Um. I wrote an essay about sex scenes.
I’ve watched the last scene of Weeds #8.11 three times already and I’ll probably watch it a few more times, because it’s amazingly raw and powerful TV. (Emmy noms for Justin Kirk and Mary Louise Parker, please.) (Watch the scene in full here.)
For me, it also brought up a lot of feelings about the way sex scenes are written, so here are some thoughts on:
Game of Thrones sexposition;
Fanfic sex scenes vs. published sex scenes;
(Inevitably, regretfully) Fifty Shades of Grey;
And, of course, Weeds.
The fact is: getting to see Andy and Nancy’s first sex scene, in its entirety, was far, far more powerful than any kind of fade-to-black would have been. It wasn’t gratuitous. It was the opposite of gratuitous. It was the inevitable climax to the characters’ eight-seasons-long storyline. It was, plain and simple, good storytelling.
In those few minutes, through the vehicle of their first sexual encounter, we got to see Andy and Nancy go on an emotional journey. We got to see them make it out the other side as changed people. Andy as someone who could live without Nancy; and Nancy as someone who couldn’t live without Andy.
At no point did the sex scene turn into an exercise in ‘let’s throw in some sex to make the viewer sit up and pay attention’. (No, if you are any kind of viewer you were hooked from the moment Justin Kirk’s voice cracked over the words, you are so, so, so, so bad for me.) At no point did I feel like the writer or director was using it as an excuse to get Mary Louise Parker’s tits out. Neither Andy nor Nancy shed their previously established characters and turned into pornified nymphobunnies.
On the contrary, characterization was at the centre of the whole scene. Despite their charming, easy rapport, the show has always made it clear that Nancy and Andy don’t mesh well, sexually. (As Andy once remarked, ‘I’m not rape-y enough for you.’) How brilliantly characterized, then, to see Nancy turned on by Andy only at the point that he began mistreating her.
Affable Andy being kind and loyal to Nancy? Not interested. Angry Andy yanking her hair and telling her he was leaving? Suddenly Nancy’s all over him.
It was heartbreakingly consistent characterisation. And if we hadn’t seen it - seen the sex scene in its entirety - so much of it would have been lost.
For me, that is that way sex scenes should be written.
I’m not opposed to the way other shows, like Game of Thrones, use sex as window dressing. (Although I think GoT should, like HBO’s Rome, be more egalitarian about the whole thing and show full-frontal male nudity as well. Ahem.) I’m not above enjoying sex scenes purely for titillation - the same way I read and enjoy wafer-thin PWP fanfic.
But Weeds only served to remind me how sex scenes can work on screen and on paper. And yet, it also reminded me how seldom they do serve a purpose beyond empty titillation.
(I will give snaps to GoT for its Renly/Loras almost-sex-scene, which I thought was wonderfully characterised. Watch it again and note how Renly’s eyes go dead when Loras pushes him away; the way Renly then grabs Loras - not at all gently. It’s the only scene where I ever saw a resemblance between Renly and Robert, but it was chilling. You could see what a demanding lover Renly was and, perhaps perhaps, not such a golden king after all.)
This, incidentally, is why I love fanfic so much. I can count the number of good novels I’ve read that contain complete, detailed sex scenes that serve a purpose beyond titillation/window dressing on maybe two hands. The number of fanfics I’ve read that contain sex scenes as a genuine vehicle for character/story development number hundreds.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of inhibitions that comes from writing pseudo-anonymously, or simply a self-perpetuating theme in fanfic (people write sexy fanfic, which makes other people write sexy fanfic, ad infinitum). But fanfic writers seem to grasp sex scenes as just another type of scene, whereas most mainstream writers emphatically don’t seem to get that. Their brains unhook and they sneeze out these horribly generic Harlequin and/or pornified sex scenes that seem to have only a tangential relationship to the rest of the novel.
(I know I’m missing the whole enormous romance genre of novels out of this discussion. But, honestly, the few romance novels I’ve read have had incredibly generic sex scenes that scarcely contained any character or plot development. By all means, gimme some good recs.)
I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, although I suspect it falls into that last category, of poor characterization and porny white noise. When I talk to people in real life about Fifty Shades, I probably come across as a bore who doesn’t want to read about sex. The reality is completely different and harder to articulate, but here goes:
I want to read sex scenes. But I want to read sex scenes that are earned. Ones that are emotional and in-character and further the story.
