Advice - In The Form Of Rants

Sex Scenes- Appropiate? (Part 2)

Okay. Many people would think this is something someone of my age shouldn't talk about too much. And to be honest, I partially agree. But I don't care, so I'll continue.

One thing me and fellow users hrhamilton and BlueFlower226 discussed briefly was this:

Why are random sex scenes inserted into a work? More often than not, they add zero context or meaning to the story.

I feel as though authors add these to do the following:

To make something more mature - pushing up age ratings.

Or, to have one for the sake of it.

They wanted to write one, had no place to publish it, so added it to the book.

No one wants to read a random sex scene thrown into a story, especially where it doesn't make sense. I read a book a while ago where the female MC had been describing in depth her 'passionate night' with a random guy... during a fight scene. Why was it relevant to add that? It was so random, so shit, out of context and completely worthless! It was a mess. Why was it there in the first place?

This is a golden rule that I write by:

Don't add any meaningless scenes to a work. Otherwise, it is time consuming and may/may not put potential readers off.

Another way you can think of this is:

Don't add fillers, you doughnut! Just write what you need, don't try to make things longer!

Which I'm pretty sure is easier to understand. This is part of the reason I hate sex scenes (or at least generally); they often do exactly what you'd hate to see in anime, TV, movies, books and manga- stalling. No one wants to watch fillers, but it's a bit more forgivable in other mediums of entertainment, for example TV. However, if fillers get to a Naruto or Bleach level, I'd rather drop the book altogether.

I mean, if you do want to write a sex scene (providing that sex involves sexual contact/ intercourse) be sure to do the following. Ask yourself:

Is this going to develop my story in any way? How?

Will my characters be more/ less understandable/interesting after?

Will it be appropiate for my audience? If so, is it worth it?

Is this actually important?

Is this a key theme?

If you match at least all the criteria, then you can add a sex scene. But, now that you can add it, you need to know how to write one.

After all, not many people want to read a badly written sex scene. You've seen cringey if you've read the '18+ DON'T READ' chapter. I needn't elaborate further than that. Just know that I won't give you advice on how to write one.

Never.