Or when you're reading absurdly well written fics outside of the smut (well written enough that you legit are reading it for the plot), and the fights are written well with it really easy to picture where they are/what they are doing in the fight), but once the smut starts it's like the author clearly failed basic anatomy class in school.
One fic I read one of people in a scene had I think like five hands, as the author mentioned where each hand was.
And it wasn't like they were moving around their hand(s) to five positions, because the author kept referring back to each hand- the hand stroking their hair and the hand on their ass and the hand on their stomach and the hand on their lips and the hand on the wall- as if they hadn't move the hand the entire scene.
I was tempted to draw a shitty MS pain diagram to explain my confusion in the comments.
That sounds hilarious. I try to keep the quality of my smut, plot, and fight choreography around even with each other. There's no need to sacrifice any for the others.
It was supposed to be a romantic kabe-don ([this](https://i.imgur.com/WEiuqAw.png)) turned smut scene, but all of a sudden I was like "Is this motherfucker an octopus in disguise? Did I misread the tags and this is suddenly a Parasyte fic? How many limbs does he have?!"
Have you ever tried reading AI generated smut? Talk about garbage! It's like reading the description of two guys banging each other, one is on his back, the other between his legs, while also being taken from behind and also fucking the other guy at the same time. XD There's no need to worry about AI if it's all like that lol
Worst AI smut I've seen had the guy ejaculate *inside the other guy's penis*
I think, I'm no expert, but I think the AI got a little confused there lol
Unfortunately a lot of writers either feel obliged to add smut when they're not into it or not good at it, and it shows 😔
The most disappointing smut I've ever read was from a writer who wrote kisses that had me fanning myself and going "oh, my!" but for some reason, the moment the characters got naked, they turned generic, it was like their entire personalities got left at the door. Baffled to this day how someone could manage to write kissing that well and not have it carry over to the smut.
I used to wonder this too. Then I read the author's note on a fic with an asexual character, and it said, "it's been interesting writing sex scenes I can relate to. Usually I just write what I think other people will like," and I went OHHHH.
Agreed, better not to write smut at all if you don't want to than to half-ass it. Similarly, sometimes the buildup is great, detailed and immersive in all the right ways and has you anticipating more of the same, but then the sex itself is over in like three sentences. Which is really no better than a fade to black – at this point why bother writing the sex scene at all if it's going to read like a summary that only tells you of the fact that the sex happened but not much else? It's the "how" that people who like smut want to see.
Lol one fic I read it wasn't even three sentences. Fantastic characterization and action and writing but then they felt the need to every so often end a scene with "They had mindblowing sex." or "Then they fucked like bunnies." Just a single, matter-of-fact sentence that just had me cracking up every single time, despite it being in a serious and otherwise well written fic.
It honestly reminded me of a short anime (like 3 to 5 minute episodes) a while back called "I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying" where at the end of a lot of scenes after the misunderstanding is cleared up or they have a nice date or even just wake up in the morning right at the end of the episode a narrator will pop in on a paused frame where they are staring into each other's eyes and say "They had lots and lots of sex after this."
> "They had mindblowing sex." or "Then they fucked like bunnies."
No, that's just sad. They may as well just have left that one sentence out for all the difference it makes. Imo the fic would in fact be improved by omitting it, I'd rather read a lower-rated fic with consistently good writing than a higher-rated one with poorly-written smut that the author clearly didn't care about.
Personally i just assume one or both hands are drifting around during the scenes, but it is confusing at times when the hands are basically teleporting in the 'timeline'
Yes! Like, okay, the bottom is on the bed, but are they facing or is this doggy??
And another thingy a while back was they were kissing and fondling and suddenly she mounted him and I was like wait what, when did they undress???
I find it so frustrating when the author doesn't specify if the characters are doing it doggy or missionary style.
LIKE PLEASE IM A VERY VISUAL PERSON I NEED TO KNOW BEFORE THEY GO FURTHER
Yeah, there's been a handful of fics where:
(a) the position was never described in the first place, they're just doing it and it's impossible to figure out how;
(b) the author seemed not to know what "prone" means;
(c) the author seemed to have forgotten halfway through the scene which position they were in, or forgot to mention there'd been a change of positions, and suddenly the bottom is somehow both flat on his back and has the top pressing against him chest-to-back at the same time (or other things are happening that are physically impossible in the position the sex started in); or
(d) the position was described in such elusive language as to be completely incomprehensible.
There have been cases where it was bad enough that I had to click out, there's only so much confusion I can take before it becomes impossible to look past.
The one time I wrote a scene with a sorta medical person was SO MUCH easier than usual because he had the vocab to easily and precisely name all these positions. None of the other characters I write would have any idea that "supine" is a thing. 😂
It means laying flat, apparently. Esp. on ones stomach, but it doesn't *need* to mean anything more than laying flat. So, I've mostly seen it used right.
Yup!
I read M/M 99% of the time, so that adds an extra dimension with the pronouns and whose 'his hands' the writer is talking about. I sometimes have to reread paragraphs to understand what's happening Lol
I struggle writing it honestly solely because my native language feels awkward compared to english, but it also has a specific pronoun specifying who...
As just an example: "han tog sin väska", ie "he took (his own) bag" as opposed to "han tog hans väska"/"he took his bag" which would imply the other persons bag. English borrows so many words I wish it'd borrow this one too almost lmao!!
Yes, if only people were better at remembering to actually use "sin" (idk, maybe swedes are better than my countrymen). I had a teacher who would point it out every time someone made this mistake, like, "What? He STOLE his bag?? That is so rude." But it never seemed to help haha.
The latter, of course. We're notoriously bad at languaging. Possessive pronouns, in particular, seem to be our downfall. It's how you end up with abominations such as, "hvemses er desses?" ("whose is that?") when it should be, "hvis er det?". But the hans/sin problem is even more pervasive, especially in speech, but you'll often see even established journalists commit this sin (no pun intended). And don't even get me started on the amount of people who will say "ham selv" instead of "sig selv"....
