Issues with sex and violence?

[AngelEy3 he/him]

I see a lot of references to not wanting to read something with too much sex and/or violence in it, or comments about skipping parts of stories to avoid because they contain these bits. My question, then, is why? Is it age of the reader? I can understand not wanting children to read certain things, but I'm aiming this more towards the adults who cringe away from sex and violence. 

I'm genuinely perplexed as to the reasons why an adult, who should know full well that real life is sex and violence, would stray away from violent, sex-filled stories? Everyone talks about wanting "real" people as characters... So what's the problem with a little "real life?" 

I've seen lots of great stories get ripped in reviews not because the plot didn't move, or that the characters were unlikable, or the world building was crap, or the prose being garbage... But simply because somebody gets some sex. Hate to break it to some of you, but life.. Uh... Life. Life finds a way. 

Please feel free to leave any comments or opinions you may have on the topic, as I really would like some insight on this. 

 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

50 minutes ago, AngelEy3 said:

I see a lot of references to not wanting to read something with too much sex and/or violence in it, or comments about skipping parts of stories to avoid because they contain these bits. My question, then, is why? Is it age of the reader? I can understand not wanting children to read certain things, but I'm aiming this more towards the adults who cringe away from sex and violence. 

I'm genuinely perplexed as to the reasons why an adult, who should know full well that real life is sex and violence, would stray away from violent, sex-filled stories? Everyone talks about wanting "real" people as characters... So what's the problem with a little "real life?" 

I've seen lots of great stories get ripped in reviews not because the plot didn't move, or that the characters were unlikable, or the world building was crap, or the prose being garbage... But simply because somebody gets some sex. Hate to break it to some of you, but life.. Uh... Life. Life finds a way. 

Please feel free to leave any comments or opinions you may have on the topic, as I really would like some insight on this. 

 

y'know there is a reason people read books.

It's to get away from all that crap. I personally don't mind violence and gore (the more the merrier XD), as for sex...ehh I don't really care much. It doesn't add to the story most of the time in any significant way except for driving the love life of whatever character. It adds a lil depth, sure, but it isn't relevant to the plot most of the time...unless like, the book is about sex.

See the problem is real life, you think people would imagine and write about all these places better than the dreary world we live in, because they loved real life so much? I mean, people read books heavy with sex, probably because they simply...find pleasure in doing so. Same as with violence and gore, it's an outlet, a way to...live your fantasies through the words of another.

It comes down to taboo in the end. What's socially acceptable and whatnot. I personally don't care what you do in public, so long as it's interesting and isn't harming anything besides someone's dignity and pride heh. 

When people say "real" characters, they mean someone they can empathise with, someone who goes through a deep sense of character development and isn't 2D so to speak. Most people see sex as needless and that it just gets in the way of story-telling, a "filler post" so to speak. And violence/gore is a turn-off for alot of people in the end as well, some people enjoy it and feel that good, descriptive gore adds to a story and really gets that dark and gritty feel, but majority of readers are the sort who read simply for the wonder and lightness that reading brings, an easy and enjoyable read, not something heavy and evocative. Also there are triggers, some people react adversely to such content, whether it be due to an event that happened to them, to someone else or something that they dread themselves.

Uh, there's my two cents.

[Delightful]

I think it's more "what you see gets absorbed into your consciousness and effects what you perceive as normal."

It's not a realism thing. It's do I want violence to be normal for me?

I've been changing my mind recently regards aversion to sex vs violence. Because we generally treat violence as much more ok than sex and I'm not totally sure why. I mean for someone in a more conservative community maybe they want to limit exposure to pre-marital/casual sex, so it's not normalised and not done?

Same thing with violence......it's also just kinda icky?

I don't really have a good answer. 

[Edgedancer he/him]

There's more than one reason I'd reckon. Some of it comes down to senibility, sure sex and violence are very real things but they aren't a big part of every single person's life. Some in fact are fairly happy about keeping them out of their life and simply gain no enjoyment about reading that kind of content and that's their business.

Then there's the matter of it exsisting in a story versus the amount of focus on it in contrast to how much any given person considers a "realistic" amount of it in accordance to their life experience and the amount of details dedicated to it.

The last one is probably where I'd roll my eyes at stuff. If I want to read about sex/violence then there are fairly specific products I can consume to fill those needs, so if your book isn't specifically marketed as such I'm most likely not in the mood to read about it. At that point constant references to violence/sex is pretty much like constant references to breakfast, sure we can assume it exsists and a breakfast scene might have interesting stuff happening in it but in most cases mentioning it just for the sake of talking about food doesn't exactly add much to for example an epic fantasy story, much less detailed descriptions of how the main character is chewing on cereals.

