Well, Fuck.

A number of readers have commented to me that my serial Contrast is a surprisingly good story, considering that it's mostly a lot of fucking. I'm always flattered by this sentiment, because I'm proud of the story and think I did a pretty creative job crafting an interesting tale almost exclusively out of sex scenes.

At the same time, though, I find the degree and frequency of this surprise to be a poor reflection on society.

We've been deceived by our culture into believing that sex is an animal activity, not a fundamentally human one. It's a relic of our baser natures, we're taught, and demeans us if we undertake it purely for its own sake. As a result, even people who are pro-sex tend to focus on its gratification aspects, not its connective ones. So most fuck stories are about the physiological rather than the psychological benefits of sex. It's a real measure of how damaged we all are by sex-negative socialization.

Can you imagine someone expressing surprise about finding deep emotional content in a story with one of the following setups?

Two people meet while jogging in the park where several paths join. They smile at each other and run side-by-side for a while because their speeds are pretty much the same. They each get greater enjoyment out of the experience than from running alone, and on a whim, agree to meet up and jog regularly without talking.

Or: Two people end up sitting at adjacent tables in a restaurant. Each of them finds this restaurant a cozy comfort spot, and the chef's skills always result in a unique dining experience. After noticing each other in the restaurant regularly, one of them approaches the other after a meal and says, "I'm not trying to pick you up or anything, but I just had to gush to someone about how fantastic the salmon was tonight." They agree to start dining together with discission limited to the food and ambiance of the restaurant.

Or: Two people are stranded on a desert island together. One is deaf and mute, and the other doesn't understand sign language or English, so their initial communications are obviously very restricted. But it's cold at night, and so they always sleep huddled together for warmth and comfort.

Nobody would expect those stories to be shallow or crass based on the descriptions, even though they're built around activities that, like sex, animals are just as capable of as humans. Written well, one of those stories might even win awards in the mainstream fiction world or get made into a blockbuster movie. But even if Contrast were written ten times as well as it is, it would never win a literary award and could never be made into an acclaimed Hollywood film. 50 Shades of Grey attained notoriety, but I don't know of anyone who respects it artistically, and it's a lot less sex-focused than Contrast.

Hopefully things will change someday.

Maybe I can push them along by writing more stories like Contrast. If not ... well, I do enjoy writing stories about people fucking. I guess I'll console myself with that.