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?
I remember one near Buckingham Palace in an alley with a bunch of people nearby.
Bad Girl Bridesmaids…. Sex on a ladder!!
I have a vague recollection about a Johanna Lindsay novel from the late 80’s or early 90’s where the hero and heroine have sex while riding a galloping horse.
Passion in Lisa Valdez’s “Passion” had sex in a chuch.
Church. Sigh.
I remember a catergory way back in the late ‘80s; the couple are stranded on a mountain top while climbing and have to make their way down during a blizard but pause half-way down the mountain to get it on under a sheltering tree. I never figured out just how they reached connection with all the gear they were supposedly wearing!
After escaping from an English estate where the Lady’s virtue was going to be sold to the highest bidder, there is a rockslide in the tunnel she and the Hero were traveling through. They are cut off from the rest of the other escapees an a small tomb like cave big enough for two people to lie down spoon style. While the other escapees promise to run up ahead to find help (and not be seen by the people that are chasing them), the Lady is suddenly incredibly turned on…blah blah blah. It’s a cold tunnel with rocks for a ground, it’s a man she doesn’t know and she’s just escaped from being kidnapped and auctioned off as a sex slave. And she’s horny. WHAT?!?
I believe Cherry Adair has one where they do it on a camel. Not sure if the hump(s) hindered or… helped. (Ha, ha – humping!!)
In one of Stephanie Laurens’s books, the couple does it in the ocean or Irish Sea or North Sea—some oceanlike location, anyway. With waves, salt, and sand. STANDING UP. I’m not sure this is even possible, unless English waves are significantly more wimpy than South Carolina waves.
Also in Judith Ivory’s _Untie My Heart_ the h/h do it on a chair. While she is tied to it. While the scene is hot, and the actual location (hotel room) fairly mundane, I still haven’t worked out the physics/anatomy of that one at all.
ISTR hot-air balloon sex in a Nicole Jordan book. I forget whether the balloon was airborne at the time or not.
The rockslide cave-in tunnel sex, btw, was in Karen Robards _Shameless_, I just read that book a few weeks ago and I’m pretty sure that was it.
this just makes me realize.. I need to read MORE! 🙂
Didn’t Jill Shalvis write a sex scene between a real estate agent and a fire man, where they were stuck under a desk in a building that was about to collapse, couldn’t see one another for the darkness, and had hot, “we’re gonna die” sex right there, all messy and dusty?
I cannot remember the name of the book though…
Ahhh, @Kerensa beat me with Adair’s Sex-on-a-camel scene. It was WTFtastic!
I read a historical back when I was a teenager where the hero went down on the heroine while she was sitting on the front seat of a Conestoga wagon, breastfeeding her baby, which wasn’t the hero’s. It was so weird. She had a hoop skirt on, and it was flipped way up in the air. I remember at the time I didn’t have as big a problem with the breast feeding/oral sex combo as I did with someone wearing a hoop skirt whilst manifesting destiny.
Ah, church, been there, done that. Felt guilty for a while (I was much younger then). It’s not so much the place that’s strange in some romances as the circumstances. We are being chased, we are trapped, we are thinking about going shopping, we have just met and are in the middle of a huge argument….
I’m blanking on the name of the book, but the hotness took place in a graveyard. In winter. In an English winter. I remember thinking that it can’t have been too comfortable. Or maybe I’m just wimpy.
there38: yes, there must have been 38 better places.
I remember that Johanna Lindsey, I believe it was Savage Thunder. That book also stuck out to me as a “how is this possible?” moment.
The ones that really puzzle me are the sexy moments in the snow, I kinda remember a trapped in a snow storm moment that made no sense because if it really is that cold you want to keep your extremities covered and warm rather then frolicking completely nekkid in frost-bite inducing weather/snow.
Well. I’ve just finished an enjoyably bonkers Regency romance where the hero and heroine go at it like knives on top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Oh, and she’s invisible.
(If you’re interested, it’s ‘Tempted by the Night’ by Elizabeth Boyle. And although it’s utterly bonkers (demons, secret identities and magical wish-casting rings, as well as invisibilisex) it’s definitely worth a read.)
While trapped in a cave by the tides, in a hot spring… Shattered Rainbows by Mary Jo Putney.
I never really got the sex in the carriages thingie…I mean the driver always hits a bump and the virgin “accidently” falls on the mans lap and “ohhh no!” she isn’t a vrgin anymore but “its really quite pleasant”…Lol. Those ones always make me laugh and I know I’ve read more then a few in this situation.