[AngelEy3 he/him]

Thanks for the responses from you three big names on the Shard. Everyone upvoted. I hadn't been expecting very many reasoned responses, but you guys gave me some things to think about. I should know by now that this place is healthier than the rest of the Internet! 

[Delightful]

2 hours ago, AngelEy3 said:

Thanks for the responses from you three big names on the Shard. Everyone upvoted. I hadn't been expecting very many reasoned responses, but you guys gave me some things to think about. I should know by now that this place is healthier than the rest of the Internet! 

The Shard is one of the best places on the internet full stop.  

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

18 hours ago, AngelEy3 said:

Thanks for the responses from you three big names on the Shard. Everyone upvoted. I hadn't been expecting very many reasoned responses, but you guys gave me some things to think about. I should know by now that this place is healthier than the rest of the Internet! 

big names 

Not so sure about that (in my case)

Oh...healthy heh...I can change that in an instant  

EDIT: 4000th post!

Edited April 25, 2017 by Darkness Ascendant

[Tristan]

Personally, if a book's selling points are the violent/steamy scenes, I most likely won't read it. I don't mind reading about those things, but it seems like the quality of writing suffers for it. There are exceptions, like Outlander and Game of Thrones, but the plot and characters in those stories definitely outweigh the sex and violence in what makes them interesting reads.

[AerionBFII he/him]

11 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

big names 

Not so sure about that (in my case)

Oh...healthy heh...I can change that in an instant  

EDIT: 4000th post!

Don't be coy. Im trying to restrain myself from asking for your Autograph 

[Delightful]

3 hours ago, AerionBFII said:

Don't be coy. Im trying to restrain myself from asking for your Autograph 

Oooooh @Darkness Ascendant is faaaaamooouuussss  

[Mestiv he/him]

I think there's no simple answer. I for instance tend to skip or skim paragraphs containing landscape descriptions. Others skip love making descriptions. 

But I do find it strange that vivid descriptions of decapitation are much less frowned upon than a general description of sex. It's also very visible on the PEGI scale. Violence has usually lower ratings than sexual themes. 

[Briar King]

I ll read it all and not blink an eye but I'm just a simple Cajun.

[AerionBFII he/him]

13 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

I think there's no simple answer. I for instance tend to skip or skim paragraphs containing landscape descriptions. Others skip love making descriptions. 

But I do find it strange that vivid descriptions of decapitation are much less frowned upon than a general description of sex. It's also very visible on the PEGI scale. Violence has usually lower ratings than sexual themes. 

This reminds me of an awkward moment when i was younger, i was at a friends house playing GTA and My friends mum kept coming in just bringing in his washing and seeing if we wanted anything turned a blind eye to the killing civillians, car jacking and robberies but when we entered a certain gentlemans club... well.... thats just a step too far XD

 

 

Talk about awkward..

[AngelEy3 he/him]

6 hours ago, AerionBFII said:

This reminds me of an awkward moment when i was younger, i was at a friends house playing GTA and My friends mum kept coming in just bringing in his washing and seeing if we wanted anything turned a blind eye to the killing civillians, car jacking and robberies but when we entered a certain gentlemans club... well.... thats just a step too far XD

 

 

Talk about awkward..

This reminds me of the time I was playing Final Fantasy X right after I first got a PS2, and my dad, who never came upstairs, walks in during the laughing scene... 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Now, now children. (*GAH MY HEAD HURTS)

There's plenty for everyone.

[AerionBFII he/him]

2 hours ago, AngelEy3 said:

This reminds me of the time I was playing Final Fantasy X right after I first got a PS2, and my dad, who never came upstairs, walks in during the laughing scene... 

That was the weirdest scene ever.

[Who Sharded?]

This is the only community I visit where it's common for people to avoid graphic material in books.  One user even mentioned that if a book has more than 2 F-bombs, he will stop reading it.  It seems very strange to me but hey, everyone's different.  I just think these people are missing out on a lot of great books.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

On 26/04/2017 at 8:36 AM, AerionBFII said:

This reminds me of an awkward moment when i was younger, i was at a friends house playing GTA and My friends mum kept coming in just bringing in his washing and seeing if we wanted anything turned a blind eye to the killing civillians, car jacking and robberies but when we entered a certain gentlemans club... well.... thats just a step too far XD

Reminds me of when I was playing God of War on my ps2

and my sisters walked in during the ...yeah one of those scenes...

