I’m sometimes asked… no, scratch that…  I’m sometimes pleaded with why it takes so long before a main couple engage in intimacy in one of my stories.  I have yet to write a story without sexual content. I think the closest I’ve gotten was in A Brush With Fate where the lovemaking was “tame” compared to some of my other works.

I’m a fan of the slow burn.  I like to build up tension between characters before letting things go.  I did write a short (with the wonderful input of readers) where things went from 0 to 60 in about 5 seconds (A Naughty Fox Tale in Peach Blossom Dreams).  But it felt strange to me.

My favs are kissing scenes.  I like to envision what hands are doing.  Scents, sounds, and tastes are all crucial. Full-on sex scenes are a whole level of complicated fun. How graphic do you go?   How to add flourish to what basically amounts to “insert part A into Part B, or C, or D…”  or any variation thereof? One has to be careful not to fall into a rut with that (ahem).

For the record, I do not believe romance stories must include sex scenes.  You can have a powerful romantic tale without.  Do I consider Darcy any less the smoldering hunk of alpha male in Pride & Prejudice for lack of sex scenes with Lizzie?  No way.

What I do take umbrage at are labels like “clean romance” vs. “dirty romance”. The former is used to describe “good old fashioned love stories” without sex scenes; the latter, well, you can figure it out. I was stunned the other day when I came across a supposed distinction between the terms “romantic” and “romance” (which to me were the same thing).  Romantic denotes a chaste love story and romance a story with sex scenes apparently. Huh. 

If writing about adults, be they real world or fantasy ones, sexual encounters are part and parcel of real life or fictional. You KNOW Lizzie and Darcy got b.u.s.y on their wedding night.

Writing sex scenes is an indulgence for me. I’ve only ever written them with a mature reader in mind. This to me has always meant an audience that can appreciate the whole spectrum of sex from being “dirty” and only about lust to the rich depths of an intimate, physical expression of love. I’ll hop off my soapbox now.  

With regards to sex scenes in fanfics, part of fanfiction’s bad rap within writing circles is that it’s considered nothing but bad writing with mindless sex… a vehicle for smut.  

• SMUT:  written sex, like in fanfictions. “i [sic] was reading smut on wattpad.” (Urban Dictionary, definition 2 – you can look it up).

So yeah, orgies of gratuitous sex cushioned between pillows of bad writing.  Sigh…

I, for one, plan to continue writing sex scenes in my fantasy-romance works (fanfiction and originals) as I see fit.  And if I ever did write a story without, that would be fine too.  I happen to believe fade-to-blacks can be incredibly sexy as well. Hmm, a sexy new creative challenge for 2021?