When Sex Stops Being Good

Some personal reflection for you this morning.

I have been married for four years now. We’ve experienced many a thing in our 8 year (cumulative) relationship.

One thing we do well at… At least occasionally… Is talking.

We talk about everything.

So with my writing lately, I’ve often talked to my husband to ask his opinion. With the book I’ve been working on I’ll hash out plot lines, characters etc with him. With my blog, I talk about using social media or learning new html. I know, exciting.

We were talking about blog traffic and marketing. I know the gist of things. But I’m self educated on what I do know. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that sex sells.

I mean, you clicked, right?

Here’s conservative little me posting an article about sex. And curiosity brought you in. Right?

Well hey there. My name is Jenn. Let’s talk about

S-E-X




Remember when a G rating on a movie was enough to still quantify it as a good movie? We all knew in Casablanca and The Princess Bride the depth of the main characters’ love for each other. They kissed, gazed lovingly, kissed and no sex. But we still as viewers understood.

Then movies got a little more risky. Panning away once it’s obvious what’s about to go down.

Then onto more graphic and longer scenes.

Etc etc etc

All in order to push the envelope. To get more views. I hate when movies that are otherwise flawless feel the need to show nudity to up a rating. Especially when it has nothing to do with the story.

But sex sells.

And that’s frustrating.

In my mind, “how can I be a successful writer if I don’t write about sex?”

Well I’m not about to sell myself out whore out my blog in order to be salacious and get a few more views.

Sex is good.

Of course, as a Christian, I believe within the confines of marriage it is good. So let’s keep it that way. I won’t be blogging about it in order to cheapen it for views, no matter how many times I see a tutorial prompting me to do so.

Or will I?

This morning thought was spurred by a suggestion on another website to prompt writers and bloggers to be more risky (read naughty) in their posts. As a conservative writer, it saddens me that one would feel the need to sell themselves short in this way just to get a few more view. But I tried it myself, in my own way. I will be posting a follow up to this post when I see what the result is, if any 😉

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  • Nicole Nenninger
    July 2, 2015 at 12:28 pm

    You and I are a lot alike–I feel frustrated too that sex sells and I don’t want to (nor do I have to) change my standards just to get attention or make more money. At 48 years old, I’ve collected enough wisdom through my post-grad degrees and life’s challenges to help others on a different playing field. There’s nothing “good” or “bad” about hooking people in using the sex sells as a motto–I don’t want to judge it–I just don’t resonate with that. Besides, I want to connect with others who are more in sync with me–authentic, heart-centered, relationship-focused. That might only be 5% of the population. So be it. The “sex sells” crowd probably won’t relate to me and that’s okay. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with sex, I just choose to keep my own private life private. I feel that’s honoring to me, to my husband, and to my relationship.

    • Jenn
      July 2, 2015 at 12:39 pm

      I feel like we should do a virtual toast to that!

  • lethally
    June 2, 2015 at 1:55 am

    Hi – Loved the post.

    My issue with movies isn’t the sex, but the violence and scary stuff. In particular, comic book movies. I have a ten year old son and an eight year old daughter, and I can’t take them to see The Hobbit, Spiderman, The Avengers, Captain America, Superman, Iron Man…the list goes on. I’m even wondering if the Star Wars movie will be suitable for kids!

    Sex in a movie I couldn’t really give a toss about, because, hey, it isn’t going to give my kid nightmares and I’ll happily explain to my kids what it’s about. Plus, they have grown up on a farm and seen what happens when the ram comes in each year, and can figure it out LOL!

    As it is, though, I get around the problem of violence and scary stuff by showing them movies from the 80s and earlier. They love the Christopher Reeve version of Superman, and the “Back to the Future” movies. We’ve managed to get copies of the old, campy Batman series (remember Adam West?) and I’m hunting out Lynda Carter’s “Wonder Woman”. None of these were violent and all were incredibly good fun.

    I think movie makers – and writers – and making a big mistake in alienating so much of their potential audiences by making their content so violent and downright nasty. If my kids can’t go, after all, I’m not likely to go either, and that’s three seats lost to them. Others, such as yourself, have an issue with all the sex.

    What’s wrong with just creating pure entertainment? *sigh* It used to be so common…

    🙁

  • Mike10613
    May 30, 2015 at 12:25 pm

    Hi Jenn,

    Thanks for visiting my blog. You can put sex into something just by mentioning panties, stockings or short skirts. People make their own stuff up then, we have vivid imaginations. I started writing a novel and had a girl taking a shower in the house with her abductor and worrying because their was no lock on the door. He handcuffed her to a wall, nothing happened, but the reader just imagining what might happen was enough!

  • ilovetmills
    May 15, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    Great post!! It made me click lol

  • Tara@LittleHomeKitchen
    May 1, 2015 at 9:39 am

    Hi Jennifer, First of all, thanks for stopping by my blog! Secondly, this post is hilarious! I’ll admit, I did click on it because of the title, but mostly because I was trying to figure out what the title had to do with the name of your blog. To be honest, I mostly DON’T click on salacious-sounding posts; I’m not interested in what athletics other people are up to.
    Also, I was just having a similar conversation with The Author (my husband) who is working on a love story right now, and he was pondering how much sex should be in the book. My opinion was none, similar to your comments about the G movies. What do you think? – Tara

    • Because... I'm cheap
      May 1, 2015 at 9:52 am

      That’s what I’m saying! I was mostly frustrated at the time of posting, thinking the only way I could get more views was to go for something a bit… Different. I’ve been working on a book too, with a love story within it, but not the crux of the story. I haven’t written about sex at all. But have definitely talked about her feelings, her interactions, and the teetering cat & mouse game as they fall for each other. I think that’s more fun! I do like a good love story, but I don’t read anything like 50 Shades Of Gray, I did read Twilight though! I, like you, am not interested in athletics, but I do like reading/writing about the chase.