About romance and sex in superheroine stories

So, I'm writing a new story, where the main protagonist (the superheroine) has a boyfriend already. But I really wanted it to be a girlfriend. However, as I'm willing to please (and I already have a pair of lesbians to play with in another story), I'd like to ask:

Do you guys prefer lesbian or straight sex in superheroine stories? Why?

Sex and romance are fine in stories, any gender combinations are fine, as long as sex isn't the reason the story exists. Character development and plot are where it's at. Which means that any sex is going to be closer to the end of the story than the beginning. We need to get to know the characters and have some adventures first.

That said, sex is an important part of life, and presumably superheroines are way better at it than ordinary women. But their powers also create significant problems along with unique opportunities. Superheroines are not limited to the usual rules or conventions or even to activities that are humanly possible. But if your girl can bend steel in her bare hands, she might need to be a little cautious with ordinary humans.

So by all means put it in, and explicit is fine, but keep it in proportion and appropriate to the characters and their ages. Think R-rated movie with a few bits of maybe NC-17. I enjoy pushing my imagination in those areas, and I also enjoy seeing where other writers go with it.

But once again, don't make sex the reason for the story. There are other places to post erotica.

Just my opinion...

Shadar

shadar wrote: Sex and romance are fine in stories, any gender combinations are fine, as long as sex isn't the reason the story exists. Character development and plot are where it's at. Which means that any sex is going to be closer to the end of the story than the beginning. We need to get to know the characters and have some adventures first.

That said, sex is an important part of life, and presumably superheroines are way better at it than ordinary women. But their powers also create significant problems along with unique opportunities. Superheroines are not limited to the usual rules or conventions or even to activities that are humanly possible. But if your girl can bend steel in her bare hands, she might need to be a little cautious with ordinary humans.

Shadar

That said caution goes both ways. Theres the kind of Shadar-"Break an arm" kind of cuation. I know Dru did an o girl story where her very look caused someone to continiously orgaism for there rest of there life-which caused deyhdaration issues -thats a joke but you know that could be done seriously

there is also the caution of rejection of the superhero, that she becomes a freak a monster-or maybe a godess. To a mind that can be as bad- and in that sence love rommance and yes sex can be a good show of that-a character who gets her girlfriend to keep loving her or has her boyfriend run away-thats a story.


Castor

I'm in the less is more camp. As in, I generally prefer (and write) that the actual sex happen off camera. Might be a bit of frisky on screen though.

But, that said, every writer and story has it's reason to exist, so every story is going to have a different answer to that question. There isn't a "wrong" answer.

But generally if a story seems to be about sex, I'm just not interested. There is a subtle line between a story being about sex, a story including some sex, and a story having characters that have sex/affection that happens a bit off camera. It's really only the first one that gets to me.

F/F, F/M, doesn't matter to me. The relationship is more important to me than the sex, though I certainly did rush things along in Ultima.

I did have some reasons for it (different for each character). For Ultima, It doesn't have to happen -- but if your senses are enhanced, your confidence takes a skyrocket, you feel really super-awesome by being super-healthy, and you feel REALLY powerful and sexy, I'm suspecting that people who are interested in sex, get a lot MORE interested. And their inhibitions will be a lot less than normal. They'll likely adjust to this after a bit, but I would think most super-humans would be a bit more promiscuous than the general population.

And in a similar thing, i hear that Olympic village is rampant with sex. (Not sure if this is actually true, I've heard this more than once, and it fed into how I think a newly minted Super Human would feel.) This is also a bit of what happens to Jennifer Walters when she turns into She-Hulk, though part of that effect is psychological too.

And yes, relationship with a super-human is fraught with all sorts of troubles. Injury. Super Ex-girlfriend. Etc. A normal man with a woman from this site prefers would have to be very secure, because she's going to outclass him in pretty much every way. Note every man can handle that: physically or emotionally (or even intellectually).

It's even worse when you take an existing relationship with an existing power dynamic, and you throw it off. If a man who is used to be dominant, by his strength, intelligence, and skill, and suddenly he finds that he is no longer even remotely a match for her in any of those categories. A nicely evolved human would just adapt -- but few of us are nicely adjusted evolved humans.

and if she's an active hero -- that would be a strain on a relationship. People dating Firemen, Police Officers and people in the Military experience this -- but they usually know this going in, and don't have it thrust upon them. And even so it's STILL a big stress in a relationship.

Everyone is going to take this issue differently. Plus, they'll take each STORY differently. So really, write something you like, and enjoy the process. Repeat. Listen to people enough to take some constructive advice, and toss that into the hopper. Try to ignore everything else (especially the haters, unless they are that rare breed of hater, who can actually give good constructive advice -- which you STILL might want to ignore).

Woodclaw wrote:
This is one of my big touchy points when writing relationships. As a child of the '80s the version fo Superman I'm most familiar with is the one that started with the original Crisis, back in 1984, and one of the things I found really badly handled about that age was how Clark handled his marriage proposal to Lois. I appreciated the fact that the authors pointed out that Lois was saying yes to Clark and not to Superman, but the fact is that he wated after she said yes to drop the bomb on her. That's something I consider very bad under multiple poiints of view, it showed a lack of trust and confidence from Clark and, as Twice pointed out, it was like discovering to be married with a soldier, a fireman and a police officier all rolled into one. Not something most people wuld be able to handle (granted Lois isn't most people).

