However, I don’t think sex scenes are always necessary, and sometimes they seem ridiculous. In an action-adventure book by a bestselling author, there was a sex scene as two people were escaping from a ruthless pursuer. It was bizarre. As I recall, the escapees were in the desert somewhere and mutually masturbated, without really touching each other. They just watched each other and it turned them on. Seems the author was hard-pressed to find some new way to do it in his latest epic. The whole scene seemed mighty peculiar and didn’t have anything to do with the plot, in fact was a somewhat implausible diversion. That’s what I would call “gratuitous”.

Suppose instead of stopping to have sex, these same escapees had stopped to play game of basketball. Just as weird and pointless, given their situation.

For those who write erotica, sex plays a different role. Sex, then, is the whole purpose, isn’t it?

Most sex scenes, too, come off as almost laughable. They’re often so full of flowery euphemisms they’re silly. On the other hand, they can get so clinical the scene sounds like notes on a surgical procedure. I think sex, like car chases, works much better on film than in written fiction. The writing gets in the way.

I only really find sex scenes offensive when they’re gratuitous. It’s like the author trying to get your attention on a primal level, in place of writing a really engaging story. Like bribing you with a cookie to buy this book. Sort of insulting — figuring that’s my “price.”

He later writes in the same article, “The dominance of cozies, and other less-than-gritty works is, pardon the pun, something of a mystery, especially considering how other forms of genre fiction are pushing the envelope of what is acceptable. The last couple of decades in the horror field have seen the rise of the so-called Splatterpunks, writers who pile on the gory mayhem with maniacal glee. Cyberpunks have become prominent in the world of science fiction, stretching the genre’s boundaries with their high tech, apocalyptic world-views. Only in mystery writing does the trend seem to be heading in the opposite direction, away from the cutting edge, so to speak.

“Once upon a time, it was mystery writers who tested the limits of what was acceptable. Legendary authors such as James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and yes, even Raymond Chandler shocked contemporary audiences while they entertained them. Mickey Spillaine became one of the best-selling fiction writers of the 20th century by ratcheting up the sex and violence quotient to a whole new level.”

In an article about women mystery writers: “Lisa Daily, a columnist in Sarasota, Fla., finds mysteries by women often “funnier and less gruesome.” She adds, ‘You get all of the excitement of a good mystery yarn without having to endure seven nauseatingly descriptive pages of blood.’ ” (from the Christian Science Monitor).