By Kathleen OReilly
August 26th, 2008

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I considered writing about politics, but I’m all politico-ed out this year. I thought about doing an RWA recap, but honestly, I wasn’t all tuned in at the conference, didn’t go to any sessions — I order the CD’s, so I can listen when my brain is actually functioning correctly. I thought about writing about all the books I’d been reading on my vacation — there were some great ones. Highly recommended: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Irresistible by Susan Mallery. But instead, I decided to write about something completely different.

Sex in romance, sex in life.

First of all, to put all my cards on the table, I write for Harlequin Blaze. This means, I write sex in my books. A lot of sex. Most of the time, my characters have sex too early in their relationship and then have to deal with the consequences of diving head-first into a cement pool with no water.

People joke with me about writing sex, and sometimes it stings, sometimes it doesn’t, because people want to relegate sex to a private place, closed-door, no talking (unless you’re a guy in a locker room), or else they need to joke about. There are people who think that this attitude is an icky by-product of the American puritanical culture, but honestly, I think sex is meant to be a private thing, closed-door, not talking (especially if you’re a guy in a locker room). Perhaps that makes me an icky by-product of the American puritanical culture, I don’t know.

In the past decade, sex has been growingly used as a titillation device, to market paper towels and clothes (especially underwear). It used to be that sexy ads were targeted at men, but now, they’re targeted at woman as well (or possibly gay men, but honestly, I think it’s women). This bothers me, not because I’m an icky by-product of the American puritanical culture, but because sex is so much more complicated than paper towels and underwear, and by getting consumers adjusted to the idea of sex as oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin pinging in the brain, we focus on the physical hormonal consequences, and forget the wonderful shades of emotional gray that come with sex.

Sex is power. God gave man physical strength, but he gave women sex, and to be frank, I think we got the better end of that deal. A lot of books ignore the inherit power of sex, but the give/take of a sexual relationship is huge and fraught with a courting dance that is a lot more interesting than lingering glances and a hand to the cheek.

In the airports now, they have a device that sees through clothes down to the bare naked person. If you’ve seen those pictures, they are frightening, not because you don’t want to see all these people naked, but in that two-dimensional picture, all the layers are gone, all the pretensions, all the designer labels, all the preppy intelligentsia have disappeared. Sex with another human being does that. It can be bad sex, it can be great sex, but it’s a great barrier-killer. Great sex can be an emotional commitment to a person, but bad sex can be a signal that either one or both parties isn’t there. When one person is having a great time, and the other is emotionally distant, it’s very sad. When two people are emotionally distant, it can break your heart.

There is a sexual journey for a couple, as well as the emotional journey. Some authors have their couples have fantastic sex 24/7, anytime, anyplace, no matter the emotional state of their relationship. Sometimes I buy this, but a lot of times, I like reading about the sexual journey as well. Within a relationship, sex is a viable bit of characterization, telling more about the emotional situation than four pages of internal narrative could ever provide.

There are a lot of reasons to put sex in a book. Titillation is one, yes, but that’s not nearly as rich as the others. So tell me, what do you think about the state of sex and romance? Does it bother you? Any examples of great stories that show a fascinating sexual journey?

Kathleen’s next release, Courting Disaster, will hit the shelves near the beginning of September. It’s a Silhouette Special Edition this time, part of the Thoroughbred Legacy series.

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