was more likely from lack of nutrition than over-work.

I think we've got better attitudes to sex than ever. The Internet forces us to be more honest and open about sex. We can chose how much and when we're exposed to it, in ways we've never been before. I still suspect we're very much in the dark-ages, but it's getting better. Information technology has for hundreds of years constantly made us better informed and empowered. I only think that is a good thing.

Maybe it was more exciting back in the day, but at least you have options regarding what kind of sex life you want to have. They didn't.

DeleyanLee said:

I think that's what really bothered me about this particular book--the heroine was completely blase about all the events, no matter how positive or negative. The author went out of her way to make certain the heroine never learned anything from any of her experiences and was still a sweet, naive innocent until the end of the book.

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Aha. Now I see what you mean. That would have annoyed me to. The sex has to matter to the characters, and their reaction has to make sense IMHO.

DeleyanLee said:

But in general, which is what I was talking about, I keep picking up books there the raunchiest (and occasionally smuttiest-taboo) interpretation of a person or an era is the main stage of the story. Occasionally, even if they have to completely rewrite what is known of the era. I was hoping that I was just picking up the wrong books, but maybe I'm not.

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Maybe you should stop browsing the adult section

DrZoidberg said:

I've read it in several sources. I think it's in "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong.

It was often how pagan temples supported themselves. When they were converted to churches this kept going for a couple of hundred years. Maybe out of necessity? It was eventually banned by the Pope.

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It was also one of the (many) things Luther complained about when he protested against the Catholic church - the hypocrisy of the church profiting from sin by running these brothels.

But then the higher echelons of the Catholic church in the middle ages and Renaissance were rife with the spare sons of nobility who were there more to make a living than they were to worship god.

Sex is a reality. It is an essential process of life and something which we, as biological creatures, strive to do as much and as often as we can in order so that we can propagate the species. This is the reason why there is so much of it in literature and film and other media. Violence is the same - it is another essential part of our psychological make up (in evolutionary terms, we are descended from the nasty apes who beat up the less violent apes and stole all their stuff, you can't deny these basic urges). Both sex and violence, as well as appealing to the darker urges in the human psyche, are also sources of conflict and, to a writer, conflict is key. If the hero is not under pressure or experiencing some form of conflict then there is no story.

It is an illusion to assume that there was some past golden age when sex was only for procreation and no one did anything sexually 'bad'. In every age there were sexual predators, rapists and perverts. To many writing historic fiction, they consider it necessary to portray these elements.

I suppose the argument should be - do you think you want to read such things? And the answer is: Only if you want to. If you find such things abhorrent then do not buy them and read them - vote with your feet. And go onto Amazon and review the ones you do read to let the publisher know you didn't like it and why. It won't stop them publishing such things but it may make them think about publishing other things that fit your moral compass better.

They're only taboo according to 2011 standards. Take for instance, marrying off a girl of around twelve years of age. Depending on country, culture and era, that would possibly not even raise an eyebrow.

I don't think there's any question about whether these things happened (legal age for marriage was 12 for girls in C 18th Britain, btw, and child prositution wasn't uncommon) but how you depict it is the author's choice. I think sometimes people like to emphasise the Otherness of history by dwelling on the shocking sides of the past, like torture and rape ("oh my, look how GRIM life was!!!") and not everyone can pull off really dark stuff well.

Thank you...

one and all. I've enjoyed this discussion which didn't stray too much from being a decent expression of opinions about the point of the question. Many thanks.

Just to add that yes, my great aunts and relatives of their age were all Victorians and some of them acknowledged the hypocrisy of their attitudes. And could see the hypocrisy of ours too!

Sex is a reality. It is an essential process of life and something which we, as biological creatures, strive to do as much and as often as we can in order so that we can propagate the species. This is the reason why there is so much of it in literature and film and other media. Violence is the same - it is another essential part of our psychological make up (in evolutionary terms, we are descended from the nasty apes who beat up the less violent apes and stole all their stuff, you can't deny these basic urges). Both sex and violence, as well as appealing to the darker urges in the human psyche, are also sources of conflict and, to a writer, conflict is key. If the hero is not under pressure or experiencing some form of conflict then there is no story.
I understand that, but for me, like Flicka, I think too much is made of 'My wasn't it nasty back then.' type historicals which are dishonest. They reflect more of the writer's modern mind set.