But really, is there ever really a wronge place to have sex when it comes to fiction? 🙂
I loved when Rupert and Daphne from Mr. Impossible have sex during a sandstorm. I always enjoy those set-ups where the hero and heroine are stuck somewhere together and think “might as well have sex!” It’s clearly the logical thing to do.
My favourite real life story was when a boyfriend told me about the time he and an ex had sex on a subway. It was the last trip of the night and the car was empty. My reaction: hilarious. . . but I hope I’ve never sat in that seat.
north79 – if only it had been 69, it would have applied wonderfully to that “northbound, going down” tale.
The Johanna Lindsey Natalie L. is talking about is The Prince of Midnight.
Don’t Dain and Jessica have sex against a wall in a graveyard in Lord of Scoundrels? or at least against a public building or something? I remember he dragged her out of a boxing match so it was somewhere potentially public.
This isn’t an unusual location as such, but when two of Suzanne Brockmann’s characters had sex for the first time in the back of a moving limousine, my WTF factor went off the charts. It’s difficult enough to stay seated in one of those puppies at corners, stops, etc. To have these two beloved characters wait for just that moment, for that should-have-been incredibly romantic, private and hot moment, to finally consummate their relationship in the back of a limousine? My outrage, it is boundless.
Touched a nerve there, I guess.
So I would posit that, in some situations, the location itself isn’t weird or unusual; the context of the where and when is perhaps also a contributing factor.
there are 2 that stick out for me. The first is more the situation than the where (although the where was…different too). It was in Candace Camp’s Promise Me Tomorrow. The heroine has just been hit over the head and shoved into a mine when the hero finds her lying there. He goes into the mine to get her out and after she comes to there is a rock slide and they’re trapped. All of a sudden they start going at it. Seriously? In a mine? That might collapse on you? O-kay.
The second was Three Nights with a Scoundrel by Tessa Dare. The hero and heroine are out looking for a new house (since hers in entailed and his is out of the question). The 19th century version of a real estate agent leaves them with the key with the promise that they’ll lock up after they leave. They find a piano and the heroine tells the hero she likes watching him play, even though she cannot hear the notes (she’s deaf). He sets her atop the piano as he plays, and he realizes that she likes the vibrations created by the music, giving him the crazy idea that they should have sex on the piano.
Sex with a dragon in a cave! I suppose, though, that’s really the only proper place to have sex with a dragon. *hums* Trapped in an elevator? – let’s knock boots! Sex in zero gravity (many times). I think only one of those, however, addressed the problems of fluids in zero gravity. Luckily, it was written to be very amusing instead of gross. Ok, maybe a little gross.
Sex in giant trees seems to happen in damn near every book with a jungle. As someone who climbed almost every tree in the neighborhood as a child, I still don’t know how they manage that. I’m pretty certain I’ve read a sex scene that occurred during a Mardi Gras parade in N’awlins. Beads for all!
So…these characters don’t necessarily have S.E.X, but there’s this scene of sexual tension during Juliana Stone’s “The Darkest Hunger” where during the middle of an ATTACK… t minus a few minutes to get out of a soon to be exploding- in- flames building with a whole army of men waiting to capture and kill them, they are busy…wait for it!…feeling each other up!
I mean come on. Worst moment ever to strip the girl and say, “hey, you have quite the delectable bosom!” Seriously? You are going to DIE. This is no time for copping a feel and sneaking a peek!!
It bothered me, as you can tell. Note: The “Oh, hey- handsome-you’re-sexiness-just-saved-me” should come AFTER you are safe. Sheesh!
I think the H/h had sex at the bottom of a filled swimming pool in MJD’s first Betsy book. They were vampires who didn’t need to breathe so nobody died (again).
I just finished a catagory romance in which the couple have sex in a tent in the middle of a shopping mall. His family owns the mall and he told her that some of his best memories are of the times he and his brother spent camping at the mall when they were kids. Cute in a weird sort of way!
The first e-book I ever read was a truly hideous novella set in way-back-when Scandinavia or something. I’m still not sure, because the author implied that it was Scandinavia but was using ancient Celtic mythology (WTF). I don’t remember the author, and I don’t remember the title, but I remember a truly bizarre sex scene.
The sex in question was ON A HORSE. BAREBACK. I actually had to stop reading and think about the logistics for a good ten minutes. I’ve ridden horses. There’s not that much room up there. And without stirrups, how can you generate thrust? Do you just kind of bounce around and hope for the best? What about protecting the family jewels? They’d get smooshed!
So, yeah. Still haven’t figured it out.
I recently copyedited a book in which the hero and heroine have sex while he’s sitting in a wheelchair. (He has two broken legs.) I cringed the entire time I was putting the commas in the right places. It was…not a good book.