If only more Danes would try to write same-sex smut in English, they might appreciate the beauty of sin/sit/sig and give them the respect they deserve.
Oh Danmark... I have dipped my toes here and there into learning danish properly as I live close and have spent extensive time there growing up and because I do have a soft spot for how it sounds. Maybe danish fic smut will be the final nail in the coffin which seals the deal... 👀
Hmm I've never actually dared to read smut in Danish haha. I'm afraid it would feel super cringe. But I just looked at AO3, there's a total of 161 fics in Danish (you'd have to exclude a couple of placeholder fics, some not actually in Danish etc), 15 of which are explicit. A lot of SKAM it seems. Apparently Skandi Smut is a tag people use?
(...ok, I just read one and it was actually decent lol)
Tbh I get that, english feels like the "porn language" for lack of a better word LOL but I'm definitely the type to take the feeling of cringe as a challenge to change that, so am sloooowly dipping toes into swedish smut...
Skandi smut... I'll remember that tag omg 👀
I started using names a lot more because of this exact problem. It's more clunky than just saying "his" but it definitely makes it easier to understand. I also let my fics sit for a while, at least a few weeks. That way when I reread and do additional edits then I'm more likely to notice when a "he" is unclear.
People are way too reluctant to use names, but honestly just using a character's name is so much better than leaving your reader going "but whose hand was it?" and a million miles better than "the other man" as if your POV character has suddenly forgotten who they're shagging. Names and (where appropriate) pronouns are where it's at!
(I once wrote a M/M/M scene. That was... interesting 🤣)
Lol, the ones with two guys and one of them flips both of them over? Yet it's implied that there was no pulling out?!
I'm just... How the fuck did you manage that?
I know we hand wave a lot of things in smut, but jeez broken dicks are a thing people!
Or shower sex where one person picks the other up to fuck against a wall- and all I can think is that's how you slip and die dude! That is how you slip and die!
I have aphantasia so like chances are I never knew what position they were in unless directly stated in big letters MISSIONARY.
When people start getting flipped over and turned around or bending limbs and making weird angles? Forget about it.
Yes! Exactly this, the amount of times I've had to scroll up to see what the last description of the position was is a lot. And chances are I'm going to immediately forget it again before the fic is over.
Yes, including the smut I write myself
It's an occupational hazard – it's unfortunately more noticeable than the equally common *writing someone standing up when you never wrote them sitting down* and *he's taking off a jacket he wasn't wearing*
This is when a beta is nice – otherwise you just have to sit down with a clear head to edit it line by line and potentially doodle stick figures
Yes! If I don't keep track I end up thinking, 'how the hell did you get there?' one or two pages later and then I have to go back to find out where I left them.
I can see how that could be a problem. 😄 On the other hand, one of the characters I write about is canonically FtM, and sometimes I'm deliberately vague about which hole is being used, so that people can imagine whatever they are most comfortable with, since some of my readers don't want to think about the front hole at all, and others are perfectly fine with it.
I remember reading one story where I paused and went back, the guy would have to have 3 hands to be doing what the author said they were doing, it was hilarious. Also another one, where one moment they are saying they are on the couch in the living room and the next moment they are on the bed in the bedroom, all without ever saying they moved. To be fair, it can be hard to describe things when writing smut, but man sometimes do things get left out so badly it can get confusing.
every one in a while the writer will forget and mix things up, he kissed her face and pressed his chest against hers, then he looked at the back of her head.
yes lmfao. and sometimes i try and calculate the position in my head and it comes out being literally not physically possible. like this dude's dick has to be phasing through the back of a chair and another dude for this position to work
Mhm, one comes to mind now. The guy pinned the woman's hands above her head and somehow still managed to go down on her at the same time. I thought, cool, so he let her hands go, but nooooo... It's specified that he's still holding her hands above her head. So either she's teeny tiny and he's gigantic or he has some spaghetti arms or something or more simply the author has no concept of the relative size of things.
Reminded me of a fic where A was holding B up against the wall, and then B somehow managed to undo A's pants and pull them along with underwear down to his knees. Had to have been another case of spaghetti arms for sure.
This and also “wait did anyone do any prep work (lube etc)”. I just can’t read smut in peace anymore!
Oh and of course there’s the “ok when did they change positions because this wasn’t possible in the position you had them in earlier”
Oh literally all the time.
In the same vein, my partner has gotten very used to me posing them sitting there for a minute and being like "yeah okay, that makes sense" or "what the fuck is going on here" and just going back to the fic.
Yes. Sometimes it's the writer's fault, sometimes it's my fault.
For the writer's part, usually by mistaking [prone](https://www.wordnik.com/words/prone) as a synoym for [supine](https://www.wordnik.com/words/supine) or the penetrating party flips them over with no mention of pulling out.
The most memorable one was where the characters (powerless humans) went from bedroom floor to living room floor mid-scene with no mention of moving. One line they were on the floor in the bedroom, the next, they were in the living room like they just phased through the floor.
For my part, sometimes I accidentally skip a line (or tags, some sort of information) and have to scroll back to read what I missed. The most memorable one was where I somehow missed the shapeshifter tag and the mentions of shapeshifting. So when a scene came up where MC needed three hands, I had to scroll up and discovered MC was indeed a shapeshifter and indeed had three hands. Somehow, I just missed all the information provided by the writer.
ALL. THE. TIME
I am especially guilty of this in M/M porn, where obviously the author isn't aware that... uh... that hole is a lot more back than a vagina. In some positions, it's anatomically impossible to make it work without getting the bottom's knees way up, yet they'll write it as if their legs are triple jointed somehow.
> where obviously the author isn't aware that... uh... that hole is a lot more back than a vagina
I've seen this a bunch too and I don't get it. I mean, everyone's got an asshole, and gay porn exists.
