“sex scenes have no narrative purpose” is such a funny take on so many levels. people will really believe that the whole human experience is valuable to portray artistically except sex, which of course has never held emotional weight or significance for anybody
“what’s the purpose of sex scenes in media??” well you see sometimes people have sex. sometimes it can be important even
to me, the only thing more annoying than people complaining generally about sex scenes existing in media…
Is when people are talking about a sex scene (I’m especially thinking of written work) and it has clear narrative importance, and is clearly there to show something about the plot and characters, and not just to turn people on–
and maybe it’s even kinda ridiculous and silly and gross, like real-life non-porn sex can sometimes actually be, which just further hammers home the point that it’s not there just to be gratuitous wank material
And people are complaining about it– and their complaints are all stuff about how the portrayal is ridiculous and silly and gross and therefore doesn’t turn them on and is therefore bad writing
Or complaints about how a certain description doesn’t make any sense, like, “bodies can’t move that way” or “nothing looks/feels like THAT”
when, if a comparable wording was used in ANY non-sex scene, it would be accepted as “maybe a kind of weird metaphor but I guess it still gets the point across?” or “idk, I am not sure what the author is visualizing here, clearly I must be missing something”
But the moment it’s in a sex scene, it immediately becomes proof of why (women/men/fanfic-writers/people-of-whatever-demographic-you-assume-the-author-is) are all just inherently bad at writing