Cut! That's a Wrap!

Apparently I don’t know how to have sex.

You think someone would have told me that this is an issue – like, say, my darling hubster – before things got this far. Thirty years on, you’d think there would be complaints in the Department of Horizontal Pokey if I didn’t know how to please one particular man?

I guess that’s the problem – I know how to please a man. Just one, out of the complete spectrum of testosterone, plus its adjacent allies. Only one guy that I can leave breathless, sleepy, and utterly replete. Since he’s the only person I’ve ever been with when it comes to smushing sexy body parts together, this is the only experience I have. My body is tailored for him, and vice versa.

Writing a sex scene, for me, is… narrow-minded. Narrow-experienced?

After the third or fourth same-old, it gets rather stale.

(Oh, but don’t worry about hubster. I’ve written sex scenes for him, and I’ve gotten him hot and bothered quite a few times. They’ve led to re-enactments, because you want to make sure your writing is authentic and exciting and steamy and do-able without a sex swing and… where was I? Oh, right.)

I’m demisexual. I’m sapiosexual. I’m a biologist.

Those things mean that I can imagine scenarios and worlds and situations. I can come up with plausible “human meets non-human, and they proceed to getting on so fabulously as partners, that Captain Kirk himself could find no fault with the state of their relations, and has rubber-stamped their, um, entry into the union, um, I mean, wrapped up the situation they were thrust into, er, um…”

Yeah.

I can come up with cool characters, from all walks of life, and invite you, as the reader, to try on the mask of their life, and walk in their shoes as you see their thoughts, their lives, and why they do what they do.

Who they do, on the other hand…

I’m demisexual. To me, sex is effing close to sacred. If I put a sex scene into the plot, it’s because it furthers the plot, not because I feel like giving you a vicarious thrill. I’ve written sex scenes, spicy ones, in quite a few linked stories that I haven’t published. They’re really cool stories, and I’m proud of them, and when the time comes, I’ll publish them with satisfaction that you’re getting the whole story.

The ones I publish here on Vocal, I write them where the sex scenes are elided over, because they’re not that important to the plot. We know what they did that night, and we were discreet enough to sneak down to the local tavern, and cry into our beer that it wasn’t us in the room. Or bed. Or, in one memorable case, the corner of a barn.

(No, I don’t have a drawer of extracted sex scenes. I just don’t write them, even if I see them in my head. I do have a folder on my computer, that will be destroyed upon my death, because those things are… ugh. That’s not sex. That’s not loving. But I wrote them to get them out of my brain, so I can write the good stuff.)

I’m stuck on four stories.

Why?

Because these characters aren’t me.

They have different life experiences. They have different styles, different mannerisms, different things that they like. Ergo, a different sex style. Why try to jam them into my experience, when it’s not theirs to begin with?

Sure, I’ve tried to watch porn. I would rather have my teeth extracted without the benefit of painkiller.

Demisexual. Sapiosexual. I find most porn boring as fuck (yes, I said it), and the plots lack sophistication. Even the stuff built for women, more sensual stuff, leaves me high and dry. Yes, I said that, too.

Ditto “romance” novels, ugh. Same blasted purple member, same pose, same freaking plot, over and over, I’m bored. And not a tentacle in sight.

(Who, me, hentai? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am the semi-demi-hemi goddess of octopi, I have to keep a sucker – er, finger – on the pulse of octo research. You know, for science.)

I’ve even had a three-hour session with a dominatrix to learn some cool things. There were seven or so at the beginning of the class. I was the only one who got through the whole class. First hour, pleasure restraint. Second hour, pain restraint. Third hour, kinky stuff. The only other student who remained ran away at the 1.25 hour mark, when we got to bondage.

Did I mention my hubster has been mistaken for a certain particular porn star? Sigh. Demi don’t like that. If you want to make a play for bed rights, at least have more reason in your arsenal than “Well, I’m too chicken to actually solicit a porn star, and I don’t have the money to buy their time, so you’ll do.” Freaking cowards. Not interested in his personality, just the shape of his dermis. Ugh.

(I did have one who claimed my hubster was married to her in a former life, so she got precedence over me. Yeah, that didn’t fly either. Nice try, [redacted].)

Without going into even more excruciating detail, I have tried many ways to fix this problem. All have slammed up against the Demi-Sapio Wall, and have died thereon.

I still have four stories, really awesome stories, that I would like to see the light of publication….

I don’t know how to write the sex scenes to do the character justice. Or to justify the sex scene… Any which way, trust me, they further the plot.

I have friends. I have really good friends. I have friends from so many walks of life, poly and LGTBQIA+ and monogamous and messy and discreet and braggadocio. I don’t have any friends where I can curl up in their lap, pen and paper pad in hand, and ask them to tell me a fun sex story that they themselves experienced.

Would you?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I think – Maybe? Perhaps? I’m not sure yet? – I may have one tentatively crafted. A locked room mystery, where they actually have to have sex with the intent of getting pregnant, because they decided to take shelter in ancient magic tech whose only function was to increase fertility. Two people who just met, don’t even realize that’s the only way out, and have no plans whatsoever to even have sex. One’s there to study for finals, one’s there to escape a bad home life. I know, right? Sex is the answer! Just what we don’t want our kids to learn! Hey, I cook up some weird stuff in my brain, and then my anthropological side kicks off and plays the Well, Just Suppose… Game. It’s a story; don’t read too much into my motivation.

Sometimes that cigar is just a euphemism, because even this demi-sapio brain likes to come up with a funky reason for a sex scene.

But that leaves three more in limbo, because the sex scene looks completely different for those characters.

At some point, soon, I hope, The Tunnels will finally knock loose from my brain. When it does, I’ll choose one of the other three, and set it on my desktop, and stare at it. And stare. And stare some more.

And maybe, just maybe, my demi brain will step aside, and I’ll get an insight into how to approach the sex scene.

I mean, The Tunnels has only been sitting there for about nine years...

Or, maybe, I’ll just amble down the street, and get another drink at the tavern.

Unless you want to tell me a story?

Yeah, didn’t think so.