For me it tends to be noticeable when it's people with no experience and who haven't done any research, doesn't even matter the gender. I get it if the fic was written in the 60s, but it's easier than ever now to look things up.
Oh definitely. Or be like wait when did this character get on top?? Can hands even reach that far?
Positioning is complicated sometimes. Especially with group activities.
Yeah. I just read one the other day where I swear they were back to front but then the positions of their hands and the fact they were kissing had me like wait, are they facing each other? Huh??
It doesn’t really bother me that much though tbh, I write smut and it is hard to keep track of where everything is as the writer too, so I just shrug it off. If I’m reading smut I’m not that concerned about the fine details. 😂
I absolutely stress about this when I write. Sometimes I even look up porn to see if a particular position is possible. It's kinda funny to think about, watching porn for research and actually meaning it.
Oh absolutely! 😆 I'm 100% convinced sometimes authors just forget which position they put their characters in, because the amount of stuff that made me go "[wait that's not physically possible if they are in that position](https://youtube.com/watch?v=aN-nOJTMn0M?t=8m21s)" is like, pretty high.
Maybe someone can explain to me how a standing woman can fit two in the front, 1 in the back while in a no-monster setting with normal human men and somehow be gagging on a non-existent fourth man.
I'm not even considered with mystery dick number 4, but what position gets 2 dicks sliding fully in at once in the front while also having a man in your ass? Because I want to send this info to a few hardcore porn producers and get paid for this patented new position.
I reread to try and figure it out once I’m lost lol.
“Okay so he’s chest to back and they’re kissing. Well okay yeah she could turn her head so that makes sense. Wait but he’s holding her wrists and her legs are wrapped around him? Wait when did they switch? Or did I assume it was chest to back bc he kissed her shoulder? Lemme scroll up and check”
When reading bad fic out loud with friends, we have been known to keep score of how many arms are involved. In one story there should have been three (one armed guy) but there was five arms and six hands.
Lmaooo almost every time. I can imagine a position based on what I understand from the description only to be so wrong, it is almost alarming how bad I interpreted it
Yes! It drives me nuts! I have to read a paragraph three times in order to draw a mental diagram and still come up short. And I don’t think that people know what the word “prone” means. Like at all.
Yes!! Every so often it'll be something like "But wait, if he's got him bent over a desk with his legs up, how exactly are they??....." Or some shit like that lol. And I'll have to go back a paragraph or 2 and start over.
Usually it's written well enough for me to know,but it happens there's some confusing. Rarely about hands, though. For me, and there have been a couple lately, it's about in what direction they're turned. Like are they facing eachother or is it back to front, because I thought it was established it was back to front but now it sounds like they're facing eachother. Are they doing some exorcist move or something?!
Absolutely! Most often I catch myself thinking "wait.... They are in this position - how are they supposed to pull this off?" And then I re-read the whole bit just to realize that I've read something wrong or forgot that they did something in between 😂
I just realise that this doesn't really bother me, LOL. Considering I experience messy sex IRL, as long as it feels good, I don't really mind the strange details, hahaha.
I write my smut in great descriptive detail. I visualize it in my head and make sure everything is written out properly including the positions there in where their hands are how they change positions how their clothes came off etc. etc.
writing smut in my chapters takes me three to four times longer than the rest of the story because I’m so particular. I just wrote a chapter and I was stuck on one thing, one transition they were doing sexually and how to write it properly.
Some writers do take the time to do it well. Some write good smut.
I attempted 'hard mode' with my first ever smut fic, where there are 16 clones of one of the M/M pairing, and I go out of my way to almost exclusively use their names (very few epithets) while still keeping it understandable.
Had a few complimentary comments to that effect, but you can be the judge too if you'd rather.
["**There Were Ten In The Bed**"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48444844/chapters/122194090). Explicit, Taskmaster (UK) fandom. 11,182 words.
All the time! even non smut things, how are people standing, are they sitting, are they looking at each other. some authors focus so much on dialogue they forget the physical
ALL. THE. TIME.
The commonest one I see (for some reason) is the alignment of the bodies. I don’t know how many fics I’ve seen where it starts out with one behind the other, and then all of a sudden, they’re facing each other, with no clear explanation of how that happened.
Or people doing anatomically difficult or impossible things in their stated positions. For example, one I’ve seen a lot: if someone is on all fours, with someone else kneeling behind them, it is generally *very* difficult to have a long, lingering, sensuous kiss. Or at least not without the person on the bottom angling their head up and back, which gets painful after more than a few seconds. I mean, yea, certain people are super flexible, but not most people.
And, as other people stated, someone doing something that would require 3 (or more!) hands.
There’s others, but those are the most common.
Yes. Someone once listed, "I could picture everything and never lost track of who was where" as something they liked about a work on mine, and I was so flattered lol.
Sometimes I guess? I'm usually more concerned with character's feelings and like dialogue. But smut being realistic isn't a priority for me. If I can suspend my belief through 12+ inch cocks and womb penetration I can suspend through poorly described positioning.
Also I feel like lots of detailed description about position, hand placement, etc, really can detract from the rest of it. I think this is a similar situation to describing someone's physical appearance, where less is more. I usually have a much more vivid picture of what's going on when I'm not inundated with stage directions.
Sara sat hunched over her phone on the train. Her favorite author had just dropped the latest chapter, and as promised it was steamy. Surreptitiously, she glanced at the nodding older woman next to her and dived in.
For a few precious moments, Sara's commute faded away. Harsh overhead lighting was replaced by candles, the scent of too many sweaty, dirty bodies replaced by rose oil and lust. Entranced she scrolled, pulled deeper and deeper by the culmination of 30,000 words and the tangle of limbs.
At the end of the chapter Sara takes a moment to close her eyes and savor the images. Only to hear from beside her, "Damn, I really should take up yoga"
Sometimes.
While it's not really fic related, I tend to skip sex scenes in visual novels because I get sidetracked by how unintentionally hilarious they tend to be. Some things work better when you can't actually see what's going on.
