So here’s a question for you, as part of my continued research for “Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels:” Where is the strangest place you’ve seen a couple in a romance novel have sex?
I’m not picky as to the specific sexual act (wow, could that get me into some fun trouble if taken out of context!), but I am curious which crazy or bizarre locations you’ve read about when the happy stiffy meets the eager recipient of said happy stiffy. Could be a lava-hot cavern of love, or another happy stiffy that’s tangling with the first happy stiffy – whatever. Like I said, I’m curious about location location location.
If I recall, and I still haven’t found this book so I’m not 100% sure it was a Susan Johnson novel, the strangest location I’ve read about a couple putting the love monkey in the love glove, was in a lake in England in WINTER. It had to be cold and slimy, and slimy, and COLD, but no, orgasms for all! Yeesh.
I’ve read sex in stairwells in space and on Earth, and often while the bad guys were after them (and you know when you absolutely cannot wait another moment to get your freak on, the bad guys will lose their sense of direction until you’re done), and I’ve read sex in carriages and wagons, in barns, underneath trees and, great shock of my life, in BED, but I’ve also read some very adventurous places.
What about you? Is there in your reading memory a sex location that, ha ha, sticks out?
LOL! That reminds me of the impression I formed in the 1980s after reading umpteen category romances where the protagonists frequently have sex in the shower that maybe Americans, like frogs, are able to mate successfully only in water.
I think the weirdest I ever read was in a hospital, during the Vietnam war. She was his nurse and he was hospitalized. She crawled in bed with him, closed the curtain, and banged his brains out with comatose soldiers on either sides. For some reason he was bandaged up so he couldn’t see her at all, and his ribs were broken and he couldn’t move. I found it less than sexy.
In Stolen, by Kelly Armstrong, there’s the classic “the badguys are chasing us still, let’s stop for some nookie”. It was hot nookie though, so I will forgive them.
And in the “Ultimatum” by Susan Kearney, the hero and heroine have sex in a net in a cargo bay in space as their space ship goes to warp. After they hit warp though, it’s zero-g. It was…creative. Oh, I almost forgot that they were wearing life support suits that were controlled by their telepathic powers. They can’t remove them, but their mind powers allow them to become transparent and they can feel through them. I was confused then, and am still confused now as to how that one worked.
In Strange Bedpersons by Jenny Crusie Tess and Nick have sex on a self-playing piano in some house (that’s not theirs). There’s a tour-guide showing people around and it was all about the thrill of discovery.
But the one that weirds me out the most is in the fitting room of a clothing store. There are exactly the most atmospheric of places and I always feel sorry for the shop assistant who’s probably outside wondering if they’ll have to go and clean anything up later. The only time it ever worked was Bet Me again by Crusie (as if we didn’t already know), when Min and Cal are picking up her dress for the rehearsal dinner. And they never get further than second base.
I’m sorry – I get the tease and the power playfulness of it all, but if you’re banging and having a conversation, you’re doing it wrong.
We need LOLporn for that.
Heh – spamword: corner35. If you can talk around the corner, the smex is 35 kinds of lame.
Actually, Prince of Midnight is by Laura Kinsale…and yes, they did do it on the horse at the end of the book. Johanna Lindsey also wrote a scene with a horse but I can’t remember the name of the book…but she was from a different planet that was all advanced and no sex, lands on his primitive planet and he shows her all about the sex she has been missing on her own planet…and she gets pregnant, which no one did anymore, test-tube babies and all on her crappy planet.
@Darlene Marshall…which Kinsale had the bookcase scene…I have read them all and don’t remember that one…maybe it is time for a re-read!!!
The one that struck me as really weird was in Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie where they had sex on an antique piano and were in real trouble of getting caught. I did NOT get that.
I also just read Charlotte Stein’s “Waiting in Vain” short story and they have sex in a garden shed. They also have sex in the hero’s boyhood bedroom while his gran is sleeping in the next room and they are LOUD.
It’s not a romance novel, but I remember in the movie Supernova two people have sex in antigrav. I’m not sure that is physically possible. Where’s the traction?
In Roxanne St. Claire’s Hunt Her Down the hero jacks himself off while he and the heroine are trapped in a small metal shed on the villain’s property. That struck me as…a little inappropriate.