Thanks for restoring my faith that some writers (outside of AO3) can actually achieve this unicorn, Weeds.
For me, it also brought up a lot of feelings about the way sex scenes are written, so here are some thoughts on:
Game of Thrones sexposition;
Fanfic sex scenes vs. published sex scenes;
(Inevitably, regretfully) Fifty Shades of Grey;
And, of course, Weeds.
The fact is: getting to see Andy and Nancy’s first sex scene, in its entirety, was far, far more powerful than any kind of fade-to-black would have been. It wasn’t gratuitous. It was the opposite of gratuitous. It was the inevitable climax to the characters’ eight-seasons-long storyline. It was, plain and simple, good storytelling.
In those few minutes, through the vehicle of their first sexual encounter, we got to see Andy and Nancy go on an emotional journey. We got to see them make it out the other side as changed people. Andy as someone who could live without Nancy; and Nancy as someone who couldn’t live without Andy.
At no point did the sex scene turn into an exercise in ‘let’s throw in some sex to make the viewer sit up and pay attention’. (No, if you are any kind of viewer you were hooked from the moment Justin Kirk’s voice cracked over the words, you are so, so, so, so bad for me.) At no point did I feel like the writer or director was using it as an excuse to get Mary Louise Parker’s tits out. Neither Andy nor Nancy shed their previously established characters and turned into pornified nymphobunnies.
On the contrary, characterization was at the centre of the whole scene. Despite their charming, easy rapport, the show has always made it clear that Nancy and Andy don’t mesh well, sexually. (As Andy once remarked, ‘I’m not rape-y enough for you.’) How brilliantly characterized, then, to see Nancy turned on by Andy only at the point that he began mistreating her.
Affable Andy being kind and loyal to Nancy? Not interested. Angry Andy yanking her hair and telling her he was leaving? Suddenly Nancy’s all over him.
It was heartbreakingly consistent characterisation. And if we hadn’t seen it - seen the sex scene in its entirety - so much of it would have been lost.
For me, that is that way sex scenes should be written.
I’m not opposed to the way other shows, like Game of Thrones, use sex as window dressing. (Although I think GoT should, like HBO’s Rome, be more egalitarian about the whole thing and show full-frontal male nudity as well. Ahem.) I’m not above enjoying sex scenes purely for titillation - the same way I read and enjoy wafer-thin PWP fanfic.
But Weeds only served to remind me how sex scenes can work on screen and on paper. And yet, it also reminded me how seldom they do serve a purpose beyond empty titillation.
(I will give snaps to GoT for its Renly/Loras almost-sex-scene, which I thought was wonderfully characterised. Watch it again and note how Renly’s eyes go dead when Loras pushes him away; the way Renly then grabs Loras - not at all gently. It’s the only scene where I ever saw a resemblance between Renly and Robert, but it was chilling. You could see what a demanding lover Renly was and, perhaps perhaps, not such a golden king after all.)
This, incidentally, is why I love fanfic so much. I can count the number of good novels I’ve read that contain complete, detailed sex scenes that serve a purpose beyond titillation/window dressing on maybe two hands. The number of fanfics I’ve read that contain sex scenes as a genuine vehicle for character/story development number hundreds.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of inhibitions that comes from writing pseudo-anonymously, or simply a self-perpetuating theme in fanfic (people write sexy fanfic, which makes other people write sexy fanfic, ad infinitum). But fanfic writers seem to grasp sex scenes as just another type of scene, whereas most mainstream writers emphatically don’t seem to get that. Their brains unhook and they sneeze out these horribly generic Harlequin and/or pornified sex scenes that seem to have only a tangential relationship to the rest of the novel.
(I know I’m missing the whole enormous romance genre of novels out of this discussion. But, honestly, the few romance novels I’ve read have had incredibly generic sex scenes that scarcely contained any character or plot development. By all means, gimme some good recs.)
I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, although I suspect it falls into that last category, of poor characterization and porny white noise. When I talk to people in real life about Fifty Shades, I probably come across as a bore who doesn’t want to read about sex. The reality is completely different and harder to articulate, but here goes:
I want to read sex scenes. But I want to read sex scenes that are earned. Ones that are emotional and in-character and further the story.
Thanks for restoring my faith that some writers (outside of AO3) can actually achieve this unicorn, Weeds.