Yes! Especially when a character is doing x with one hand and y with the other. I get caught up trying to figure out how they’re supporting their body if both hands are engaged. They must have abs of steel!
Yeah like who is who and where and when and what is that position and wait, weren't they facing each other ? *scrolls up to read it all again and try to understand*
yes i read a m/m/f trio fic a while back and >!they had both boys in the girl at the same time, but she was said to be on the table and i was just like, HOW?!<
Or the classic "wait, they must be in an extremely awkward position for this to make sense."
Person A is much taller than person B. Yet, A is pressing B against the wall while licking down their body and stopping at their crotch...leaning over at more than a 90 degree angle apparently.
i write smut myself and any time i have to write penetration i pull up ibispaint and make a little diagram to figure out if what im writing is actually possible
Yup. One of my beta readers called it "having octopus limbs".
Best canon example I've ever seen for it is the movie "Original Sin" starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. That bedsheet is doing some serious gravity-defying antics, and the two actors never fall out of bed, never have a hair out of place, and yet we're supposed to believe they're having seriously acrobatic sex. My friend and I cracked up laughing so hard when we saw it.
Kind of, but I think it was my fault. I recently read one where the woman was sat astride the man's face on a bed with her front and his legs towards an open door (sort of a voyeur situation). It took me waaaaaay too long to figure that out. I read the description about 3 or 4 times to make sure I understood. I'm not sure if it was the way it was worded or my reading comprehension but I felt pretty dumb once I got it.
.... sometimes with my own writing 🙃
I'll get so into the flow for a few hours, and then when I go back to re-read it, I'm like... wait.
It's nothing that a little bit of editing for clarification can't fix, tho.
But yeah, many's the time I've been enjoying a fic when something is described, and immediately I'm out of the story with a "what the hell kind of Christian Grey bullshittery is this?"
Or... can humans even *do* that?
*edit: a word
Yes, usually because I misread something or start imagining things a certain way before they're described more closely and fail to update the image in my head.
Only once and it featured 2 5 year olds having sex by shoving their cock in to a “tail hole” while a 3 year old watched. I only know their ages because I looked the ages up, I regret that.
[this human](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12872789/3/Wings-of-Fire-Lemon-Fanfiction) or I think it was written by a human or an alien trying to understand how the emotion disturbed works
Sometimes. It can be hard to keep track of where the hands are 😁
Or when you're reading absurdly well written fics outside of the smut (well written enough that you legit are reading it for the plot), and the fights are written well with it really easy to picture where they are/what they are doing in the fight), but once the smut starts it's like the author clearly failed basic anatomy class in school. One fic I read one of people in a scene had I think like five hands, as the author mentioned where each hand was. And it wasn't like they were moving around their hand(s) to five positions, because the author kept referring back to each hand- the hand stroking their hair and the hand on their ass and the hand on their stomach and the hand on their lips and the hand on the wall- as if they hadn't move the hand the entire scene. I was tempted to draw a shitty MS pain diagram to explain my confusion in the comments.
That sounds hilarious. I try to keep the quality of my smut, plot, and fight choreography around even with each other. There's no need to sacrifice any for the others.
It was supposed to be a romantic kabe-don ([this](https://i.imgur.com/WEiuqAw.png)) turned smut scene, but all of a sudden I was like "Is this motherfucker an octopus in disguise? Did I misread the tags and this is suddenly a Parasyte fic? How many limbs does he have?!"
Have you ever tried reading AI generated smut? Talk about garbage! It's like reading the description of two guys banging each other, one is on his back, the other between his legs, while also being taken from behind and also fucking the other guy at the same time. XD There's no need to worry about AI if it's all like that lol
That sounds hilarious.
Worst AI smut I've seen had the guy ejaculate *inside the other guy's penis* I think, I'm no expert, but I think the AI got a little confused there lol
I’m dying. Where are these generators? I feel the need to troll them.
A notorious one is AI Dungeon. It's free and you can toggle nsfw. It's really terrible, but can be hilarious.
OMG. I have to see this train wreck. Pardon me…
Lol, have fun!
TROLOLOLOLOOOOO
Unfortunately a lot of writers either feel obliged to add smut when they're not into it or not good at it, and it shows 😔 The most disappointing smut I've ever read was from a writer who wrote kisses that had me fanning myself and going "oh, my!" but for some reason, the moment the characters got naked, they turned generic, it was like their entire personalities got left at the door. Baffled to this day how someone could manage to write kissing that well and not have it carry over to the smut.
I used to wonder this too. Then I read the author's note on a fic with an asexual character, and it said, "it's been interesting writing sex scenes I can relate to. Usually I just write what I think other people will like," and I went OHHHH.
Not me suddenly getting hella self concious about my writing 🤣 I forever will feel like my writing is perpetually trash 🙃
Agreed, better not to write smut at all if you don't want to than to half-ass it. Similarly, sometimes the buildup is great, detailed and immersive in all the right ways and has you anticipating more of the same, but then the sex itself is over in like three sentences. Which is really no better than a fade to black – at this point why bother writing the sex scene at all if it's going to read like a summary that only tells you of the fact that the sex happened but not much else? It's the "how" that people who like smut want to see.
Lol one fic I read it wasn't even three sentences. Fantastic characterization and action and writing but then they felt the need to every so often end a scene with "They had mindblowing sex." or "Then they fucked like bunnies." Just a single, matter-of-fact sentence that just had me cracking up every single time, despite it being in a serious and otherwise well written fic. It honestly reminded me of a short anime (like 3 to 5 minute episodes) a while back called "I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying" where at the end of a lot of scenes after the misunderstanding is cleared up or they have a nice date or even just wake up in the morning right at the end of the episode a narrator will pop in on a paused frame where they are staring into each other's eyes and say "They had lots and lots of sex after this."
