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IKEA Erotica: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|There is nothing duller than dull pornography.|'''[[Agatha Christie]]''', ''[[The Clocks]]''}}
Named after the Swedish home furniture retail chain, [[IKEA Erotica]] describes the tendency of badly written sex scenes to be nothing more than "insert tab A into slot B" ''ad nauseam'', as though the readers [[Viewers are Morons|actually didn't know what goes where]]. The result is that the participants might as well be doing nothing more interesting than assembling a flat-pack wardrobe, the kind of affordable, Swedish, some-assembly-required furniture IKEA is known for. The point of erotica is to make the reader feel something of what the characters do, which in most cases will be arousal rather than boredom. It's often a sign that the writer didn't want to have a sex scene here but [[Executive Meddling|got overruled]], or that the writer is sexually inexperienced and writing with the aid of a biology textbook (a lot of [[Fan Fiction]] [[Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls|written by 14-year-old girls]] comes into this category, often minus the biology textbook), making it less of a case of [[Anatomically-Impossible Sex|You Fail Sex Ed]] and more [[Did Not Do the Research|You Haven't Even Taken The Course Yet]]. Examples are too numerous to list, and too forgettable to remember in any case.
However, it [[Tropes Are Not Bad|can be used properly]]. IKEA Erotica has its merits as a tool of parody or simply as a means to [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|fool the censors]]. If used from the POV of a [[The Spock|certain type of character]], it can be in interesting insight into their psyche -- provided, of course, that the rest of the writing is enough to make this [[Stylistic Suck]] apparent. It can also be used if the character simply thinks that the sex sucks ([[Incredibly Lame Pun|and not in a fun way]]).
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* [[Older Than Print]]: An awesome scene early on in the Japanese creation myth ''[[wikipedia:Kojiki|Kojiki]]'': "Izanagi asked his spouse Izanami, 'How's your body formed?' She replied, 'My body, formed though it be formed, has one place that is formed insufficiently.' Then Izanagi said, 'My body, formed though it be formed, has one place that is formed in excess. Therefore I would like to take that place in my body which is formed to excess and insert it into that place in your body that is formed insufficiently and give birth to the land. How would this be?' Izanami replied, 'This would be good.'"
* A rare example of IKEA erotica being used on purpose, for a reason: in [[Greg Bear]]'s novel ''Slant'', a couple sex scenes are described with clinical precision, but it's clear that there's not meant to be any sort of romance or passion. In the first scene, a call girl has sex with a client: she doesn't enjoy it, of course, and he's only doing it to infect her. In the second scene, a man is jumped by his very horny wife, and doesn't really get a chance to enjoy himself either. The obsessively detailed style is repeated throughout the novel to create the feeling of being bombarded by information.
* Used in ''[[The
* ''Kramer's War'' by [[Derek Robinson]] mentions IKEA erotica, but doesn't indulge in it. One character actually thinks the words "Insert Tab A into Slot B" ironically; luckily we are spared the sex scene. Other novels by Robinson prove immune to IKEA erotica.
* [[The Subject Steve]] has this. And IKEA [[Gorn]]. And IKEA social interaction. And IKEA human life. All deliberate, mind you.
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{{quote|'''Learner:''' I read modern writers, and it's "screw this", "he licked her", "she sucked that", "he bit the other", you know, "someone put it there", "he held it", I mean, where's the sensuality?
'''Marenghi:''' Where's "he glided in liquid smooth"? Where's "her wispy mound"? }}
* ''[[Night Court]]'' parodied this once. Mac was discussing assembling a train set, saying "Insert tab A into slot B. Who can't do that?" and Dan (the in-house pervert) just gave him a look and said "You'd be surprised."
* Nearly [[Once Per Episode]] on ''[[Three's Company]]''.
* An example of a character using the trope: Henry Blake's sex classes in ''[[M*A*S*H|Mash]]'' (happened twice).
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* [[Divi-dead]] [[Up to Eleven|takes it to a whole other level]] with such gems as "shove your eggplant up to my ribcage!", and the hero always, always, '''always''' finishes with '''"I'm BLASTING!"'''
* It can probably be explained mostly with poor translation job by people who had little to no actual experience, since those games were originally in Japanese.
** Sometimes even when the translation is good, it's often too clinical, and marred with [[Unsound Effect|strange sound effects]].
* Used to [[Tropes Are Not Bad|great effect]] in [[Katawa Shoujo]] whenever a sex scene is supposed to be awkward.
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