Sex and violence are a way to stand out, and they can be used very effectively for that. Clive Barker springs to mind as someone who crafts genuinely original,

Sex and violence are a way to stand out, and they can be used very effectively for that. Clive Barker springs to mind as someone who crafts genuinely original, brilliantly written stories from those elements, for example. But I agree, there's a tendency toward using them lazily - in the cast of fantasy, largely in the wake of Song of Ice And Fire. It'll calm down in a bit, I'm sure, just as the unoriginal fantasy doorstops tailed off in the late '80s as the D&D craze faded.