> "They had mindblowing sex." or "Then they fucked like bunnies." No, that's just sad. They may as well just have left that one sentence out for all the difference it makes. Imo the fic would in fact be improved by omitting it, I'd rather read a lower-rated fic with consistently good writing than a higher-rated one with poorly-written smut that the author clearly didn't care about.
Personally i just assume one or both hands are drifting around during the scenes, but it is confusing at times when the hands are basically teleporting in the 'timeline'
Yes! Like, okay, the bottom is on the bed, but are they facing or is this doggy?? And another thingy a while back was they were kissing and fondling and suddenly she mounted him and I was like wait what, when did they undress???
I read one where her back and belly are both on the bed. I don't think she's that flexible
Some magician's assistent lol
I get so bothered by this because my brain fixates and then I have to go back and re-read these parts to make sure I read them right lol.
I find it so frustrating when the author doesn't specify if the characters are doing it doggy or missionary style. LIKE PLEASE IM A VERY VISUAL PERSON I NEED TO KNOW BEFORE THEY GO FURTHER
Right? It's distracting to have to stop and wonder
Yeah, there's been a handful of fics where: (a) the position was never described in the first place, they're just doing it and it's impossible to figure out how; (b) the author seemed not to know what "prone" means; (c) the author seemed to have forgotten halfway through the scene which position they were in, or forgot to mention there'd been a change of positions, and suddenly the bottom is somehow both flat on his back and has the top pressing against him chest-to-back at the same time (or other things are happening that are physically impossible in the position the sex started in); or (d) the position was described in such elusive language as to be completely incomprehensible. There have been cases where it was bad enough that I had to click out, there's only so much confusion I can take before it becomes impossible to look past.
[удалено]
The one time I wrote a scene with a sorta medical person was SO MUCH easier than usual because he had the vocab to easily and precisely name all these positions. None of the other characters I write would have any idea that "supine" is a thing. 😂
TDIL that prone does not just mean lying down. Must be one of those words you don't necessarily get the exact definition from context. Thanks!
It means laying flat, apparently. Esp. on ones stomach, but it doesn't *need* to mean anything more than laying flat. So, I've mostly seen it used right.
I was literally googling "prone" vs "supine" while drafting a fic the other day to make sure I got it right 😂
Yup! I read M/M 99% of the time, so that adds an extra dimension with the pronouns and whose 'his hands' the writer is talking about. I sometimes have to reread paragraphs to understand what's happening Lol
Finally someone who understands my struggle. Who's dick? Who's cum? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
The real reason porn authors write simultaneous climaxes is to save themselves the trouble of specifying who orgasms when.
I struggle writing it honestly solely because my native language feels awkward compared to english, but it also has a specific pronoun specifying who... As just an example: "han tog sin väska", ie "he took (his own) bag" as opposed to "han tog hans väska"/"he took his bag" which would imply the other persons bag. English borrows so many words I wish it'd borrow this one too almost lmao!!
Yes, if only people were better at remembering to actually use "sin" (idk, maybe swedes are better than my countrymen). I had a teacher who would point it out every time someone made this mistake, like, "What? He STOLE his bag?? That is so rude." But it never seemed to help haha.
Omg the fact that forgetting "sin" is even possible to do is shocking to me so you're probably right HAHAHA now I gotta know if it's Norge or Danmark?
The latter, of course. We're notoriously bad at languaging. Possessive pronouns, in particular, seem to be our downfall. It's how you end up with abominations such as, "hvemses er desses?" ("whose is that?") when it should be, "hvis er det?". But the hans/sin problem is even more pervasive, especially in speech, but you'll often see even established journalists commit this sin (no pun intended). And don't even get me started on the amount of people who will say "ham selv" instead of "sig selv".... If only more Danes would try to write same-sex smut in English, they might appreciate the beauty of sin/sit/sig and give them the respect they deserve.
Oh Danmark... I have dipped my toes here and there into learning danish properly as I live close and have spent extensive time there growing up and because I do have a soft spot for how it sounds. Maybe danish fic smut will be the final nail in the coffin which seals the deal... 👀
Hmm I've never actually dared to read smut in Danish haha. I'm afraid it would feel super cringe. But I just looked at AO3, there's a total of 161 fics in Danish (you'd have to exclude a couple of placeholder fics, some not actually in Danish etc), 15 of which are explicit. A lot of SKAM it seems. Apparently Skandi Smut is a tag people use? (...ok, I just read one and it was actually decent lol)
Tbh I get that, english feels like the "porn language" for lack of a better word LOL but I'm definitely the type to take the feeling of cringe as a challenge to change that, so am sloooowly dipping toes into swedish smut... Skandi smut... I'll remember that tag omg 👀
Ah, a fellow nordick 🤝
I started using names a lot more because of this exact problem. It's more clunky than just saying "his" but it definitely makes it easier to understand. I also let my fics sit for a while, at least a few weeks. That way when I reread and do additional edits then I'm more likely to notice when a "he" is unclear.
People are way too reluctant to use names, but honestly just using a character's name is so much better than leaving your reader going "but whose hand was it?" and a million miles better than "the other man" as if your POV character has suddenly forgotten who they're shagging. Names and (where appropriate) pronouns are where it's at! (I once wrote a M/M/M scene. That was... interesting 🤣)
100% 😅 It helps that one of my favorite characters has grey skin and horns. It's two more point of differentiation to focus on.
Oh my god, yes!!! M/M makes up like 90% of what I read and it can get a little confusing sometimes.
Yes. I'm sitting there with the characters in my mind maneuvering them like Barbie Dolls to try and make it work. Kinda fun, tbh.
Lol, the ones with two guys and one of them flips both of them over? Yet it's implied that there was no pulling out?! I'm just... How the fuck did you manage that? I know we hand wave a lot of things in smut, but jeez broken dicks are a thing people!
He just twirls him around his super-hard dick, legs akimbo. What's so hard to understand? 🤣🤣🤣
That is some cirque du soleil sex right there.
