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?

As a straight woman who writes/reads M/M fanfic, I find it erotic and I think most of the women I know do too. The relationship is important too, obviously, but for most it has to lead to sex!

Thanks - it's really nice to hear from other fanfic readers (I'm not a writer but I'd be interested in your views.)

Having read a fair bit of M/M, Spirk fic, plus F/M, F/F stuff, I wonder if you have an opinion on whether it's easier to write about 'people with penises' having sex? I suspect I sound weird, but the sex scenes somehow seem more active, assertive and, most importantly, describable? And is that something women (straight or gay) enjoy imagining?

I THINK I enjoy reading and writing M\M because there’s something very appealing about close male friendships and men being vulnerable with each other. And it’s a real challenge to write sex scenes between men that are not aggressively macho but not “chicks with dicks” either. When a writer gets that balance right it’s very erotic!

Incidentally, I don’t write Star Trek, but I do like to ship Spock and McCoy rather than Spock and Kirk!

Love your username, by the way. So am I.

Thanks for liking my username - it's lovely when people get it.

Would you like to say if you publish on AO3, and what fandoms you do write for? Also, interesting you say you'd prefer to consider Spock/McCoy rather than Spirk. I used to be a Spock girl, but as I got older I became less interested in that aloof, emotionally unavailable masculine trope. Plus if I ever write my Star Trek fantasies down, Dr McCoy will not be in them. Simon Pegg as Scotty in AOS will be, though. 😀

Well, this thread encouraged me to log into my old long abandoned LiveJournal last night and read snooker slash fic for 3 hours, so thanks for that.

Is LJ still going? I thought it ended, and most people migrated their stuff elsewhere.

Snooker slash is wonderfully niche, though…

It is! Mine hadn't been touched since 2012 but it was all there! My old cat was alive, I was worrying about turning 40...
Snooker slash is inevitable with all that slow silent walking around and bending over tables in darkened rooms.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, fiction is escapism for many and to put yourself in a position you don't find appealling can diminish the enjoyment.

You probably wouldn't like this

I really don't care either way. I've really enjoyed some gay or straight love stories.
I don't think it makes you U if you don't though, you enjoy what you enjoy.

I do usually skip over any sex bits though whoever is doing it.

But Dr McCoy is the very best character!! Yes, I do use AO3-but I’m too ashamed of my fandom to admit it in public….🤣

Fair enough 😀. I have a Starship Enterprise keyring as my shopping bag charm, but no friends who are the slightest bit interested.

I'm intrigued by your fondness for Dr McCoy. Are you American? (When I imagine writing down some of my fanfic ideas, I find that whole US Southern persona completely alien, in a different way from 'proper' aliens like Spock.) But I assume it's different for locals.

I'm genuinely surprised to learn that so many people avoid books that feature anything to do with sex whatsoever, or if the book does have any sex in it they skip the pages. Do you also fast forward the sex scenes in films or TV shows?
Why? Is it embarrassment or what?

Mostly it’s because it’s completely unnecessary and brings nothing to the story or plot. And on TV in recent years it’s been very hardcore and quite rapey (early seasons of GoT, for example).

I don’t like watching sex scenes-particularly violent and rapey stuff. But I do like to read it. My imagination makes better pictures!

I just looked at mine! I’d genuinely forgotten that I was kind of a big deal in my (now dead) fandom! I was a BNF.

Is there an author or story you’d recommend in snooker slash? I’m pretty open-minded since I discovered the existence of House of Commons slash …😀

No, I’m not American. I’ve liked McCoy since I first watched it as a child, and I’ve always liked the Alien/very NOT Alien dynamic between him and Spock. I really don’t like Kirk though, heresy though that is.
Oh, what the hell-I have no shame! It’s Starsky and Hutch!🤣🤣

I have never heard of snooker slash! But I can see it now….

Aww... I found my post lamenting the loss of one of my favourite snooker writers. She just deleted her account one day and vanished. There's an LJ snooker slash community, I'll dm you!

Thanks for sharing!

Although, WRT Star Trek TOS and AOS, I'm still a bit askance at McCoy's use of 'hobgoblin', particularly in the Abrams reboot.

But I've also just googled S&H quotes and I loved everything I read. Must rewatch.

Just read out the bit about Spock and McCoy to my ds and he said "SpoCoy"? And then collapsed in a fit of giggles with "McCock"

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I suggest you watch a couple of episodes -I suggest The Pilot, The Fix and Snowstorm, then move straight to the fic!

Thanks! Do you have the same username on AO3?