Bitchery reader Yvonne asked a really good question:
I know you both have your hands full but I was thinking about some of the recent discussions and I had an idea for something else to touch on (HA!). Specifically, there doesn’t seem to be much masturbation in romance, although I have seen it here and there. Much more common in erotica, of course.
Examples that come to mind were the heroine in, I believe, one of the Kinsale books, and the OMG hot scene with Hades in P. C. Cast’s Goddess of Spring. Done right, as in both of these examples, it can convey so many emotions while still being kinda hot.
What do you think? Is it just too taboo?
Love to know your thoughts.
Yvonne does have a point – wanking is rare. My first response to the question is that perhaps it’s something of a taboo outside of sexually focused romance because the hero/heroine is supposed to be creating the sexual/physical response in the other, and if the h/h is creating that response on his or her own, then perhaps the reaction might be,“What do they need the other person for?” It may be a question of whether wanking would decrease sexual tension between the protagonists, because one or both of them is getting off solo. Add to that the often-grating virginal expectations of the heroine, and jack and/or jilling is not allowed.
I disagree with the idea, if it is indeed the case – most of the really hot masturbation scenes I’ve read (especially the Cast one) establish sexual tension between the characters sometimes without the two physically being present in each other’s company. And what could be more spicy than a heroine or hero spending time together, each knowing they’ve had a rocking orgasm while fantasizing about each other? Rwor!
So – what’s your take? Think wanking is taboo? And what romances have you read that feature hot self-on-self action?
I’m a total hypocrite. I’ve written masturbation in some of my erotic titles but I don’t particularly enjoy reading about jacking or jilling. I guess probably because I’ve been single for so long, I don’t want my fantasies to be about one-player games. I want to read, fantasize, and picture multiple players!
The exception to this was in Zsadist’s book, as someone else mentioned. That was an extremely hot and… er… well-handled scene of sexual awakening.
I’m kinda with you on this one. Masturbation scenes on the guys part or mutual masturbation is hot. Chick all by herself? Soooo been there, done that. I’m married but he goes away for very long work related chunks of time.
Jo Goodman’s release this past month (title Wicked something or other??) has a great scene where the hero spies her in a bathtub and rushes upstairs to his room to jerk off in a rush of overwhelmed horniness.
Funny, that’s EXACTLY the set-up in Hoyt’s “Serpent Prince.” Does he take the stairs three at a time, too? (Love that detail.)
I guess there are only so many scenarios one can invoke. I mean, without getting into things like dressmaking tools (????!! NOT looking that one up on Amazon!)
You know what, EMayne… I may have inserted the SP scene into the Jo Goodman. I read them both on the same weekend.
Good catch!!
I’ve just recalled another very hot wanking scene which is in Sabrina Jeffries’ Never Seduce a Scoundrel. The hero takes the heroine on board a boat without her chaperone and, well, she’s determined to remain a virgin and he’s determined to work around it!
God I love that book.
Wow! Thanks for mentioning my wank scene from Goddess of Spring. Hot little side note to the writing of it: to get inside a man’s head whilst he’s wanking I called my favorite lover, who happens to live several states away, and while he was at work (he’s a very hot marine attorney) he closed the door and, uh, ‘walked me through it’ from a guy’s pov.
I swear I still sweat when I read the scene.
The copy editor tried to get me to cut it, though. Said it was “voyeuristic.” (Hades is watching the heroine being bathed and annointed – she doesn’t know he’s there.) I was all, “Yep it is. Do. Not. Cut.”
Sorry if that was TMI about the writing process…my research is such hell…work work work work work.
The hero in Shannon McKenna’s Out of Control (Seth, one of my favorite heroes ever, in spite of the fact that I’d call the police on him in real life) gets the heroine to do an up-close & personal demonstration for him. I think he also wanks while spying on her, earlier in the book.
And I think in at least one of her other titles, there’s a hero “taking the edge off” in the shower… maybe in Standing in the Shadows?
In Susan Johnson’s “Wicked” the hero teaches the heroine to get herself off with a candle because he isn’t planning on sticking around for long, and in “Again and Again” the heroine does it with the handle of a hairbrush while the hero watches.
The Cowboy Way by Candace Schuler has the heroine masturbating outdoors and the hero watches with binoculars, then goes down see if she wants company.
I meant to say, Shannon McKenna’s Behind Closed Doors- that’s the one with Seth. And the wanking.
(How many times do I have to read a damn book before I’m clear on the title??)