~~why smut.
Jan. 2nd, 2003 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkathis, in response to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quire's latest post, since i don't know if i've exactly delineated my views on why and how smut/sex-scenes can be necessary and important to character development before....
i think smut is necessary if the tension between two characters is ... combustible. if they spark, and ignite, and kinda are physical with each other. it's a chemistry thing. some people communicate with touch, rather than words. with some people, words always end up being lies, or half-truths, just because they are words. and maybe they can't even truly understand each other, and their deepest feelings, if they don't touch each other.
like... it can be a bridge. instead of dialogue, which often obscures as much as it reveals-- touching is more immediate, more honest. well, if used in a certain way. kissing isn't quite enough because you don't get the full-scale opportunity for body-language and large-scale transfiguration of self and mood-- like, people totally change, often enough, when they're being intimate like that. whole other sides to their personalities emerge, and their interaction with the other person is almost always different, and there's no easy way to reproduce it without the touching going on.
by leaving out the description of the touching, you're really leaving it all up to the imagination, which i think makes the relationship less vivid overall.
i think if they came together in a non-verbal way, then it's necessary. if they're a cerebral couple, who do most of their bonding and communicating on a superego and ego level, then you may still find it interesting to include smut-- or rather, an account of them being physical-- just to show if they really change their dynamic when they're like that. i mean, you can't really -stay- cerebral very easily while having sex. inhibitions crumble, boundaries fray, repressed feelings emerge, and so on. it may not be considered valid to use a love confession uttered during an orgasmic moment, but there is a reason it often happens.
so if you think there are repressed emotions there that aren't going to want to come out without prodding, you have three choices-- crying, drinking, or having sex. in the end, having sex allows the most range, i think.
most people writing smut of course, don't use it as a way of finding out about the relationship and the characters, and just have it be a playground for their own fantasies. this sort of smut is never necessary and is indeed probably semi-harmful to the development of the story. this is why i suppose PWPs are problematic, in most cases. you aren't furthering any sort of relationship dynamic, and the characters tend to be merely ciphers. it's also not helpful to have the sex dynamic -define- the overall dynamic. i mean, it happens in real life, but i don't find it enlightening when i'm reading about characters i care about, because it's sort of a short-cut in characterization that you can't really argue with, because in most cases, you don't have any canonical source to contradict you.
sex, in a way, can be seen as an intimacy short-cut in general, and is often used that way. but it doesn't have to be. it could be a facet, a mirror, an outlet. although i suppose it's a delicate matter, to balance overly romanticizing it, and simply using it as an advancement of our and the characters' understanding.
quire's latest post, since i don't know if i've exactly delineated my views on why and how smut/sex-scenes can be necessary and important to character development before....i think smut is necessary if the tension between two characters is ... combustible. if they spark, and ignite, and kinda are physical with each other. it's a chemistry thing. some people communicate with touch, rather than words. with some people, words always end up being lies, or half-truths, just because they are words. and maybe they can't even truly understand each other, and their deepest feelings, if they don't touch each other.
like... it can be a bridge. instead of dialogue, which often obscures as much as it reveals-- touching is more immediate, more honest. well, if used in a certain way. kissing isn't quite enough because you don't get the full-scale opportunity for body-language and large-scale transfiguration of self and mood-- like, people totally change, often enough, when they're being intimate like that. whole other sides to their personalities emerge, and their interaction with the other person is almost always different, and there's no easy way to reproduce it without the touching going on.
by leaving out the description of the touching, you're really leaving it all up to the imagination, which i think makes the relationship less vivid overall.
i think if they came together in a non-verbal way, then it's necessary. if they're a cerebral couple, who do most of their bonding and communicating on a superego and ego level, then you may still find it interesting to include smut-- or rather, an account of them being physical-- just to show if they really change their dynamic when they're like that. i mean, you can't really -stay- cerebral very easily while having sex. inhibitions crumble, boundaries fray, repressed feelings emerge, and so on. it may not be considered valid to use a love confession uttered during an orgasmic moment, but there is a reason it often happens.
so if you think there are repressed emotions there that aren't going to want to come out without prodding, you have three choices-- crying, drinking, or having sex. in the end, having sex allows the most range, i think.
most people writing smut of course, don't use it as a way of finding out about the relationship and the characters, and just have it be a playground for their own fantasies. this sort of smut is never necessary and is indeed probably semi-harmful to the development of the story. this is why i suppose PWPs are problematic, in most cases. you aren't furthering any sort of relationship dynamic, and the characters tend to be merely ciphers. it's also not helpful to have the sex dynamic -define- the overall dynamic. i mean, it happens in real life, but i don't find it enlightening when i'm reading about characters i care about, because it's sort of a short-cut in characterization that you can't really argue with, because in most cases, you don't have any canonical source to contradict you.
sex, in a way, can be seen as an intimacy short-cut in general, and is often used that way. but it doesn't have to be. it could be a facet, a mirror, an outlet. although i suppose it's a delicate matter, to balance overly romanticizing it, and simply using it as an advancement of our and the characters' understanding.
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Date: 2003-01-02 04:19 pm (UTC)http://www.cataromance.com/articles/art021.shtml
Cheers :)