Common Hollywood Sex Traits

Elly: Michael-what on earth are you watching? That is not for young children. I'm changing the channel.
Michael: But mom!
Elly: It's garbage Michael! Real relationships aren't like that!
Michael: Mom, I...
Elly: I'm not going to let you sit there and be filled with explicit information. It's confusing and it's wrong.

—For Better or For Worse

In fiction, sexual activities do not have to be realistic. They are not there to give people realistic expectations. So they may as well present rare luck, implausible stuff and the downright impossible as being the average daily life that anyone should expect. At best, the authors tend to run on a mix of Rule of Fun, Rule of Sexy, They Just Didn't Care and let's-not-squick-people-out. With or without Lampshade Hanging. At worst, they Did Not Do the Research. Thus, welcome to the wonderful world of Hollywood Sex, where sexuality often works like this:

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Everything I know about vanilla sex, I learned from the Movies

• No-one ever plans to have sex, unless they really plan and go all out with candles and rose petals. Characters never simply agree that after dinner they'll go shag. It's always an impromptu act of passion, emotion, and perhaps raging hormones. Once the commitment to sex has been made, it is impossible to delay the act, so you must rip each other's clothes off and be lucky if you make it to the bed.
• Nobody performing oral sex has any sense of taste. Porn stars seem capable of giving a blow job regardless of where the penis has just been.
• No-one has difficulty getting into position. No-one ever gets pinched because an arm is in the wrong place, no awkward elbows or knees. It is not necessary to communicate to coordinate yourselves. Everyone will simply transition from one position to another as smoothly as Olympic gymnasts. Even if the lights are so dark that nothing can be seen. The exception is if extremely advanced positions are attempted, which in a comedy will result in hilarious injuries while in drama can result in accidental death.
• Lubrication is also not required. No matter how big the difference in sizes, penetration will take no more than a brief grunt. Sexual organs are also auto-targeting and therefore will require no help finding the right orifice.
  • And when lube is used, it is sometimes dangerously improbable. Blood is popular in goth/vampire fiction, despite being the exact opposite of a lubricant (otherwise we'd all bleed to death from a papercut); sugary substances would get sticky after awhile and could cause a nasty yeast infection in a woman; oil would dissolve a latex condom, and alcoholic beverages would burn.
• Impotence, if it occurs at all, is never a temporary or minor thing. If it happens, then angst must follow and serious steps must be taken to fix the problem. It never fixes itself if you relax and give it a minute.
• Unless impotence occurs as mentioned above, men always climax during sex with no trouble. Nobody has "death grip syndrome".^[1]
• Pre-sex hygiene and post-sex clean-up are not required, except perhaps sharing a shower for romance reasons or a villain ordering his servants to give the captive damsel a pre-ravish cleaning. Condoms or fluids of any kind are assumed to be left to their own devices and do not need to be cleaned up/disposed of (there is no such thing as a urinary tract infection), and underwear will have regenerated by morning so that the participants can get out of bed in view of the audience.
• Nobody suffers flatulence or similarly awkward noises during sex, despite this being a distinct possibility, what with people twisting their bodies or compressing their lower orifices slightly to get into certain positions, along with the loss of muscle control at certain points.
• Nobody ever makes weird faces during sex or while climaxing.
• Couples always come at the exact same time. Unless:
  • If a man climaxes prematurely, his partner will be left unsatisfied, as it is impossible to continue sex or bring the partner to climax any other way.
  • The female orgasm is an elusive creature rarer than the rarest Mon. Women simply fake it to spare their partners' feelings, as if communicating what does and doesn't work would not make it as easy to climax as any man.
• Socks simply don't exist, as there is really no way to remove them in a sexy fashion, nor is it sexy to leave them on. (Sexy to the mainstream, that is; foot fetishists didn't get a vote.) Hence the Sock Gap.
  • The exception being thigh-high or knee-high socks, which may be allowed to exist since they can be removed in a sexy fashion. With much panning down the legs and so forth.
• Couples sharing true love have gentle, sweet sex; couples sharing a wild, passionate romance have, well, wild and passionate sex.
• A woman's first time will always be bloody and painful, no matter how relaxed and horny she may be (and don't even mention foreplay). From her second time on, however, she'll be perfectly used to the sexual act and having multiple orgasms (and still no sign of foreplay).
• Stables and barns are a perfect place to make love. They're not cold, dirty, or smelly in the least and those blankets that appear out of nowhere are always perfectly clean as well. And the sharp pointy ends of stalks of straw don't hurt.
• All couples huff and puff under special L-shaped bed sheets that reach up to the armpit level on women but only the waist level on men. However, often during the seventies and early eighties, many couples did so under unisex bed sheets that only reach waist level on both women and men.
• The real reason why anyone visits a day spa is get a "Happy Ending" Massage. If they don't, then the following hijinks will ensue:
  • If a man goes to a spa, then he's sure to get an irresistibly attractive masseuse, and she will gleefully offer him sex that is impossible to turn down.
  • If a woman goes to a spa, even if she goes there without any desire for sex, she will get an irresistibly attractive masseur and the mere act of being touched by his hands will make her uncontrollably horny. She'll then have the masseur grt naked and she'll be all over him.
• Male personal fitness trainers and instructors in anything are gigolos, and when a woman signs up to take lessons with him, she's paying him for sex. Invariably, the actual lessons are really foreplay.