 

[Alfa he/him]

I partly hold with the notion that a book is great when it contains exactly what it should contain to state its point - and when this exact measure contains sex, violence, landscape descriptions, statistics/diagrams/scientific passages or whatever this is a part of the greatness of the book. When a book contains the very same things without a particular reason for them... that makes the book less great. Imagine it like a painting: depending on what is pictured the addition of broken sword sticking in the ground might add something to the feeling of the picture, add nothing to it or absolutely ruin it.

Take Game of Thrones (the books): The whole series is libeally filled with sex and violence - but most of the scenes with sex and/or violence are direct parts of the plotline. I struggle to remember if there is one scene in the whole five books that involves sex that is not important in the context, be it the developement of a relationship or the reason for a politcal problem. The same goes for violence. If there are scenes that describe sex and/or violence for their own sake, they are few.

Or take Sanderson's books. While not containing especially much sex, violence is pretty much a given fact in most of the fighting scenes (It is disturbing to see Vin killing a three-digit number of Cett's guards, Szeth killing and mutilating largely helpless quards etc. etc.). And again: this scenes are there to help the books to state their point. Another page in the Stormlight Archive about Dalinar and Adolin crashing through a Parshendi battleline on an average plateau run would be unnecessary, and therefore uneccessary violent.

[Briar King]

On 4/27/2017 at 8:31 AM, Who Sharded? said:

This is the only community I visit where it's common for people to avoid graphic material in books.  One user even mentioned that if a book has more than 2 F-bombs, he will stop reading it.  It seems very strange to me but hey, everyone's different.  I just think these people are missing out on a lot of great books.

Or movies as well for that matter.

[Unhinged he/him]

I can't speak for everyone but I think part of the problem with people not wanting to read stories with sex in them might be over saturation. Personally I don't mind if a book contains a sex scene but it needs to feel relevant there should be a lot of emotion behind what's going on and it shouldn't be overused. but when the author goes into erotic novel level detail to describe what's going on i get put off. Unfortunately more and more authors seem to be trying to compete with a song of ice and fire by making ever more graphic, sexual, and violent books its to the point where these things aren't shocking any more their just annoying. 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Unhinged

[Datan Nomlibash]

On 4/24/2017 at 3:30 AM, Delightfully Smoak said:

I've been changing my mind recently regards aversion to sex vs violence. Because we generally treat violence as much more ok than sex and I'm not totally sure why. I mean for someone in a more conservative community maybe they want to limit exposure to pre-marital/casual sex, so it's not normalised and not done?

I think part of it has to do with professions and society. For example if your kid wants to grow up the be a soldier it might be seen as patriotic but if your kid wanted to grow up to be a prostitute you would probably want to have a looooooong talk with them.

[Ammanas]

I have a question and thought this thread would do to ask. First some background: I don't mind violence so much, but torture makes me feel uncomfortable. I can deal with one or two sex scenes in a book, but any more than that and it's just too much. I also enjoy Joe Abercrombies books if that is any indicator of my tastes.Finally my question: I am intrigued by Bakkers Prince of Nothing series but, knowing my preferences, is this a series that I should avoid? I hear that it is graphic...

Edited May 6, 2017 by Ammanas

[Orlion Blight he/him]

4 hours ago, Ammanas said:

I have a question and thought this thread would do to ask. First some background: I don't mind violence so much, but torture makes me feel uncomfortable. I can deal with one or two sex scenes in a book, but any more than that and it's just too much. I also enjoy Joe Abercrombies books if that is any indicator of my tastes.Finally my question: I am intrigued by Bakkers Prince of Nothing series but, knowing my preferences, is this a series that I should avoid? I hear that it is graphic...

Here's the thing: there is graphic and there is effective. I do not think there is anything in the Prince of Nothing series that is more graphic then what you see in A Song of Ice and Fire or Malazan Book of the Fallen.

But it is more effective. Bakker is much better at conveying a sense of wrongness, injustice and grimness.

So, I would say give the first book a shot. It will give you a good idea if the violence and sex are too much for you.  Honestly, you might find out the heavy existential themes are not to your liking and set the book aside before you get to anything too "icky."

[Who Sharded?]

On 5/5/2017 at 7:01 PM, Ammanas said:

 I am intrigued by Bakkers Prince of Nothing series but, knowing my preferences, is this a series that I should avoid? I hear that it is graphic...

If you like Black Company and Malazan, Bakker is a must.  It's the only thing I've read that compares to Malazan.  Don't get me wrong I love Stormlight Archive just as much, but Malazan and the Second Apocalypse leave me in awe of the authors' abilities.

I'd say Malazan is just slightly more graphic than Second Apocalypse.  Second  Apocalypse is more pessimistic though.