Sex scenes

When writing my book, TAKING CONTROL, I felt compelled to write a steamy sex scene.  My main character has given up on men and explores her interest in women, rather clumsily I might add.  I wanted to do her justice though, since she’s a confident former CIA operative.  While she may not have known what to do, she was going to do it with tenacity.

Her first girl on girl encounter troubled me.  I didn’t want to put a cheesy porn version of lesbian sex.  A lame sex scene wasn’t going to work either.  So, I teased the reader.  It seemed like the logical thing to do, since I wasn’t writing erotica.  It turned out (so far) to be the right thing.

Of those that have read my book, I’ve received very positive feedback.  I know a bad review will come, and it’s okay.  You can be the tastiest green apple in the world, but not every likes green apples.

As it turns out, the English Lit Professor for a local college has purchased and read my book and now she has emailed me and asked me to speak to her class.  This shouldn’t make me nervous.  I used to give seminars once a month.  But that was a decade ago and I wasn’t talking about ME.

Back to the matter at hand, when writing a novel, it becomes your baby.  Whether to kill off a character or not is a huge decision not to be taken lightly.  Every personality quirk, every subtlety is given much consideration during writing, editing and rewriting.  Every single character, no matter how small is given a lot of thought and time.

But a sex scene – that’s big stuff.

What do you think about sex scenes in books?  How far should a writer go if they aren’t writing romance or erotica?