Huh. Did anyone say they avoided writing any sex scenes because there's been so many shitty ones committed to paper throughout the centuries and they didn't want to add one more to the canon?

I had a feeling the phrase "sex scene" was going to be kicked around a little bit there.

But writing about sex in general is -like you say- hard. You can be very descriptive and accurate and only end up with something that feels mechanical. If you're only going for arousal, it may work but it probably doesn't add anything. If you're going for shock value, you risk the end product looking shrill and comic.

So yeah, it's this thing that all of us do, but so few of us write well about it. And when they do, they have to ask themselves why they'd bother.