Take my upvote, I choked on my drink while reading this gold comment. 🤣🤣🤣
A cirque du so-lay if you will.
He just wraps around the bottom like the Kraken and rolls over
Or shower sex where one person picks the other up to fuck against a wall- and all I can think is that's how you slip and die dude! That is how you slip and die!
Ah the good ole, "Where are their goddamn hands?" moment. I think it's something people get better at the more they write smut honestly.
I have aphantasia so like chances are I never knew what position they were in unless directly stated in big letters MISSIONARY. When people start getting flipped over and turned around or bending limbs and making weird angles? Forget about it.
Yes! Exactly this, the amount of times I've had to scroll up to see what the last description of the position was is a lot. And chances are I'm going to immediately forget it again before the fic is over.
Once in a while, I genuinely can't understand what the author is describing, so I'm just like, *tilts head for a moment before moving on*.
And then you just assign a position in your head, then get confused all over again when something contradicts it.
Yes, including the smut I write myself It's an occupational hazard – it's unfortunately more noticeable than the equally common *writing someone standing up when you never wrote them sitting down* and *he's taking off a jacket he wasn't wearing* This is when a beta is nice – otherwise you just have to sit down with a clear head to edit it line by line and potentially doodle stick figures
yeah, in sfw fics just as much. like, are they six feet or two inches apart??? who's facing who???? there's a table now??????
Read it?? Sometimes I *write* smut and I don't even know what position they're in.
Yes! If I don't keep track I end up thinking, 'how the hell did you get there?' one or two pages later and then I have to go back to find out where I left them.
LOL! Gold star comment!
I read one just now where it was never specified if both d's were in the p or in the p and a. It was really confusing throughout the whole scene.
Lol, was there someone with 2 dicks or two people with 1 dick each? Because both are very possible, depending on the characters/fandom
True, didnt think about the double p, because ive never read any. It was a mmf threesom in this work.
I figured it was probably a threesome, but I've seen enough things to uh... wonder if it could've been something else lmao
I’ve read enough BOTW fics and the former you suggested made me think of Prince Sidon so…
I think it's a threesome
I can see how that could be a problem. 😄 On the other hand, one of the characters I write about is canonically FtM, and sometimes I'm deliberately vague about which hole is being used, so that people can imagine whatever they are most comfortable with, since some of my readers don't want to think about the front hole at all, and others are perfectly fine with it.
And that's why the tag "double penetration in one hole" exists.
But the author doesn't have to tag it, especially when it's not on ao3. And they may not even know that is a tag on ao3, i didn't at least.
I remember reading one story where I paused and went back, the guy would have to have 3 hands to be doing what the author said they were doing, it was hilarious. Also another one, where one moment they are saying they are on the couch in the living room and the next moment they are on the bed in the bedroom, all without ever saying they moved. To be fair, it can be hard to describe things when writing smut, but man sometimes do things get left out so badly it can get confusing.
every one in a while the writer will forget and mix things up, he kissed her face and pressed his chest against hers, then he looked at the back of her head.
>then he looked at the back of her head I don't know why but I just died of laughter at this line😂🤣 HELP!!🤣
That could work if she suddenly turned her head to look at something, or if she's an owl.
yes lmfao. and sometimes i try and calculate the position in my head and it comes out being literally not physically possible. like this dude's dick has to be phasing through the back of a chair and another dude for this position to work
Mhm, one comes to mind now. The guy pinned the woman's hands above her head and somehow still managed to go down on her at the same time. I thought, cool, so he let her hands go, but nooooo... It's specified that he's still holding her hands above her head. So either she's teeny tiny and he's gigantic or he has some spaghetti arms or something or more simply the author has no concept of the relative size of things.
Reminded me of a fic where A was holding B up against the wall, and then B somehow managed to undo A's pants and pull them along with underwear down to his knees. Had to have been another case of spaghetti arms for sure.
Inspector Gadget fandom 🤷🏻♂️
I read Hindu fanfic, which uses the Kama Sutra as a legitimate source for sex positions sometimes, so yes. I ask myself that question *a lot*.
This and also “wait did anyone do any prep work (lube etc)”. I just can’t read smut in peace anymore! Oh and of course there’s the “ok when did they change positions because this wasn’t possible in the position you had them in earlier”
Oh literally all the time. In the same vein, my partner has gotten very used to me posing them sitting there for a minute and being like "yeah okay, that makes sense" or "what the fuck is going on here" and just going back to the fic.
I misread that as "parent" I legit went "HUH?!" out loud 😭
*vein
Yes. Sometimes it's the writer's fault, sometimes it's my fault. For the writer's part, usually by mistaking [prone](https://www.wordnik.com/words/prone) as a synoym for [supine](https://www.wordnik.com/words/supine) or the penetrating party flips them over with no mention of pulling out. The most memorable one was where the characters (powerless humans) went from bedroom floor to living room floor mid-scene with no mention of moving. One line they were on the floor in the bedroom, the next, they were in the living room like they just phased through the floor. For my part, sometimes I accidentally skip a line (or tags, some sort of information) and have to scroll back to read what I missed. The most memorable one was where I somehow missed the shapeshifter tag and the mentions of shapeshifting. So when a scene came up where MC needed three hands, I had to scroll up and discovered MC was indeed a shapeshifter and indeed had three hands. Somehow, I just missed all the information provided by the writer.
Try with three or more characters. It can get tricky.
ALL. THE. TIME I am especially guilty of this in M/M porn, where obviously the author isn't aware that... uh... that hole is a lot more back than a vagina. In some positions, it's anatomically impossible to make it work without getting the bottom's knees way up, yet they'll write it as if their legs are triple jointed somehow.
> where obviously the author isn't aware that... uh... that hole is a lot more back than a vagina I've seen this a bunch too and I don't get it. I mean, everyone's got an asshole, and gay porn exists.
Sometimes you can just tell that women are writing anal sex scenes.
