No F*ck is an Island

Teal Deer (TL; DR)

No Fuck is an Island

A subject that I constantly return to when I’m thinking about romance writing? The mechanics of sex scenes. And how entirely too many writers—and a fair amount of readers—think that all you need is two-finger prep, a “good girl” and a “you take me so well” and you’re all set. Regardless of who the characters are, where the characters are, and how the story is going. Employ the formula, dust off your hands, and move on to the next scene. It feels like an [INSERT “ GOOD GIRL” HERE] note in a Word doc.

I almost want to call it a “syndrome” and name it after a particular author, though she’s certainly not responsible for the push to write sex this way. It’s not her fault, and I’m not that much of an asshole. She did, however, popularize and mainstream dirty-talking male protagonists who have a particular script in the bedroom. It clearly worked for her! She made her bones, and her boners, on that reputation—and countless writers followed suit, who then had their own peers doing the same. That’s where it becomes an unfortunate pattern. When it’s a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of a standardized sex scene. When it’s replicated regardless of romance subgenre or setting, because it’s a popular formula, an easy insert or it sells well. There’s no deviant deviation specific to the characters themselves. It’s dirty talk, dick, and done. With a few switch-ups in the number of fingers and length of foreplay, perhaps. But it’s not personalized. And that’s a stark craft issue. Because nobody has sex the same way. Even the same person doesn’t have sex the same way every time! Why should fictional characters? A good sex scene requires thinking about the way they fuck—and also about what they do when they’re not fucking.

Something a lot of romance and erotica writers miss, probably myself included, is that what truly makes the things that characters do say in bed sexy is what they’ve said to each other outside of it. Or even what they haven’t said. What they’re scared to say. Dirty talk with context will always be hotter.

Sex scenes being specific to the characters and the moment, having a purpose, and moving the story forward shouldn’t be a revolutionary concept but somehow it is. And, sure, sometimes the purpose is to arouse the characters and the reader. And nothing of import happens besides some orgasms. I have no problem with the occasional gratuitous sex scene. But they still require skill to write. In fact, I’d say that if it’s gratuitous scene, you need to work even more diligently to make sure it reads well and makes sense for who your protagonists are. It doesn’t have to be spelled out in the text, but you should be asking yourself: why are they having sex right now, and how am I going to reference this interlude in the chapter after it? No fuck is an island, entire of itself; every fuck is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. (Zero apologies to John Git’er Donne. But I will go put myself in the corner.) (Be happy I’m not stretching it into an archipelago metaphor or making penis-ula jokes.)  

I feel like a lot of these cookie-cutter and check-box sexual encounters run parallel to the ideas that you have to be horny to write smut and that the entire goal is sexual titillation, not character growth and intimacy. I talk about it on social media a lot, but there is an unfortunately widespread misconception that the sole purpose of romance as a genre is to get people off. That there’s no value in it outside of being a sexual aid. The end result is tired and clichéd language meant to arouse that doesn’t really do much else. And if all you want is to get your rocks off with some dirty words, Literotica is right there—featuring all levels of quality and all levels of kink for free since 1998. With the explicit goal of turning people on. Hell, the entire internet is full of free wank fodder. Avenue Q has a whole song about it. In a romance you’re asking people to pay for? There should be more effort, there should be a considerable amount of thought involved. Not just a considerable amount of cum. The only half-ass should be what’s hanging out of somebody’s unbuckled pants as they screw against a wall.

And, frankly, for me, it’s a matter of pride. Why write the equivalent of the umpteenth dick pic from a rando? Ho hum. Seen it before. 4.3 from the Romanian judge. As with any other aspect of creative writing, I think we should always be improving. I don’t want a love scene I’m working on in 2026 to read exactly the same as something I wrote in 2010. Be a grow-er and a show-er.  

I have no illusions about effecting change. I have always been screaming into the void about something or other, and the mass-produced fucktory assembly line of sex scenes is just one more grievance. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop talking about it—and I’ll find out soon enough just how well you take it.