[em-bee]

i stopped reading the ringworld series by larry niven when i found that he kept repeating how sex was used to seal a business transaction. it added nothing to the story and just seemed like wishful thinking from the author.

i can't blame them for it. it's only natural. when i write there is a lot of my personality in it too. in part that is the point and in many cases it is what makes a work worth reading. unless it makes the story unreadable like in our examples.

[Brian_K_White]

I read the whole series and don't remember this at all, even a single example let alone appearing so repeatedly that it became noticeable and annoying.

I'm not saying I don't believe you. Whatever it is you're talking about is probably in there.

I'm saying maybe you were just super sensitive to something that was actually insignificant.

[em-bee]

that's possibly true. it wasn't in all of the books, but at least in the one where i stopped reading. and it was insignificant because it served no purpose in the plot. what bothered me was not the reference to sex but the fact that it made no sense in the story and that it was treated as something as casual as a handshake and it simply felt like it was the authors personal fantasy.

and if i may say so, i suspect that in general reference to sex is so common that many of us don't notice. it doesn't bother me but i simply don't care for it when it's not a significant plot element. i grew up without any exposure to this kind of theme.