I prefer to keep my stuff classy.
"His manly phallus penetrated her womanly divide with such fervor that even the neighbors would remark that they had certainly made a spectacle of one's self. Once orgasm was acheived, they lay down firmly and waited for fertilization to occur. He offered to make her a spot of tea and she dressed herself quickly and complied."
Or really crude...
"His huge cock went in her fuckhole and slammed so deep that her pussy made farting noises. It was like a slush factory down there and the sheets were drenched in semen and pussy juice. He pulled out of her cunt and stuck it in her asshole raw. She moaned like a whore in heat then she took his shit covered prick in her mouth and she sucked every last chunk of spunk out of his collosal meat stick."
I mentioned this in another thread, but the 'unnecessary sex scenes' in many horror books are pretty darn laughable.
King actually does it better than most horror authors, and thankfully avoids it a lot of the time. From what I've read of Ketchum, he isn't too bad either.
But try Richard Layman. Or James Herbert. Damn those two get cringeworthy. I used to read Layman's stuff when I was younger but gave up on him, largely because of the repetitive and frankly lame sex stuff.
Clive Barker is another. Though he is a damn fine writer of suspense so I let him off with it.
Oh yeah - James Herbert - I remember copies of Lair and The Fog being passed round the playground at school. You could always find the sex scenes and gory bits no problem because they always automatically fell open at those pages. Never looked at a pair of garden shears the same way again.
I've always found sex scenes in books to be more than a little strange, and awkward. It seems like any kind of talent the writer has just dissolves when their characters jump into bed. In my writing, I prefer to show the lead-up and the aftermath, but skip the actual sex...I really don't want to work out how big my protagonist's dick is, to be honest, and I think the actual plot point that the sex represents can be explained more than sufficently before and after the act instead of the narrator having a revelation that she's in love with her lab partner while getting railed on top of a gurney, in exacting detail.
I read somewhere about sex being more about how it affects the characters than it is about the act itself. It's just not something that reads off a page the same way it looks on camera. The simpler, the better, and that's always the way I write my sex scenes.
As for some laughable ones I've come across...sadly I haven't found many. :(
I just did the sex and death class here on LitReactor with Lidia Yuknavitch and it has really, really changed how I view sex in my own writing. I always focused on the before and after, and the emotions--but finding ways to connect the emotions to the body is a really amazing experience as a writer, and hopefully it translates to a wonderful experience for the reader.
That said, I'm still mostly against sex for sex's sake in books. It seems like it is often used to spice up a "boring" part of the narrative or thrown in because we need some concrete way to know these characters have fallen for each other. Laaaammmmmme. The sex scenes should do the same thing every other scene does, move the story forward, build your characters, give some meaning. Not just happen. Especially since it's rarely done in a way that is really going to get the reader's panties wet.
"Hold tight, baby,” he murmurs, and magically produces a foil packet that he holds in front of my mouth. I take it between my teeth, and he tugs, so that between us, we rip it open.
I get the whole idea that there's a lack of the use of contraceptives in fiction sex scenes, but just like real life, there's just no way to make it sexy.
Also, you're welcome, Avery.
Sexy condom use:
"Don't move," I said, reaching over to the nightstand. I mounted her stomach and slid over her until my dick lodged in her throat. Not down her throat, but stabbed her in the throat. She choked and, I hope, instinctively struck out in response to the sudden penile attack. She slapped my junk, ringing my balls together like a clapper.
I was undeterred. I pulled out the condom as she grabbed her neck and made the universal sign for choking. I pulled the slippery condom over my cock, feeling the first contractions of an orgasm from the manual stimulation, and said, "You ready to rock?"
No fisting, you say. Anything else you object to?” he asks softly.
I swallow.
“Anal intercourse doesn’t exactly float my boat.”
“I’ll agree to the fisting, but I’d really like to claim your ass, Anastasia. But we’ll wait for that. Besides, it’s not something we can dive into,” he smirks at me. “Your ass will need training.”
“Training?” I whisper.
“Oh yes. It’ll need careful preparation.
Fifty Shades of Grey, p. 186.
I can't stop laughing.
There's this British show called "Pulling" about three single women in their 30's that used to be on Netflix, and in one episode this girl approaches a friend about a business idea to make cock popsicles called "Cockloleeze". There isn't even a clip of it on the Internet that I can find.
It makes me so sad.
@Bret - Oh aye, never read any Guterson, but I'm sorely tempted after that extract just for laughs. I mean:
" Apollo with his modest marble membrum virile, otherwise known, in her village, as a skin flute"
Hmm, might try "skin flute" on the bloke in a romantic moment just to see if he can keep a straight face.
@Avery - I can see that 50 Shades... becoming the erotica equivalent of The Eye of Argon.
@Beka - Pulling was outstanding, excruciating humour of humiliation. Critics loved it, got nominated for awards, audience loved it, so of course the BBC, um, cancelled it. Twats.
I love Dr. Drew. I always DVR his show and then forget to watch it. I read the entirety of that blog Bek posted, and from what I can see, he is right. I know a few people who are into BDSM and I don't have a problem with it, I think it can be fun to experiment with--but excusing an adult woman sexually abusing a vulnerable teenager because the teenager grows up to be a "great lover" is...well...not okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the great William Gibson (never really sure what I think of this one -- it's at once both great and laughably awful):
Now she straddled him again, took his hand, and closed it over her, his thumb along the cleft of her buttocks, his fingers spread across the labia. As she began to lower herself, the images came pulsing back, the faces, fragments of neon arriving and receding. She slid down around him and his back arched convulsively. She rode him that way, impaling herself, slipping down on him again and again, until they both had come, his orgasm flaring blue in a timeless space, a vastness like the matrix, where the faces were shredded and blown away down hurricane corridors, and her inner thights were strong and wet against his hips.