Sex Sex and More Sex

Have I got your attention now? Or totally turned you off?

"Oh God....not another essay on sex, please..."

"Sex? (Heavy panting) Bring it on, baby!"

"Kenzie...what are you up to now...?"

Face it people; sex is all around us, even if when TV debuted, married couples had to be shown in separate beds. So how did Lucy end up 'in the family way'?? And did you know that Fred and Wilma Flintstone were the first married couple to share a bed on TV? Trust cartoons to shatter the tabboo...

In older romance novels and movies, what happens in the bedroom is behind closed doors. The music swells, the camera fades to black or pans upward toward the stars...and the next day the couple is shown with blissful, sappy smiles and holding hands. In books, the act is described in pretty vague terms, and certainly not until 'I love you' or even 'I do' has been uttered.

The first romance book I ever read was The Flame and the Flower, and the first sex scene is pretty much a rape, because the hero has mistaken his virginal visitor for a prostitute. And when she escaped the next day, he looked all over for her, finding her about the same time her family realized she was pregnant. Eventually they learned to love each other, but the sex scenes were more sensual; no mention of certain slang terms.

First Love by Judy Blume came along, and while body parts and the eventual act itself was described, it was all very loving and girls my age couldn't wait until we fell in love enough to give ourselves to our one true love.

Valley of the Horses by Jean M Aul really opened the bedroom door for me. This is what I wanted; several pages of what went on between two consenting adults in the bedroom, er, cave.

And so I started writing.

The first book my alter ego submitted to an agent, he admitted he blushed several times, and labelled it Erotic Romance. I was surprised; I hadn't been introduced to the erotic romance genre yet, and thought erotic meant it belonged in Men's Magazines! Two years later, I learned about the online publisher Ellora's Cave and read some of their excerpts. I blushed; I wasn't raised with some of the language used, but kept returning to the site. And finally, bought my first two books.

I was instantly hooked.

As I said last week, my first attempt was written in longhand, while locked in my bedroom. I didn't want the kids, or even my husband to know what I was writing. But in 2007, I'd read enough books to become slightly more comfortable with the terminology, and now have no problem writing it on the computer, at my desk, where anyone can view it. (Although, if the kids are near, I'll use discretion if I'm writing the sex scenes. S snuck up on me once and yelled, 'Oh my gawd...Mom's writing porn!')

Speaking it, I have more issues. I was on a friend's blogtalk radio show in April, and when I chose the excerpt to read, I'd forgotten it contained both 'pussy' and 'cock'. I sort of exhaled when I said those words, and rushed through that paragraph, but thankfully they were only mentioned once; I was alone in my house and was recovering from laryngitis. Later, T told me he heard his producer, rather startled, in his ear, 'Pussy and Cock at almost 3 in the afternoon...Okay!' And in later shows, featured guests whose frequent use of the word 'Fuck' jolted me out of the top 'shocker' spot and I'm actually one of his tamer shows! I've since told him that if he ever has me on again, to put me in a 10pm slot, lol:)

But the point I'm trying to make is this: Whether you like your written sex sweet and fifties' style, sensual and mainstreamy-like, or in-your-face-bedroom-wide-open-use-oven-mitts-while-reading-or-at-least-have-the-air-conditioning-on, it's out there.

And I'm on the tamer side of the burning-up-the-pages-scenes. Yes, I've written four books which my mother will NEVER read (or if she does, she'll blush profusely, call me up and yell at me for the language, and then smile when I tell her about reviews or sales), and I AM capable of keeping the heat level up. But I've noticed this comes in cycles. Sometimes I don't want to read about every time my hero and heroine copulate; the first two times are fine, unless they decide to go at it in a differnt location, or play around with sex toys.

But other times, yeah...bring it on!