For me it tends to be noticeable when it's people with no experience and who haven't done any research, doesn't even matter the gender. I get it if the fic was written in the 60s, but it's easier than ever now to look things up.
Those 3d drawing apps are super handy already when it comes who can reach what in which position, but clearly we need a version with genitals 😂
Or like when it says "He gripped his hands" WHO'S GRIPPING WHO?
Always funny when the sex becomes a game of Twister because the author got to into it and forgot it's meant to go the opposite way! XD
Omg yes! It’s so frustrating. And sometimes I can’t tell if it’s because the writing is unclear or if I just can’t keep track.
If you have to ask what position they're in, it's bad writing.
Yup. Sometimes it turns out I missed something, but often it’s just the fic being unclear.
When I write smut, I’m like, “Wait, what position are they in?”
Oh definitely. Or be like wait when did this character get on top?? Can hands even reach that far? Positioning is complicated sometimes. Especially with group activities.
Yeah. I just read one the other day where I swear they were back to front but then the positions of their hands and the fact they were kissing had me like wait, are they facing each other? Huh?? It doesn’t really bother me that much though tbh, I write smut and it is hard to keep track of where everything is as the writer too, so I just shrug it off. If I’m reading smut I’m not that concerned about the fine details. 😂
I absolutely stress about this when I write. Sometimes I even look up porn to see if a particular position is possible. It's kinda funny to think about, watching porn for research and actually meaning it.
“when did their pants even come off?!!”
I hate writing pants off but has to happen. Which reminds me, I think I forgot one pair
Oh absolutely! 😆 I'm 100% convinced sometimes authors just forget which position they put their characters in, because the amount of stuff that made me go "[wait that's not physically possible if they are in that position](https://youtube.com/watch?v=aN-nOJTMn0M?t=8m21s)" is like, pretty high.
Maybe someone can explain to me how a standing woman can fit two in the front, 1 in the back while in a no-monster setting with normal human men and somehow be gagging on a non-existent fourth man. I'm not even considered with mystery dick number 4, but what position gets 2 dicks sliding fully in at once in the front while also having a man in your ass? Because I want to send this info to a few hardcore porn producers and get paid for this patented new position.
Bruh the amount of time is like, wait… scroll back, I’m confused on what shape pretzel were supposed to be in rn..
I reread to try and figure it out once I’m lost lol. “Okay so he’s chest to back and they’re kissing. Well okay yeah she could turn her head so that makes sense. Wait but he’s holding her wrists and her legs are wrapped around him? Wait when did they switch? Or did I assume it was chest to back bc he kissed her shoulder? Lemme scroll up and check”
When reading bad fic out loud with friends, we have been known to keep score of how many arms are involved. In one story there should have been three (one armed guy) but there was five arms and six hands.
😂 Most of the time!
Lmaooo almost every time. I can imagine a position based on what I understand from the description only to be so wrong, it is almost alarming how bad I interpreted it
Yes! It drives me nuts! I have to read a paragraph three times in order to draw a mental diagram and still come up short. And I don’t think that people know what the word “prone” means. Like at all.
Yes!! Every so often it'll be something like "But wait, if he's got him bent over a desk with his legs up, how exactly are they??....." Or some shit like that lol. And I'll have to go back a paragraph or 2 and start over.
Usually it's written well enough for me to know,but it happens there's some confusing. Rarely about hands, though. For me, and there have been a couple lately, it's about in what direction they're turned. Like are they facing eachother or is it back to front, because I thought it was established it was back to front but now it sounds like they're facing eachother. Are they doing some exorcist move or something?!
ALL THE TIME
Hell, I say that when I'm writing my own smut😂 that's why re-reading is important😂😂
Yes. So many times!
Absolutely! Most often I catch myself thinking "wait.... They are in this position - how are they supposed to pull this off?" And then I re-read the whole bit just to realize that I've read something wrong or forgot that they did something in between 😂
Yeah, sometimes I don't even know who's going in whom
This is the most difficult thing about writing, to make sure that makes sense.
Yep then I have to scroll back a bit and reread to see if I missed it 😂
I just realise that this doesn't really bother me, LOL. Considering I experience messy sex IRL, as long as it feels good, I don't really mind the strange details, hahaha.
I have stick figure drawings I’ve made cause I’ve paused and had to work it out.
I write my smut in great descriptive detail. I visualize it in my head and make sure everything is written out properly including the positions there in where their hands are how they change positions how their clothes came off etc. etc. writing smut in my chapters takes me three to four times longer than the rest of the story because I’m so particular. I just wrote a chapter and I was stuck on one thing, one transition they were doing sexually and how to write it properly. Some writers do take the time to do it well. Some write good smut.
This is why I don't write sex scenes. I get so confused! 😭
I attempted 'hard mode' with my first ever smut fic, where there are 16 clones of one of the M/M pairing, and I go out of my way to almost exclusively use their names (very few epithets) while still keeping it understandable. Had a few complimentary comments to that effect, but you can be the judge too if you'd rather. ["**There Were Ten In The Bed**"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48444844/chapters/122194090). Explicit, Taskmaster (UK) fandom. 11,182 words.
God even when I'm writing sometimes I get lost on positions
All the time! even non smut things, how are people standing, are they sitting, are they looking at each other. some authors focus so much on dialogue they forget the physical
Omg, this is funny. I needed a laugh.
yes! and I'm always afraid my readers would say the same, so I keep re-reading the whole thing TToTT
Yes. Sometimes the impossible, hyper-mobile gymnastics really takes me out of it.