Everything I know about BDSM, I learned from Comic Books and Fan Fiction

• BDSM practitioners are all the same in interests and preferences. If you like it at all, you must be into everything that might be categorized as BDSM. There is no such thing as individual tastes or preferences. Either you are into BDSM or you are not: There's only two kinds of people: Vanilla and BDSM.
• Communication is totally unnecessary. Fictional masters seem to know their submissives' needs and limits better then the submissives themselves. So why waste time checking if the sub has any relevant medical conditions, phobias, or physical quirks, much less preferences? Right? Of course right.
• Related to the above, having a Safe Word might as well be redundant. If you do use one, you can safely assume it to be foolproof. Surely a person could never be too proud, scared, high on endorphines, or whatever to use one when they need it, right? So just keep running full throttle; as long as you don't hear a Safe Word, nothing could possibly be wrong.
• Bondage is not only cool, but so cool that gravity itself defers to it. Go ahead, tie your sub just like the one in the comic book - leaning forward, with the only rope supporting them also pulling forward. Surely they won't fall?
• On a related note, blood circulation seems to be optional. A person's body weight can easily rest on a thin rope that pulls the body in a really awkward position. Don't bother studying real shibari before trying suspension bondage, it's not like fan fic writers do.
• If Bob is a bad person because he's into BDSM, then just why is it bad to be into BDSM? Well, obviously because a person like Bob is into it. We already know that he's a bad person, right? That's all we need to establish a Designated Villain or the premise that Evil Is Sexy... abusively so.
• Whether one is a dominant or a submissive is 100% fixed and completely rigid. Switchable persons, in the world of Hollywood Masochism, are given the same treatment as bisexuals. Whilst in Real Life some practitioners of BDSM do have an exclusive preference for one role alone, this isn't true for all of them.
• A true masochist enjoys all kinds of pain, and will eventually be happy to submit to anyone who is brutal enough. Surely a suddenly sprained wrist must feel orgasmic? Best way to start a healthy kinky relationship? Well, just force the kinky stuff on a complete stranger. If you can keep him from running away, you can add the relationship part, and upgrade to healthy later. Building trust and earning confidence is the easiest part, right? (Naturally, this works just fine for Vanilla romances as well!)

Everything I know about fetishism, I learned from pornography and the plot-twist of detective stories.

• Fetishism is the same thing as BDSM—if you are turned on by leather, rubber, or high-heeled shoes, you are automatically into whipping as well. And vice versa.
• If someone has a fetish, their entire life automatically revolves around it. Or better yet, their fetish is their life and entire identity. They exist only to be some alien object for others to stare at in one way or another.
• If a person wears clothes in materials associated with fetishism, this person is either evil or only a sexual object without any relevant personality of her own.
• On the other hand, fetishists who play with shoes or whatever (rather than wearing outfits) are automatically incapable of being evil or competent in anything malicious. Their lot in life is to be a Red Herring for cops and others to stumble over.
• If you have a fetish, it must be incorporated every time you have sex. There's no such thing as a quickie.

Everything I know about same-gendered sex, I learned from slash fiction and manga

• For LGBT people in the world of Hollywood Sex, everything on the above lists might also apply.
  • Lubrication gets an honorary mention for gay male couples. It's not just anal sex, any hump-type fun can be ruined or prevented entirely by lack of lubrication.
• In some settings, a person is either "normal" or "deviant". It's all or nothing. Thus, every homosexual is also a sadomasochist and fetishist. Hopefully it stops there.
• In other settings, each character can have exactly one trait that deviate from the mainstream. Thus, it's not possible to be both gay and into BDSM. Or to be gay and Muslim. When being female is such a trait, it's also impossible to be a lesbian.^[2]
• Conversion is easy! Whether you're gay or straight, all it takes to jump borders is some mind-blowing sex from the "right" one on that side. Whether you want it or not.
• All same-sex couples have a dominant aggressive one on the giving end attempting to seduce the passive, submissive receiver. In other words, one is the "man" and one is the "woman." Male couples always have one Manly Gay Seme and one twinkish Uke. Female couples always have one Butch Lesbian and one Lipstick Lesbian. Nevermind that even straight couples don't all follow this dynamic; all gay people secretly want to be straight, right?
• All gay and bi men enjoy anal sex and do it every time they're intimate. There is no other way two men can have sex (Oral? Mutual masturbation? What are these things?). And there's never foreplay. At most, they'll lovingly make out, then dive straight into the buttsecks.
• That said, all gay men decide at birth whether they're a top or bottom (and develop personalities accordingly). There is no such thing as versatility.
• An Uke's anus is a discount vagina, essentially. It even self-lubricates! Since it's located in the same vicinity as a vagina, so gay couples have zero problem getting into popular male/female sexual positions.
• All bisexuals (if they exist) will sleep with Anything That Moves, because being attracted to both genders means they're not allowed to have any standards or physical preferences.
• Lesbians always have long, well-manicured fingernails. Hopefully, the problems with this are self-evident.^[3]
• Then there's the other extreme where two women can only have sex using their fingers or other masturbatory aids, or the implication that two women don't have "real" sex if there's no penetration involved.
• Hotel bellboys and valets are rent boys who offer their sexual services to male guests. They also service female guests as shown in Oxford Blues when Las Vegas Lady (Gail Strickland) pays Nick De Angelo (Rob Lowe) the next morning after they have sex.

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For other ways things can go unnaturally smooth, compare and contrast Common Mary Sue Traits. While Mary Sue is a way to function socially and Hollywood Sex is a way to function sexually, they are both unrealistic in the same basic way. (Not to mention that Mary Sues tend to try their damn hardest to serve as Fan Service anyways...)

1. ↑ When a man has trouble reaching orgasm outside his masturbation routine
2. ↑ Don't confuse the orientation with the act itself. Logically, female/female requires two females; If there's only one female in the cast, it isn't happening on-screen.
3. ↑ On the off-chance that someone reading this doesn't know: Long fingernails are not remotely practical if you're going to put them in or around somebody's orifices. It's painful for the receptive partner and just generally gets in the way.