To not enjoy books/films where the sexuality is different to my own?

[EdgyCrow]

I have recently started a highly reccommend book. The main love story features two characters who have a different sexuality to myself. Some of the scenes are very graphic and I'm finding myself not enjoying it. I have to say, I am a little bit of a prude and don't generally like very explicit writing about any sexual encounter but I feel like I particularly don't want to continue when it is 2 people of different sexuality to myself. Is this wrong? Do you feel bothered about explicit content you can't relate to?

Funny, I havent read any SW books as i dont read any lesbian fiction. Totally disinterested in the genre, and romance generally.

I am no prude but let's be honest all written sex scenes are cringe making, whether it's straight, gay or anything...I think that writers who go on and on with writing about sex are a little strange. Ditto in films.

Plus in films where to they get those L shaped sheets, which expose men's chests but cover womens?

I agree. 99% of sex scenes in books are pretty terrible and I mostly just skim over them, although I do have a few things I just absolutely don't want to even skim (anal, gay or straight). Sex is extremely personal and you shouldn't feel any pressure to read something which just isn't you.

Are you asexual? What sexuality were the characters?

Thank you for all of the responses, they've been really helpful and interesting. To be honest, all of the responses make sense to me. Yes I happily read about different religions/animals/time periods etc and can find myself engaged so why do I not engage with sexual writing of a different sexuality? But also relate to the responses that suggest I don't overthink it and put the book down.
I guess I was wondering if I needed to try to perservere with the writing to ensure I'm staying inclusive etc (possibly entirely wrong word there but hoping my meaning is understood) but I think I've taken from this that its just not a type of writing I enjoy and to move on. Thanks all!

This actually put me off Val McDermid's books. I used to love them, but (I felt) she started shoehorning more and more lesbians into the story and I just gave up eventually because I couldn't relate.
It must be very annoying if you're gay as most books are from a heterosexual viewpoint.

As she's a lesbian, isn't it natural for her to include lesbian characters? Would you talk about a heterosexual writer shoehorning heterosexual characters into their books?

I’m a straight woman and I’ll happily read very explicit sex scenes in books, regardless of the sexuality of the characters.

However, while I find straight sex scenes and gay male sex scenes a turn-on and often actively seek them out for that reason, lesbian sex scenes do nothing for me in that way - I just don’t find it sexy.

It doesn’t stop me enjoying a book or appreciating the relationships between lesbian characters, though. I love Sarah Waters’ books, for example. I’ve never been put off a book because of the characters’ sexuality.

I wont link you to my Drarry fanfics then 😬

I think it's fine to like what you like. I've always read a lot of books, and when I came out in 1983 there was very little decent lesbian fiction around. Like, almost nothing. Ditto movies, and music.

I think that was a common experience in the past. Women and minorities had to be able to access the common cultural 'gaze' and retrofit their own experience to it. Men can go their whole lives without reading books by and about women, similarly white people about black experience etc.

Does it matter? I guess it depends on why you're reading. Sometimes we read to feel relaxed, comforted, relieved from the uncertainties of life. Sometimes we read to learn. Sometimes we read to see our choices affirmed. It's not great for lesbian authors to have their market so restricted, but as discussed above there has been a flowering of voices on new forms of media.

Only you can know why you are not interested in literature from the perspective of a different sexuality, OP. There could be something for you to explore there. Or not. Personally I'm too old and knackered to find anybody else's sexuality very interesting.

I can’t watch shows where it’s a gay couple looking for a new house. If I think about why, it’s because I can’t imagine it’s me house hunting with my DH. I need to be able resonate with the couple. I’m the same with the sort of literature I read. I have to have common ground.

On the topic of sex scenes of any kind in novels...

My friend's mum was a writer - not Booker Prize stuff, but for those romance publishers such as Mills and Boon - formulaic stuff. They used to be very sedate but in the late 70s/early 80s, they started to get more raunchy and my friend's mum was told to spice things up. She rolled her eyes and wrote some steamy scenes, but hated it, so had a card index system of phrases and dialogue which she re-hashed very mechanically for the sex scenes - but still very mild stuff by today's standards.

She would ask my friend when a teenager to read and critique her work, and my friend absolutey hated this. She'd groan 'Awww - Muuuum! Do I have to ?' But the was a single mother who had to earn a crust, and didn't really have anyone else to consult!