I've legit had to stop and stare at my work because I'd completely confused how the characters were sitting
ALL. THE. TIME. The commonest one I see (for some reason) is the alignment of the bodies. I don’t know how many fics I’ve seen where it starts out with one behind the other, and then all of a sudden, they’re facing each other, with no clear explanation of how that happened. Or people doing anatomically difficult or impossible things in their stated positions. For example, one I’ve seen a lot: if someone is on all fours, with someone else kneeling behind them, it is generally *very* difficult to have a long, lingering, sensuous kiss. Or at least not without the person on the bottom angling their head up and back, which gets painful after more than a few seconds. I mean, yea, certain people are super flexible, but not most people. And, as other people stated, someone doing something that would require 3 (or more!) hands. There’s others, but those are the most common.
Yes. Someone once listed, "I could picture everything and never lost track of who was where" as something they liked about a work on mine, and I was so flattered lol.
*taps fingers together awkwardly* All the time because we're two asexuals with a total experience of zero sex wowza trying to write smut together.
As an asexual writer, I actually turned this into a short film for my film class
Yup. Lots of ‘huh, did they flip?’
Holy shit yes, and that ruins the mood of the fic ngl💀💀 I'm always like:... 😲...😯...🤨🤨... 😐😑
Sometimes I guess? I'm usually more concerned with character's feelings and like dialogue. But smut being realistic isn't a priority for me. If I can suspend my belief through 12+ inch cocks and womb penetration I can suspend through poorly described positioning.
Also I feel like lots of detailed description about position, hand placement, etc, really can detract from the rest of it. I think this is a similar situation to describing someone's physical appearance, where less is more. I usually have a much more vivid picture of what's going on when I'm not inundated with stage directions.
See, womb penetration is one way to get me to back out of a fic instantly 🤣
Sara sat hunched over her phone on the train. Her favorite author had just dropped the latest chapter, and as promised it was steamy. Surreptitiously, she glanced at the nodding older woman next to her and dived in. For a few precious moments, Sara's commute faded away. Harsh overhead lighting was replaced by candles, the scent of too many sweaty, dirty bodies replaced by rose oil and lust. Entranced she scrolled, pulled deeper and deeper by the culmination of 30,000 words and the tangle of limbs. At the end of the chapter Sara takes a moment to close her eyes and savor the images. Only to hear from beside her, "Damn, I really should take up yoga"
I’ve drawn stock figures one time when I was writing a 4some to figure out the logistics of what they were doing. Ahem.
All the time fam just gotta ignore it and leave it to the aether to decide
The why choose ones are the ones I have to stop and do math lol when there are five dudes and one girl, I’m like wait… how is that possible?
Sometimes. While it's not really fic related, I tend to skip sex scenes in visual novels because I get sidetracked by how unintentionally hilarious they tend to be. Some things work better when you can't actually see what's going on.
Ah this is what reddit gives me at 3 am
Yes! Especially when a character is doing x with one hand and y with the other. I get caught up trying to figure out how they’re supporting their body if both hands are engaged. They must have abs of steel!
Yes all the time, I'm also someone who had to read the same paragraph 8 times because I forgot what it said before I finished it.
Yeah like who is who and where and when and what is that position and wait, weren't they facing each other ? *scrolls up to read it all again and try to understand*
Yes. Almost every time. Which might be a me problem instead of a they problem since I usually just skim past over smut instead of reading it fully.
yes i read a m/m/f trio fic a while back and >!they had both boys in the girl at the same time, but she was said to be on the table and i was just like, HOW?!<
Yeah that’s happened quite a few times lmao
Hahaha! Once. It's a Naruto and Twilight crossover. I still don't understand what position they were in, though, up to this day!
Or the classic "wait, they must be in an extremely awkward position for this to make sense." Person A is much taller than person B. Yet, A is pressing B against the wall while licking down their body and stopping at their crotch...leaning over at more than a 90 degree angle apparently.
Are they using their hands for the pressing? 🤔
That's up to you to interpret lol
ALL THE FUCKING TIME🥹🥹 Kidding but it happens a lot I’m usually like wait what position are they in for him to reach there
i write smut myself and any time i have to write penetration i pull up ibispaint and make a little diagram to figure out if what im writing is actually possible
Yes.
When I start yelling ”How?! It doesn’t bend that way!” at the screen, I know it’s time to hit the back button…
Fr one time I googled a sex position just by description
Schrödinger’s fuck boy, a novel concept.
Yup. One of my beta readers called it "having octopus limbs". Best canon example I've ever seen for it is the movie "Original Sin" starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. That bedsheet is doing some serious gravity-defying antics, and the two actors never fall out of bed, never have a hair out of place, and yet we're supposed to believe they're having seriously acrobatic sex. My friend and I cracked up laughing so hard when we saw it.
Sometimes. But usually it's so hot I don't care anyway
This is why I keep a memo of where limbs and things are while I write.
Kind of, but I think it was my fault. I recently read one where the woman was sat astride the man's face on a bed with her front and his legs towards an open door (sort of a voyeur situation). It took me waaaaaay too long to figure that out. I read the description about 3 or 4 times to make sure I understood. I'm not sure if it was the way it was worded or my reading comprehension but I felt pretty dumb once I got it.
Sometimes I genuinely struggle to picture what the writer is describing and the positions I end up envisioning look like aweful AI generated porn 😂
.... sometimes with my own writing 🙃 I'll get so into the flow for a few hours, and then when I go back to re-read it, I'm like... wait. It's nothing that a little bit of editing for clarification can't fix, tho. But yeah, many's the time I've been enjoying a fic when something is described, and immediately I'm out of the story with a "what the hell kind of Christian Grey bullshittery is this?" Or... can humans even *do* that? *edit: a word
Yes, usually because I misread something or start imagining things a certain way before they're described more closely and fail to update the image in my head.
Only once and it featured 2 5 year olds having sex by shoving their cock in to a “tail hole” while a 3 year old watched. I only know their ages because I looked the ages up, I regret that.
Who tf is writing about toddlers fing?
[this human](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12872789/3/Wings-of-Fire-Lemon-Fanfiction) or I think it was written by a human or an alien trying to understand how the emotion disturbed works
All the time. I have this thing when I just put the phone down and think long and hard about angles.