nonesensed | Why I Have Trouble Reading Het!Sex Scenes

I don't know what it is about the holidays that brings out the nitpicker in me. Maybe it's the extra time on my hands. Anyways, I'll here bring you the three reasons most heterosexual sex scenes in most forms of media squick me.

The Hymen Myth (aka WHY DO YOU STILL EXIST, DIIIIIEEEEEEE!)

This just makes no sense to me. I get that people way back, when the general knowledge of anatomy wasn't on the same level as we have today, could imagine that a "virginal seal of approval"-thing existed in every woman and that it broke permanently once penetration had been achieved.

However, that has long since been disproved. There is no way for a medical professional or anyone else to look at a woman's "hymen" and see if she's had penetrative sex some time in her life. The only reason some women bleed the first time they try that, is because they're nervous and it's a new experience. You're body just isn't used to it and you might not be wet enough.

But there is nothing that permanently breaks!

If you bleed, you bleed, and then you heal. And once it's healed, no one will know there ever was a scratch (unless there was some serious trauma, but then the woman was most likely raped, tortured or both - or attempting one of the more advanced moves in the Kama Sutra). All those doctors doing "reconstructive surgery" on misinformed girls and women are either lying through their teeth to make money or also misinformed.

It's enough to give me nightmares for weeks and thus, the hymen being mentioned in something that's supposed to turn me on, really has the opposite effect; it just reminds me of how many women go around thinking penetrative sex is supposed to hurt.

That's depressing, not sexy.

The Personality Change (aka Why is Daniel Jackson topping Samantha Carter?)

The above pairing I chose simply because one of my more Stargate SG-1 obsessed friends suggested it. I don't have anything against women who enjoy being submissive in bed. Hell, I'm a bisexual woman who prefers to top, so if there were no women out there who'd like to do the opposite, I'd be very out of luck.

I also don't mind women (or men) who're dominant in other situations, but enjoy being submissive in bed. You can't be the same person in all situations. Actually, I kinda like that contrast in a character, as long as there's some sort of a build up to it or comment on it. There's nothing wrong with liking any aspect of BDSM. There's also nothing wrong with being uninterested in it (because not everyone is into "on person takes the lead"-sex, which most fics seem to forget).

What I do mind, is when a woman is assumed to want to be submissive in bed just because she's a woman. And I'm speaking as a woman who has no interest in being held down and ordered around – it'd rather do the opposite.

So the question is really why, like it says in the title here. Why does this or that character enjoy being submissive? Explain it to the reader! It's just so unsettling when a character goes through an unexplained personality change as soon as sex is mentioned. It's like the seme/uke thing in yaoi fandom. It's silly and stereotypical, but in this case I haven't see much reaction to it, which freaks me out even more.

With the seme/uke-dynamic, there have been many discussions of how unrealistic and rape-y it is. When it comes to heterosexual sex with the same mechanics, I have so far found no one protesting it, outside of a rare few blogs (does anyone have any interesting links on the subject?)

But I'm not arguing that heterosexual D/s and Male!Dom should be banned! Absolutely not. And I'm not complaining that there's too little FemDom or vanilla sex – if I want more of that, I can just write it myself. Each to their own kinks.

No, what I am saying is that there should be some awareness about the "woman = submissive"-stereotype. Don't assume the reader will agree with your choice of who tops and who doesn't, just because one of the characters happens to be a woman and the other a man.

Instead of motivating the characters' actions (and yes, I do want the characters' personalities to shine through during sex – otherwise I'd just be reading porn starring Random Person 1 & 2), many authors fall back on the stereotypes. For example: You know the classical "sex pollen"-situation that couples tend to end up in, in fics? There's a very interesting pattern to those stories that I've noticed:

A) The person affected is a man who's attracted to a man. When under the influence of the sex pollen, he'll either be written as needy and begging to be fucked or aggressive and bordering on rapist. In the end, either of the men in the couple might be worried he raped the other guy, or the two of them might just shrug it off as a fun night.

B) The person affected is a man who's attracted to a woman. When under the influence of the sex pollen, he'll either be written as aggressive, bordering on rapist, or as about-to-lose-control-but-holding-back. During the second scenario, he'll eventually lose control with enough teasing from his partner and pin her to the bed. Once it's all over, the guy thinks he's raped her and she has to reassure him she enjoyed herself.

C) The person affected is a woman who's attracted to a man. When under the influence of the sex pollen, she'll be written as needy and begs the guy to fuck her. She might be a little aggressive at first, but only until the guy "loses control" and pins her to the bed. Once it's all over, the guy thinks he's raped her and she has to reassure him she enjoyed herself.

D)...yeah, I've yet to find a sex-pollen fic involving two women. I might not be looking hard enough or shipping the right pairings.

Another few examples are acts that fall under the BDSM categories. It's very rare to find a woman in fiction who tops because she likes it. She's either paid to do it because the guy likes being submissive (and he's often portrayed as humorous for wanting to submit to a woman) or does it because she's trying to tease the hell out of her man, so he'll throw her down and fuck her long and hard. Men, on the other hand, can be both Doms and subs – but subs tend to be written less "pathetic" if they're subs to another man.

(There is also the problem of sub!women being thought of as abuse victims, when everything done "to them" really is consensual, but that's another rant for another day).

