More on saunas

[mrissa]

I don't like to share too much personal sexual information with people. There's a line in Dar Williams's "Iowa" that I just love: "But way back where I come from, we don't like to make a bother; We don't like to make our passions other people's concern. And we walk in the world of safe people, and at night we walk into our houses and burn." It's like that north of the border, too. It's not that we don't have burning passions. It's that we don't really think you should have to hear about them if you don't want to. Which is why an extreeeeemely small number of you have any idea what, specifically, gets me going, and why it's going to stay that way.

But. With that ominous beginning, I would just like to say: damn, people! Saunas! It's not just that sauna time is family time (although it is), it's -- saunas! If ever you are unfortunate enough to be consulted by someone who would like to seduce a Mrissa, please remember these words: NO SAUNAS! (Also, "Go away!" and "Shut up!" and "I don't know!" and "I don't want to talk about that with you!" may be useful words to remember. I know they would be for me if someone was consulting me about seducing the friendslist on average.)

rysmiel suggested that saunas are orthogonal to sex. This is a good data point to have from someone else's viewpoint. I asked those questions so I'd know how other people react, since I already know how I react. It's useful data. There's more than one sauna scene in Thermionic Night (and its sequels), but if you run across one where someone seems to be thinking unreasonably much about very, very unsexy topics in very, very unsexy ways, it is your collective fault. For my viewpoint, saunas are not orthogonal to sex; they are antithetical to sex. Saunas are either not warm enough to be any good or nearly too hot for me to stir myself to move out of. Much less to move around doing something active within the sauna. Saunas require at least 15 minutes of lying still somewhere cool afterwards, lying absolutely still lest the world disappear on you again, if you are a mrissa. (You know what? When I pass out, the world only sometimes goes black. Mostly it goes maroon or sometimes kind of a swirly purple. Also there is the gnat ballet. Anybody else get the gnat ballet? You never read about the world going maroon in books. Like the maroon of that one T-shirt you had, scottjames, you know the one.)

So. Saunas. All righty then. Useful information to have, but I'm really surprised at how overwhelmingly it depended on characters. I guess this is a bit of my own characterization instead of a law of nature.

Dude. Saunas.

Comments

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

This may be coming from left field, but what about all the gay bathhouses in the good ole days? I knew guys who cruised saunas. Some people *like* heat. I can't last 5 minutes, but that's me. Are we talking autobiography here or fiction? If you want to set a sex scene in a sauna, do it. Why not? Just because you wouldn't be interested doesn't mean it might not work for someone else.

Ms. Bear, I have a teeny house for rent for $600. Interested?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Fiction, and I already know that the characters in question are not sexually involved with each other at this juncture. (I'm pretty sure not later, either, but there are many, many edits before me in the next book.) So I asked originally so that I'd know whether I could just go with "they're going in the sauna, of course it's not to screw like crazed weasels" or whether I needed to write more clearly to make sure people weren't reasonably expecting a sex scene and then getting disappointed. (Unreasonably is another story. People can unreasonably expect a sex scene at the slightest provocation, and it's not really my problem. But when I'm wandering nubile characters around nekkid together, that was probable cause enough that I thought I'd better ask.)

In general, I agree with "why not" as an approach; in specific, the answer is amusing, and too detailed to go into without having you read at least one and possibly two books of mine first.