I’m not sure which one I mean, either. I’ve read all the AQ novels, but it has been quite a while since I’ve read the older ones and it could very well be one of the regencies. For some reason, though, that particular sex scene stands out very vividly in my mind. But I don’t remember much at all about the rest of the book.
In Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost – Mencheres and Kira have crazy vampire sex in a maintenance or storage room that’s under a roller coaster at Disney Land. Good times…
In an erotic romance by Madison Hayes (maybe Miss January?), the h/h had sex in an outdoor phone booth during a rainstorm. At the end of the story, the couple’s friends moved the phone booth into their house as a memento.
@Suzanne—I’m told the bookcase scene is in Flowers From the Storm, but it’s been about 20 years since I’ve read it. Sometimes Ms. Kinsale hangs out here, and perhaps she’ll chime in.
The brig of a Pirate Ship. Patricia Cabot’s “An Impoper Proposal.” The hero is mostly shackled to the wall; the heroine is dressed in disguise as a boy; and eventually the virginal heroine jumps his eager bones. It’s awesome. They later have sex in a hammock and lots of other places on a deserted island.
I recall a historical where the H/h get it on in the Crystal Palace during a party behind a shelf or statue … or something that only sort of hid them from public view. Can’t recall author/title but I DO recall it was completely unbelievable.
I didn’t see where anyone had mentioned a desk yet. There was a funny desk-sex scene in Sarah Mayberry’s Anything for You. The hero flings everything off his desk to have sex with his partner on a Friday night. On Monday morning, he chastises the secretary for cleaning off his desk. His partner had to point out all the stuff left on the floor behind the desk.
Yes I know desk sex can’t compete with freezing bodies of water, nasty caves, horseback and camel-back sex.
The really weird one I read was Big Bad Wolf by Christine Warren. The alpha and his mate have to participate in a ritual where the women stay as human and the men turned into wolves and chase them down. Once the hero “won” his mate, they had sex in the park with him still in wolf form! She wasn’t particularly happy to find out that he was going to be climaxing off and on inside her for 20 minutes.
In one Linda Howard book – “White Lies” I think – they do it on the frozen ground in the mud after washing the car. They didn’t have layers of clothing for protection either, it was an unusually warm day in winter and they had just regular clothes on. Her bare butt was in the mud on the cold ground. How uncomfortable! How come the girl is never on top when they do it on the ground? In another LH book (can’t remember which one) they do it standing up in an Amazonian rainforest during a downpour – slippery! Unbeknownst to the heroine, they’re watched by natives.
In the aisle in a store, while being watched by some strange guy. I think it was “Against the Wall” by Rhyannon Byrd, but not sure.
In a Lori Foster novella, they do it bent over a fan.
On horseback (Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale) Yeah—not really the thing IMHO.
In a ship cabin whilst conversing with someone banging on the door (Voyager by Diana Gabaldon) Very funny!
On/Up against a boulder in the middle of a pack of sleeping soldiers (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon) Unexpectedly Hot, it raises my temperature every time I read it.
On a Piano with slightly unwilling hero (Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie) Very cringe inducing for me. I was surprised he could perform under such pressure—like he could lose his job if caught.
Linda Howard had a ‘hey, the guards are on their way, so we better look like we sneaked out to make it’. Then he makes her like a stamp and does a lick ‘em, stick ‘em just as the guard show up.
Sam
my TBR pile/Amazon wishlist HATE you all (or possibly love you; the mixed feelings may be my checking account…) right now.
I seem to have a memory of a couple having sex in a plastic tunnel in a children’s playground. I don’t know what it’s from, though.
I read one of Adair’s T-FLAC novella’s where they have sex in the arctic on a cold base in a room with no lights and the hero may or may not have been invisible at the time.
In Christina Dodd’s Chains of Fire the hero and heroine are trapped in the basement/locker room of a chalet that has come down around them under an avalanche. It’s ice cold and I think they go at it on a fur coat they find in a locker.
The weirdest one for me, ‘cause it’s kind of sketchy, is in Mary Hughes’ Biting Nixie where the hero and the heroine go at it against the door of her childhood bedroom while her parents are in the house. It wasn’t even like they were staying over night. She goes up after dinner at her parents to get something and he goes with and then ends up doing her against the door. What were her parents supposed to think they were up there doing? Kind of skeevy. Though I did enjoy the book.