Born In Shame by Nora Roberts, where Murphy and Shannon get it on propped against a standing stone. It was hot, sure, but really, how many people really have the option of doing it in a mini-Stonehenge?
(It was also one of the first sex scenes I ever read, and DAMN.)
How come I’ve never come across any of these books? Lol. I seriously need to read more.
It was a (deservedly) unpubbed book where the optimistic writer thought her MCs would be able to do it in the appropriately-named cockpit of an F16 Viper.
At least it was parked on the ground at the time.
Never mind there’s barely room for the pilot to move his joystick (in every sense), what about stray security patrols ambling by? And how did he get a civilian into an obviously restricted area?
I *tried* to let the writer know that it was physically impossible for two adult-size humans to do it in that location—even with the canopy up and the woman having no legs from the pelvis on down—but the oblivious was too in love with the fantasy to think it would put off any readers.
Here’s where they got their groove on: a 17-million dollar fighter jet (2-million used):
On the positive side, the pilot chair is tilted at a 30-degree angle to deal with g-forces.
I’d really rather do it in a bed. Call me boring, but there’s less chance of injury, surprise muscle cramps and accidentally detonating the ejector device.
Talk about premature ejacu—no, I can’t finish! ;>)
I’m pretty sure this was a Linda Howard. He rescues her from evil terrorists in Libya (and they may have been about to rape) and as *soon* as they get to the dusty abandoned house he is using as his hiding place, they get it on, as a way to make her feel better. On the floor. Of the very dusty, sandy house. It was the sand that always bothered me.
Most annoying in a church, have a little a respect for the people who pray there. Most odd on horseback and judging by DreadPirateRachel’s description, I think we read the same book.
Linda Howard wrote a sex scene in the lady’s rest room (in After the Night), another in a kind of stone cave in the middle of the desert (MacKenzie’s Mission).
In an erotica I read one on a motorbike while moving through the town (the heroine’s “secret” pearl” was pushed against the tank so the vibes of the motor just added to the sensation of the hero’s magical wand).
And another one on a horse in a Paula Quinn (Laird of the Mist I think)
It is entirely possible to get it on in a snow bank, provided you only uncover the necessary parts. I did not, but I have some friends that would gnaw the legs off chairs if they didn’t get it on regularly. (I can’t imagine wanting to uncover ANYTHING in the snow in the middle of a hunting trip, but I’m a weenie, and willing to wait to get back to the tent.)
involved78- yeah, they were involved, and tried 78 odd places- that she told me about later.
Soulless, by Gail Carriger has the sex in a carriage, hit a bump and lose the hymen trope.
I think the sex scenes in books which disturb me the most are the sex in Western saddles- the idea of a saddlehorn punching the heroine in the coccyx with every stride does not an appealing image make. English saddles would make things more possible as they’re not built with vertical protrusions, but still the horse spooks and you’re both headed to the ER. Not sexy.
I forget the book, it’s been forever, but the hero lifted the heroine’s skirt as she sat on his lap on a park bench, arranged the skirt to hide what he was doing and they had sex as people walked past. Obviously I’m a prude, as that weirded me out and did NOT turn me on, at all.
Spoiler Alert
In A Lady’s Guide to Rakes by K Caskie, the hero and heroine get it on in a hotair balloon, in the middle of a driving rainy downpour, as the balloon is rapidly descending toward the ground. In a public park, as I recall. Slightly ridiculous, yes… but delicious all the same.
Oh, and I just read one that gave me pause too. Monica McCarty’s “The Hawk.” Hawk and Ellie just escaped an attack by the English fleet and are in the middle of the sea, on a skid, during a horrible storm, with more fleets coming for them. And guess what they do? While the waves are tumbling over their rickety craft ( a really awesome, kinda cute feat nonetheless by the hero *sigh), the lightning and the thunder and almost tumbling over the side, all of a sudden…it’s time for sex!
I didn’t necessarily dislike it, but I have to wonder if I was going to fall off a skid if I would be horny, even if I was scared out of my ever lovin’ mind?!? I don’t know, but I still kinda liked it. Especially since Hawk was so adorable!! 🙂
There was a story that I swear w/in the first 10 pages they were having sex in the British Museum IN one of the sections where they have bits and pieces of the Acropolis…….could you imaging the tour guides, “and here we have the …ummm that stain wasn’t there yesterday….”
Flo mentioned Soulless by Gail Carriger already, but I found the ‘sexy times in a cell with certain danger all about’ in Soulless a bit much.