Well this is kind of the old trope- "Love the real me, not the super me" thought it only started in the 90s has been the subtext of the comics since the beggining. (though it was highly subtextual in the 50s and 60s where Clark didn't seem to have much affection for Pyscho stalker Lois Lane). Its a classic rommantic notion-that there is some core that Clark is the real personality Superman is what he pretends to be.

Its also not really realstic. There is of course the danger like a fireman police, or as Superman 2 (which touched upon it) a "A doctor". There is also the fact that the real anwser is probabbly-neither. Clark Kent is a disguse of a man who hunches and mumbles, Superman is a perfect boyscout. The real answer is somewhere in the middle(a lot of good Superman writing suggests thats theres an akward and touch cynical man underneath), and its rare we get a sence that Lois knows that.

However at the same time..i could totally belive that is something Superman would do though.Becuse at some core, he plays that he wants to be human above all-if you don't like the human then good luck. It may not be the right thing but it something. He isn't a perfect character-he just plays one.

I mean when making a heroine or anything in a story like we do-you don't have to make them perfect. As i once heard the producer of Xena say-"okay thats three reasons why the audience loves her, give me an a reason why we hate her". Rommance can be a way of showing that for any number of reasons. A perfect heroine who is completely invulnerable to all things physical and emotional-is kind of boring in my book. A Total villian is the same way.

So do what you want.

The place some people get wrapped around the axle is trying to equate Kara and Kal. Basically making her a female version of him.

Given her upbringing and experiences, she's a TOTALLY different person. She's never wanted to be human, not for one moment, but she does understand that she needs to immerse herself in human society so that she can live something approximating a "normal" life.

Being SG all the time would be exhausting. The work is never done. For all the people she saved today, there are others she failed to save. So for her emotional health, she needs to detune and stand down and live like a human a good part of the time.

At least, the classic SG (from the 60's through the end of century) would feel that way. I can't warm up emotionally to the SG renditions of the last five or so years.

The earlier SG was always a romantic, and she'd clearly have sexual relationships. How she managed that without revealing that she was Kryptonian was something DC comics didn't (couldn't) portray.

Which means that's something we can do.

Bottom line for me... she's never wanted to be ordinary. I've always felt that, unlike Kal, she loves her powers and would feel naked without them.

Kal would probably just feel relieved if he lost his. At least until the next Earth destroying menance appeared.

Shadar

castor wrote:

Woodclaw wrote:
This is one of my big touchy points when writing relationships. As a child of the '80s the version fo Superman I'm most familiar with is the one that started with the original Crisis, back in 1984, and one of the things I found really badly handled about that age was how Clark handled his marriage proposal to Lois. I appreciated the fact that the authors pointed out that Lois was saying yes to Clark and not to Superman, but the fact is that he wated after she said yes to drop the bomb on her. That's something I consider very bad under multiple poiints of view, it showed a lack of trust and confidence from Clark and, as Twice pointed out, it was like discovering to be married with a soldier, a fireman and a police officier all rolled into one. Not something most people wuld be able to handle (granted Lois isn't most people).

Well this is kind of the old trope- "Love the real me, not the super me" thought it only started in the 90s has been the subtext of the comics since the beggining. (though it was highly subtextual in the 50s and 60s where Clark didn't seem to have much affection for Pyscho stalker Lois Lane). Its a classic rommantic notion-that there is some core that Clark is the real personality Superman is what he pretends to be.

Its also not really realstic. There is of course the danger like a fireman police, or as Superman 2 (which touched upon it) a "A doctor". There is also the fact that the real anwser is probabbly-neither. Clark Kent is a disguse of a man who hunches and mumbles, Superman is a perfect boyscout. The real answer is somewhere in the middle(a lot of good Superman writing suggests thats theres an akward and touch cynical man underneath), and its rare we get a sence that Lois knows that.

However at the same time..i could totally belive that is something Superman would do though.Becuse at some core, he plays that he wants to be human above all-if you don't like the human then good luck. It may not be the right thing but it something. He isn't a perfect character-he just plays one.

I mean when making a heroine or anything in a story like we do-you don't have to make them perfect. As i once heard the producer of Xena say-"okay thats three reasons why the audience loves her, give me an a reason why we hate her". Rommance can be a way of showing that for any number of reasons. A perfect heroine who is completely invulnerable to all things physical and emotional-is kind of boring in my book. A Total villian is the same way.

So do what you want.

I like stories with the tag Romance, any gender is cool in romance or sex, straight is cool for me usually if the story has feats of strengh or sexy games with superpowers and regular human guys involved.

I don't believe I've ever written about a lesbian couple in a story. I don't have anything against lesbians but I prefer F/M. I suppose the reason for this is I always put a bit of myself in my male characters. Often when writing a story I'll think about the female character and ask myself if this is a woman that I could enjoy being with. I don't believe I'd be very happy if she was only interested in women.

As for the subject of sex itself. For me sex is a big part of a relationship but it isn't the only part or to be taken lightly. I like a lot of build up to the sex during which it's established that the characters have feelings for one another. A one night stand isn't the type of thing I'm into after all. For me sex is a chance for the super fem to show how tender she can be and to express certain emotions physically. I tend to dislike both too much sex and complete aversion to it.