Wow. There are a lot of sex scenes on horseback. I agree – these seem difficult and slightly unbelievable.
I can’t remember which book it is but in one of the Sookie Stackhouse books (which aren’t technically romance novels but they do have Teh Sexy Timez), Bill is buried in order to heal or something and when he claws himself out of ground, he and Sookie just go at it in the middle of the graveyard. It was on the verge of violent and super awkward and I had to put the book down for a minute to regroup after reading it.
And agreed on Strange Bedpersons. Strange location and it bothered me that the guy wasn’t really into it and she kept pushing.
I don’t remember the title or author, but the very first m/m AND the very first vampire romance I ever read had the two heros consumating their relationship in a hammock. I still remember feeling slightly seasick while imagining that.
Z.A. Maxfield’s NOTTURNO (also a m/m vampire romance, hmm) starts off with a not-quite-consensual encounter in an airplane bathroom, which … no. (rubs elbows and knees ruefully at the thought)
Veryan’s quite fabulous WAGERED WIDOW had a scene in which the hero literally hides under the heroine’s skirts, but there is no sexxorings (in THAT scene), but it reminded me of the not-at-all romantic prelude to Gunter Grass’s THE TIN DRUM.
(spamword: table79—I recall a fairly hot kitchen table scene between Max and Gina in one of Brockmann’s Troubleshooters books)
Someone mentioned the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Wasn’t there also a sex scene where the heroine travels through time (as she does) at the moment of coitus? I can’t remember exactly, but it sounds very familiar.
Blondie,
the part that me scratching my head was that she was able to uh, rotate on him because of said zero-g forces, and not so much the life support suits they wore all the time.
Whoops, sorry for the italics inflation above! Lost a closing tag somehow.
Anne Rice (under the name A.N. Roquelaure) wrote the Beauty series. All of them are filled with “what the hey now” sexxoring, but the most memorable was in the second, Beauty’s Punishment.
Beauty is being transported from the BDSM filled castle to the similarly BDSM filled town. During transport, she takes a liking to one of the other slaves (all of them are bound, gagged with a fake phallus and naked – initially, the they manage to rid themselves of the gags). They get it on with their arms tied up (behind their heads?) while standing in a tightly packed (standing room only) wagon. All this while enforcer type men wield whips from the sides.
You really must read the series to understand the level of ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? involved.
Another vote for the pyramid scene from Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible!
>lava-hot cavern of love
OMG! I just finished Stobie Piel’s LORD OF THE DARK SUN and the hero and heroine do the deed in a—wait for it—lava-hot cavern of love! I kid you not.
Sex on top of any living creature is just out for me.
I once read some Pride & Prejudice fanfic (sigh, I know . . . ) where Elizabeth is being held in cave by the villain, gives birth, kill him, walks home to Pemberley, and proceeds to gets it on with Darcy for the first time. I’m sorry, but there is no way that any woman is feeling like having some sexy time hours after giving birth.
Definitely Flowers From the Storm. I just read it, this past summer.
Thank you! I feel the same way. On a horse? On a camel? With her pet dog in the room? Ew. Think of the poor animal forced to witness that. Hell, in the first two cases, they’re having sex on top of the animal. Icky icky icky.
I’m starting to think that I haven’t read any too-out-there sex scenes.
I do remember a scene in Nora Robert’s River’s End where the H/Hr have sex in a river in the Olympic Rainforest in Washington State. I’ve been camping in that part of the world. Even in the summer, that water would be cold. Not as cold as the ocean, but still COLD.
The weirdest place that comes to mind, right now, is in Jo Beverley’s Something Wicked. The H/Hr have been kidnapped, transported to some strange location (turns out to be a cellar) in a coffin, and wake up in total darkness. Then they have hot thank-God-we-aren’t-dead sex, right there in the pitch black coffin. Incidentally, at the time, he doesn’t know who she really is. If I remember correctly, the two have sex a few more times in the hours they’re trapped down there. They can’t escape, and they have nothing better to do.
On a LADDER? How – no, never mind, let me work this out for myself.
