I like reading romance novels. I like the genre because I appreciate stories that focus on characters and their relationships, and really, I prefer it when a romance is a major component of whatever I read, be it science fiction or urban fantasy or what have you. Also? Let’s be real. I like reading well-written sex scenes. They’re hot, and I feel absolutely zero shame about liking them. My ass starts twitching the second I sense an article out there deriding romances and the women who make up the majority of romance’s readership. The phrase “mommy porn” makes me want to drive to that writer’s office and punch him or her right in the crotch. There’s absolutely no shame in reading something for the sole purpose of getting your bits excited.
But that’s a rant for another day. Today I want to talk about the idea of realistic sex scenes and just how much realism we want to inject into our sexy fantasies. I write sexy fiction. As of yet none of it is publishable, but unless readers have been yanking my chain for the last fifteen years or so, I feel like I can safely say that I’m pretty good at writing sex scenes. I’ve developed my own style for the most part, though I can adapt to writing sex in different tones and settings, and my style generally leans toward straightforward and highly explicit. I like reading those kind of sex scenes, too. Pick up any two romance novels and you’re going to find a really wide variety of sex scene styles. Some are explicit and even raunchy, others are more euphemistic, and you’ll find everything in between.
Oh! My delicate lady brain! Now I have unrealistic expectations of sex!
One criticism you’ll often find lobbed at romance novels is that the sex scenes are unrealistic. They’re too florid, they’re too romantic, they give women unrealistic expectations about what sex is actually going to be like, blah blah blah. There’s even been hand-wringing that romance novels create sexual health crises, tell women that rape is okay, and even *gasp* ruin marriages. Now, I’m not saying that these problems aren’t real. I’m sure there are women who’ve had their marriages ruined because the sex didn’t live up to a romance novel’s standards, but let’s look at this closely. Two of those articles use an advice column writer as an expert, and the romances she describes are way outdated by this point. Yes, older romances (particularly those from the 70s and 80s) are very rapey. It’s not as common anymore to have the hero force himself upon the innocent, helpless heroine, and when it does happen, savvy reader/reviewers usually skewer the hell out of that trope. If your argument is based on a trope that went out of fashion twenty years ago, then I have to wonder how prevalent that issue is today.
To me, the more pertinent issue here is that some women come away from romance novels with unrealistic expectations about what their own sex life is going to be like. Multiple orgasms, simultaneous climaxes, no need for lube even every once in a while, blah blah blah. If women (forgive me, romance readers who aren’t women, but I’m going to narrow my focus down for the rest of this post) were given more opportunity and cultural permission to openly learn about and discuss sex and their sexuality, then these problems would practically vanish.
Tell me, Clive… Is that lighthouse a phallic symbol or are you just happy to see me?
But how much realism do we really want in sex scenes? There are some elements of realism that I’d personally like to see more of in sex scenes. Safe sex is an extremely important thing for women to practice, and I’d be fine with more condoms in romances. However, if sex education in America specifically would teach kids about protecting themselves instead of shaming them for feeling sexual urges, this would be less of an issue.
The presence of condoms in sex scenes gets accused of ruining the mood pretty often. Now… I don’t know about you guys, but stopping to roll a rubber onto my guy’s penis has never blown the mood for me. Instead, it’s more like a ritual that tells my lady parts to get ready for incoming peen. The woman can put the condom on the man, they can put it on together, he can tease her while putting it on himself… The possibilities are endless.
I’d also personally like more… well, the best way I can think to phrase this is real stuff. I want more real stuff in sex scenes, like bonking heads together and laughing and getting messy. I don’t mean that I want clinical descriptions of the mess left behind, but a character standing up and giggling at the state of her inner thighs would inject a nice bit of realism into that relationship. All of this is tonal, of course, and there are some sex scenes where laughter just wouldn’t be appropriate. But laughter and screw ups and messes are a part of sex, and when I’m writing I do like to include them in my sex scenes.
Does the desire for more realism in sex scenes mean that I want sex scenes that are kinda boring (like sex is sometimes) or painful (ditto) or just mundane? Hell no. I’m reading romances to get some titillation along with my emotional relationship porn, and I’m a fan of swinging-from-the-chandeliers unrealistic sex, even if it doesn’t include using lube or condoms or the mess that’s left behind. They’re fun, and I understand that real sex for me isn’t going to be like that. But I’ve spent a lot of time educating myself and coming to terms with my own sexuality. I’m all for crazy fun sex scenes in romance novels, and it chaps my hide when people try to tell women they shouldn’t read them because their delicate lady brains will be ruined by unrealistic expectations.
Here’s a better solution than trying to get women to stop reading romances: start teaching girls about their sexuality from a young age so that the stigma is removed. If they have realistic expectations of what sex should be, then what the hell is wrong with a little overblown fantasy in a book? The more open women can be about sex and their enjoyment of it, the healthier their sex lives are going to be. And seriously, it’s insultingly paternalistic to tell women that they’re too stupid and gullible to know the difference between what real sex is going to be like and what they read in a romance.
Women are not stupid, nor are they by nature gullible, and if they get unrealistic expectations about sex from books they’re reading, that’s because they don’t have any other outlet for talking or learning about their sexuality. Sex can be really great. It can also be pretty crappy, and sometimes it’s even romance novel spectacular. I do think that a little more realism wouldn’t go amiss in romances, but at the same time, a lot of readers go to those books for some fantasy and escapism. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.