Cringe-ville.

Fair enough if you don’t like sex scenes at all but I’m really struggling to understand the wider implication here from other posters that you can’t/won’t engage with something unless you see yourself explicitly in it. Like the pp above who won’t watch a show where a gay couple is house hunting?! I’m honestly staggered by that. You can have empathy for people who the same as you. Or not, which is why we have homophobia and racism.

Doesn’t bother me in a book as much as on screen. I have to turn away if I see a sex or kissing scene between women, between men - I’m fine. My husband couldn’t watch the sex scenes between men in ‘it’s a sin’. 🤷‍♀️

No I read about lots of people whose thoughts, feelings, backgrounds and actions are completely different to mine. It’s one of the points of reading.

I suppose just put the book aside if it’s not for you?

No.
I hate it all. Equal opps hater i suppose you could say.

It bores me so I don't read books or watch films where the focus is on graphically depicted sex.

This is a fascinating perspective on slash fanfic and not one I'd ever considered before, thank you for sharing!

For me, the sexuality of the characters is pretty irrelevant in a general sense. I'm heterosexual but I enjoy reading books about same sex couples as much as heterosexual couples if they're well-written.

My issue is when a book has a same sex couple in a context where their sexuality would definitely matter, but the author treats it as purely incidental. I read a book years ago that featured a gay couple just happily living together without a care in the world in the middle ages. It was odd, incongruous and smacked of virtue signalling.

To your OP point about sex scenes - sex scenes in books are really off-putting for me. I hate them regardless of what flavour the sex is. To me, sex is mobile, instinctive, sensory, embodied - however good the author is, you can't capture or commit that to words well. Describing in words what's happening during sex (i.e. writing a sex scene) is too stark, it strips away the 'magic', and confronts what's actually happening - two humans are slapping their genitals around together.

This just sounds like you don’t see them as people.
Could you watch two brothers house hunting? A father and son? Two mates buying together?
Could you watch that dog rehoming programme if you didn’t have a dog?

Do you turn your head when there’s a male on female assault scene, too? Or just consensual female kissing?
What do you do if you see women kissing in real life?

You can't resonate with them as human beings?
Assuming you mean things like Escape to the Country, a gay couple doesn't go on saying "we're super gay and we need a gay rainbow house with a rainbow garden and musical theatre within walking distance", they go on saying normal human things like "we would like to see some green space from the windows, or we'd like a bedroom with an ensuite on the ground floor for when granny visits, within driving distance of Taunton so Steve can still get to work". Is that really so impossible to relate to?

I have the same inability to resonate with a young couple with children. It’s zero to do with who they prefer to shag.

Here's another question for the OP (unless she's had enough) and anyone interested in another issue of sex and sexuality in fiction. (Tagging @iwentjasonwaterfalls and @bluehex.)

In the late 80s I had a friend who introduced me to the sci-fi writer Storm Constantine (and others whose names I can't remember). This thread reminded me of how I felt about their books then. I really wanted to like them - I liked sci-fi, my mother was a 70's feminist, and surely I was cool? But I had problems with the use of non-sex-based pronouns. I found it really hard to imagine these sentient beings without sexual characteristics and the subsequent consequences for the social/structural/political/biological actions of the wider society on their character and their lives.

Anyone else with a view on this, especially the OP? Or who read Storm Constantine? Or can recommend any modern authors grappling successfully with this linguistic/literary issue? (FWIW I liked this link and I might start there: www.cobaltjade.com/2019/06/gender-pronoun-tyranny/.)

I'm in a same sex marriage. Straight romance, straight gender roles etc turn me off so if it involves themes which don't make sense to me it's harder to engage and enjoy films/series etc. I only read factual books anyway..I was enjoying the queer series of ultimatum on netflix, I tried to watch the other versions with straight people and I couldn't get into it. So YANBU!

I don't like to read very explicit sex scenes, whatever the sexuality of the participants, but it doesn't bother me any more when the characters are gay (I'm straight). I do like reading about characters who have different experiences than my own, whether it's sexuality, race, culture, class, etc. I think that's one of the best things about reading is that it helps you empathize with people who are different to you.