Throughout history we have snippets we can find in diaries and letters, in local stories handed down in families, of ordinary people across the social spectrum, who tried to do what they believed was good and right, fair and just, to live a good and godly life based on Christian or other such spiritual precepts which teach us to have compassion for others. I find reading about the struggle of such people to rise above their biological pasts and to fight lust, greed, jealousy, hate, to be fair and just under difficult historical situations, much more interesting than constant descriptions of filth, fights, bonks and people being constantly nasty to each other. Even the worst of villains could enjoy music or flowers or buying beer for hir mates or family time.

pdr said:

Throughout history we have snippets we can find in diaries and letters, in local stories handed down in families, of ordinary people across the social spectrum, who tried to do what they believed was good and right, fair and just, to live a good and godly life based on Christian or other such spiritual precepts which teach us to have compassion for others. I find reading about the struggle of such people to rise above their biological pasts and to fight lust, greed, jealousy, hate, to be fair and just under difficult historical situations, much more interesting than constant descriptions of filth, fights, bonks and people being constantly nasty to each other. Even the worst of villains could enjoy music or flowers or buying beer for hir mates or family time.

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Well, that's an issue of character, is it not? Some characters try to rise above the biological and more spiritual [one of my favourite historical characters is Prior Philip from Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth], and others enjoy the delights of the fleshpots.

But really, shouldn't a good character contain both characteristics. My MC has a past as a Praetorian having loved fighting, numerous scandalous affairs and using torture to extract information - but he is also devoted to his family, and virtues of honour.

pdr said:

I, for one, am sick of today's constant 'hello, how are you, let's have sex' attitude. It's boring. We have some very bad attitudes to sex.

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This ^ Yes! I so agree! But then again... I'm not one to read mainstream genre fiction. I am fascinated, however, by people's behavior. I'm constantly asking "Why do we do what we do to each other?" and in this regard, the novels and stories that get my attention more than any other are the introspective works which examine character motivations and how they interact with other characters of different motivations. This doesn't mean that it has to be completely sex free, but it does mean that whatever is presented in the story needs to be darn important!

Then... I actually found myself having to write a sex scene -it is darn important to the story! - and I like to think that I managed to convey the personality of the main character in that brief scene far more than I conveyed any particular description of, or arrangement of, body parts - which I don't find important! There is no reason to be graphic unless there is in that graphic act a meaning that binds motivation and story together. Having said that (and that this is not some cheap promo) but that exact scene, as I wrote it has been in the AW literary SYW and linked in my signature since the 29th of January this year. (GuitarMan below - Password: vista, post #7.) But if I can post it there, and if that writing and the scene really works? Then I've done all I needed to do as a writer - and getting any more descriptive? I think, would just be a distraction.

I have a theory about the whys historical and other fiction became more "graphic" about 1960. Until then, there were not too many published women authors, and those that had been published had been held in by Victorian stays. Then along came Kathleen Winsor (Forever Amber 1944) and Serge and Anne Golon (Angelique 1964) who began to tell stories from more of a woman's perspective. A man could write that a woman's clothes were torn off and she was raped, but a woman would write it from a totally different viewpoint - the experience, humilation, pain, etc. And I think you can see where I'm going with this, my supposition as to why fiction in general has become more tell all. Puma

That's...

one of my points actually:

But really, shouldn't a good character contain both characteristics.

We all do!
So there's always a corking good story in such a life because of the constant temptations and the conflict which arises from trying to do the 'good'/right/fair/honest/just/compassionate act.

And of course sex is part of most people's lives. It's just that I am fed up of having lustful bonks thrust at me on TV, in films and books which seem to be there because 'sex sells' and not for any other reason!

P.S. Puma you're too nice. The only reason for all the promiscuous behaviour is for money. Sex sells so let's have more and more and bugger the consequences.

There is a great deal more visual media in the word now than in the past. I think more readers and writers have become more voyeuristic. A more modern and open minded world, allows writers the freedom to explore areas that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible without expectant readers.

We’ve all heard the crits and advice about show, don’t tell. Some writers choose to show sex in all its naked glory instead of gently closing the door and switching off the light. Normally a jacket cover or the blurb is going to be a good indication of heat level in a book, so I’ve never really understood why readers who don’t wish to read such stuff, complain about it being in books. Sex has been driving the advertising industry for god knows how many years, so it obviously sells. I see that some writers choose to cash in on that while enjoying writing about a topic that interest them. I wish I had the inclination to dedicate time to a subject that has a growing audience in the book world and probably leads the ebook world in sales.

pdr said:

one of my points actually:

But really, shouldn't a good character contain both characteristics.

We all do!
So there's always a corking good story in such a life because of the constant temptations and the conflict which arises from trying to do the 'good'/right/fair/honest/just/compassionate act.

And of course sex is part of most people's lives. It's just that I am fed up of having lustful bonks thrust at me on TV, in films and books which seem to be there because 'sex sells' and not for any other reason!

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Of course, and I agree. This was one of the reasons I disliked the tv series Rome. More soap, than Roman drama. If half the characters went on the way they did, in public, they would have been disgraced and even publically flogged!