I saw a bad zombie movie on cable a few weeks ago where 2 zombies did it in a stall in the ladies room. Not a unique location, but possibly zombies are unique.
Real life story: My mom has a friend who is an assistant city manager in the city she lives in. The friend recently received a complaint from a citizen who found a used condom on a slide at a playground. Sounds awfully uncomfortable to me.
@Lorelai: I’ve never read the Stackhouse books, but I was just going to post about the show. That scene is possibly even more awkward on the show because you’re watching them, and he is covered in dirt and its ugh, but also kinda hilariously WTF?
As for Romance novels, hmmm. In Elizabeth Lowell’s book Jade Island, Kyle and Lianne are so turned on after looking at Chinese Jade erotica they have sex on the dirt by a boat dock after they are ferried off the island the jade was on. Even as a 12 yr old, that was more eew then hot.
Kevin and Molly from SEP’s This Heart of Mine have sex in a lake during the fall (in Michigan), but that scene was at the end and so romantic that it gets a pass from me regarding its weird location. Sex-in-public-places or we’re-being-chased-but-lets-stop-and-do-it-anyway ideas never do anything for me, but I like Carriage!sex. I don’t know, carriages are more romantic than car backseats, and no one can see in and disturb you.
I never remember the names of categories, but this one was a romantic suspense and the H/H were running away from bad guys on an island, he had a dislocated shoulder and she dragged him semi-unconscious over water and into a cave. The cave had warm sulfur pools and they got in for warmth, of course, and got it on—I was momentarily distracted by what had to be the overwhelming fart smell of the warm pools of water concentrated in that cave, but then went with it. As did they.
In another category with a cowboy hero and a heroine from Ireland, both on a ranch, they did it in an animal water trough of some kind, they did it in the freezing winter in a barn, he taking her from behind with her leaning forward against a horse.
Motorcycle sex scenes—-why?! Even worse, is when it is obvious that the author has probably never even been on a bike.
I read a Blaze recently that featured H/H riding around Nellis AFB on his bike without helmets (military bases make you wear 15 lbs of safety gear, including neon vests). But the worst part is that the bike was repeatedly described as a large, monstrous Harley, then a page or so after H/H have sex on the bike (not while driving), the author mentions that it is a Sportster (wee, baby Harley). At that point, I just started laughing and muddled through the rest of the book.
Sadly, it was actually a pretty good book in other respects, but there were a handful of really glaring reality errors that killed it for me.
Noone mentioned a bathtub scene. There is a great one in one of Johanna Lindsay’s novels. There were some other great randy scenes in that book too. The title escapes me.
Also, Amanda Quick had a knight out of his shining armor deflowering his new bride in a vat of rose petals that were to be made into perfume. I don’t remember the title.
Tessa Dare had her lead characters getting to know eachother really well in a wardrobe in “Godess of the Hunt”.
I just finished reading Katie MacAlister’s Steamed where the heroine and hero are supposed to be rescuing the hero’s sister but end up doing it on the filthy floor of a secret passageway next to dead rats while the emperor gets his on the other side of a secret door. Ummm. Ew.
(They also manage to have full conversations through out the entire book while they get busy. It was distracting and weird and not at all sexy.)
In another MacAlister, one of the dragon ones, they do it on top of the dragon’s gold. It sounded very uncomfortable.
Amanda Quick vat of rose petals is Desire. After reading this, maybe it’s weird if the hero and heroine get it on in a bed?
And no one mentioned Emma Holly— In The Demon’s Angel novella, the Yama (demon) scientist heroine experiments on the human hero, making him grow wings—and they wind up having sex in mid-air while flying madly away from the bad guys. They end up so high in the atmosphere (apparently orgasms are like afterburners or something) that they’re surrounded by ice crystals. [shiver].
This has been one of the funniest comment threads I’ve read in forever.
I can’t remember anything from a romance novel as far as weird sex scenes go. However, I remember this one story my mom told about my grandmother. Mom and one of her sisters were talking about different sexual positions. (Why, I don’t know. My mom is horribly sexually repressed.) Grandma overheard them and said, “When I was young, there was only one way to have sex – except for the rocking chair.”
I never could picture how having sex in a rocking chair is suppose to work, however.