Clearly, this pattern has more to do with the characters' gender than their personalities and preferences. Surely all women in fiction can't be passive and submissive? All women in real life certainly aren't, so it's hardly a biological thing. Cultural maybe, but not biological, so seeing it be treated like that over and over in fiction really irks me.

To me, the stereotype of always!sub!women enforces the belief that sex is something dangerous for women and that guys have strange rapist urgest just waiting to be let loose. Yes, more women are raped in real life than men and rape is a horrific act, but does it really have to be brought up as soon as a guy and girl have sex? Is every heterosexual sex scene just a rape scene waiting to happen, or could we possibly just have sex that's fun and guilt free? You can break someone's ribs if you hug them too tight – does that mean we have to worry every time we hug someone?

Yeah, if you're slapping your partner in the face during sex, or spanking them, or doing something else that involves force, you should have some way of checking in with him/her that you're not hurting them for real. And, violence in bed is very much something you shouldn't try without discussing it with said partner beforehand. There is of course some leeway in fiction, because, hell, it's fantasy. That's not the issue. The issue is the fact that no one seems to be aware of what they're writing.

Rape might not be mentioned all the time, but it's there in the background, in the "I'm-sorry-am-I-hurting-you"-attitude from the fictional men. Guys can get hurt during sex too, you know. They can be raped. You don't see women in fiction asking their male partners "Did I hurt you? Did you really want that?" after giving them a blowjob, unless they actually managed to bite the guy or he shouted "ouch!" or "stop!". Why should a man have to ask a woman those questions, unless she gives some outward sign that she isn't having fun? It boggles the mind.

Speaking of rape, that brings me to the last header of this rant:

The Unlabeled DubCon (aka Lie Back and Think of England)

Unlabeled dubious consent is far too common in fanfics.

If you've been a couple for some time or if you've discussed your personal kinks and preferences with the person(s) you're having sex with, this isn't as much of an issue. If you know your partner likes to be held down, ordered around or simply likes to lie back and let you have most of the (apparent) control, you can surprise them and have sex the way you both like it, without having a "what do you like?"-conversation before each encounter.

But a lot of fics I've read involve first time sex. Not virgin sex necessarily (which, as I mentioned earlier, I usually avoid due to the creepiness that is the "breaking of the hymen"-bullshit), but the first time for the couple.

What happens in far too many of these fics is that for some unfathomable reason, no matter who the man and woman are, the sex scene goes something like this:

Without discussion, the guy takes charge of the whole situation. He might not pin her down and order her every move (though that does happen), but there will be some elements of it; insulting her, telling her what to do, stopping her from touching him/herself, or maybe even introducing some force, like spanking and slapping. All the while just expecting her to lie there and accept it (which she does).

It's a stereotype I like to call "passive sub!woman + aggressive dom!man = vanilla sex". And it's so very, very wrong.

Some people might think that it's some form of BDSM instead, but I'd have to disagree on that. This is a situation with two people, where one person suddenly decides to start ordering the other person around, pinning the other down and maybe even insulting the other person (name calling like slut, cocktease and whore, for example). No discussion, no agreement, no safewords, no nothing!

That is not BDSM and it certainly isn't plain old vanilla sex – it's dubcon at best, rape at worst.

I know the whole "forced to have sex by and with a hot person"-fantasy is a very common one, but please put some damn warnings about that in the summary of your story! You wouldn't throw blood-play or a golden shower into a fic without warning the readers, so why should this go unlabeled?

The lack of warnings is actually the squickiest part of the whole thing. It mean the author doesn't realize s/he's written a scene where the consent is dubious.

Also, a lot of women in fiction tend to be very reluctant and almost scared to have sex. Realistic in some situations, yes, but there's a time and place for it (and the hymen myth rears its ugly head again as well).

Though I think this has to do with the fact that a lot of fanfiction writers are female. In most cultures, women are raised to think of sex as a scary thing, with pain and rape as potential outcomes, as well as the threatening stigma of having been raped (aka "ruined forever", as many see it). Men, on the other hand, are more worried about embarrassing themselves in front of a partner or being laughed at, than they worry about pain and shame.

Those are, sadly, the facts we live with. Which is why I think it's so important to point out that women too can have sex without worrying about pain and rape. Even if it's "just fiction", writing women who enjoy sex, who take active part in sex (either by doing things to their partner or asking their partner to do things to them – not by just lying back and expecting their partner to read their mind!) and who don't find sex to be shameful or embarrassing, helps change the view people have on women's sexuality in general (and make the sex scenes less squicky for a lot of people – among them me).

As a final note, what's with the "someone has to lead during sex"-thing? Does everyone have to be into BDSM? I know I am, but that doesn't mean I don't like other kinds of sex as well. People say that vanilla sex is the mainstream form of sex, yet it's so hard to come by in fanfiction; which is even more confusing when few authors bother to label their stories as BDSM or rough sex when they clearly are. Fancy that.

Maybe it has to do with the general belief that the person "being fucked" automatically is submissive to the person doing the penetrating? Or that women in fanfiction tend to be surprisingly easy to turn on and the men very slow to come, when it reality it tends to be the other way around? Or that the man tends to be seen as responsible for both his own and his partner's orgasm when having sex with a woman, while the woman has no such responsibility at all? Food for thought.

What to you think, gentle readers? What are your opinions on this subject? I'd love to know!