Cliff Notes for skipping the sex scenes in A Rational Arrangement

[rowyn]

There aren't a lot of sex scenes in the book, relative to its length, but what sex scenes I did write generally establish some points about the characters and the nature of their relationship. For readers who want to skip them, the relevant points are behind the cut-tag in this entry. This bit is cut-tagged because it's implied rather than spelled out in the erotica scenes, and some readers may prefer figuring it out on their own. :)

1) Nik and Justin basically do not talk about them having sex, ever, including while they're having it.

2) Justin loves Nik. He doesn't say this either.

3) Justin is reasonably good at reading Nik's moods in absence of speech. The converse is less true.

4) They are generally equal partners in bed, but Justin is the more assertive of the two, and on some occasions plays at dominating Nik, with Nik's implicit consent. (This detail comes up in tomorrow's entry, but I figure I may as well throw it in now.)

Comments

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I rather like that the sex scenes are actually plot-relevant, rather than just "hey, they like each other... see? See?". And even better (to me), they're subtly so. On the downside, yeah, it does require posts like this, for those that don't want to read the sex. (This may or may not be an actual downside.)

This actually seems like an area in which the ebook industry has failed. You were talking to me, some time back, about making versions of the book available that were, uh, porn-free (because it's ebook and print-on-demand, so it doesn't really cost extra). I don't know if you still want to do those, but it seems like to me it would be pretty easy for ebook creators/devices to basically have a setting which is "show porn" or "show replacement text", and allow the ebook to include both, and only have the correct one displayed.

It wouldn't even have to be "porn" or "no porn", you could have (say) a sex-ed book where you could set the reader's age (8, 10, 12, teen, adult, grandpa), and it would include or elide content based on that setting. "With profanity" or "without profanity". "Original release" or "now with 6 sentences of bonus content" release. This really seems like it would have a lot of potential use, without a lot of overhead.

(Literally, you could implement it with existing CSS code, and a menu to let you pick which of a few choices you want. You wouldn't have to change the renderer at all, you just add a CSS class to the top level container object that the book is displayed in.)

...ahem. Sorry. I should go patent that idea now.

[rowyn]

The reason I never continued on the "erotica-free" version is that I feel as if, for an erotica-free version, I ought to be able to include the information noted here as a graceful part of the narrative that doesn't call undue attention to itself. And I am not really sure how to do that. I am sure it's *possible*, but it's not trivial.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if you could make a ... we'll call it a "pseudo-erotic" version. Frontload some things (the "I love you" type bits), describe the other goings-on in broad strokes. You could probably get the idea of who the aggressor is and the general tone of their lovemaking without getting deeply into which tab A entered what slot B and what it did while it was there. You wouldn't end up with something that's clean, really, but it wouldn't be what most people would consider "obscene".

...I'm not suggesting that you do this (not even slightly). Though I admit I'm now kind of tempted to grab these couple of entries and see if *I* could do it, just as a thought exercise. You know, in my copious free time.