I did not learn about sex from romance novels, thank God, but I know a lot of women who (at least partially) did. I was fortunate enough to have a mother who treated sex in a completely matter of fact way–it was part of being an adult and there was no shame involved in discussing it. As a result, even at the tender age of fifteen I approached romance novel sex with some skepticism. When I first started reading romance the sex scenes were the sort of vague, purple-prose laden encounters that involved a lot of shattering into a million tiny pieces, flying apart into the sun, or the shimmering of colors behind closed eyelids. Basically it sounded a lot like a stroke and/or an acid trip. And the orgasms were always simultaneous.
Now there are as many different types of sex scenes as there are romance novels. Variety is a good thing, usually. But for every delicious Victoria Dahl or Maisey Yates bearded cowboy love-scene, there’s also a sex scene out there that is either improbable, anatomically impossible or horrifically painful to think about. Below are the Big Ten things I hate in sex scenes. Brace yourself. And, obviously, this review contains strong language and adult situations and all that shit.
1. Velvet Covered Steel
No, that’s not a name for a Glam Metal band. It’s the description of every hero’s erection ever. It’s not bad, I’m just sick of reading it
2. Sex On a Horse
What the actual fuck, people. I read this a lot in Old Skool romances. I actually remember reading a book where the horse was “frightened by the scent of their lovemaking.” I wish I could remember which book, but I don’t. Now, I agree that plenty of fondling or even a Handy-J could occur while on horseback, but actual intercourse? That is the most chill horse ever. Every horse I’ve ever ridden has waited for me to stop paying attention to try and brush me against a tree or something.
Plus how does that work? You’d have to a Russian gymnast and a trick rider to contort your body enough to stay on the horse and achieve penetration. And then you’d have to move. If I was a horse, I would not put up with that shit.
3. The Chinese Finger Trap
This is when the hero’s peen is so goddamned big he has to work to get inside the heroine, then once he is in, the magical vadge doesn’t want to let go. Example from The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning (which is actually a great book, BTW):
“Easy, Gabrielle. Relax,” he gritted.
She tried, but she couldn’t; it was instinctive to resist, and they waged a silent sexual battle for a few moments, where he hardly gained another inch. Her muscles were bearing down on him, resisting his steely intrusion.
He sucked in a hissing breath through clenched teeth. “Gabrielle, you’re killing me; you have to let me in.”
“I’m trying,” she wailed.
I know there are fetishes about putting really large things inside vaginas, but I would think that in course of regular intercourse, if you have to fight to get the penis in, it’s going to hurt. When I read the above passage and she instinctively resisted, I assumed that instinct was born of pain. If you need a shoehorn and a bottle of Wesson Oil to get down to business, then as a reader, I’m cringing.
4. Gushing, Weeping and Seeping
Anytime the heroine is doing one of these three things I assume she’s got some sort of infection going on. Enough said.
5. Womb Clenching
The heroine is having SO MUCH FUN her womb is clenching. Now, to be fair, the uterus contracts during orgasm, so technically womb clenching is going on. But every time I read that her womb is clenching I think she’s having a menstrual cramp or a contraction. I mean, “clench” has such negative connotations. You clench your fists, your teeth, your butt cheeks. Why is her womb clenching? Is it angry?
6. This Sentence:
His fingers drifted over [her breasts] again, gently scissoring her nipples. (The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain by Julia James).
You know what two words NEVER belong in a sentence together? Nipples and scissors.
7. Easy-A
And that A stands for anal. Anal is like the new virginity in contemporaries. The heroine has likely had sexual partners by the time she’s met the hero, but she’s never had anal. And he’s going to go where no man has gone before. That’s not the part that pisses me off.
The part that pisses me off is that the heroine has enjoyable anal sex without any preparation or, occasionally, lubricant. The hero magically gets his whole wang in there without causing her any discomfort or pain because he strokes her clit or something like that. Along with misplaced hymens, romance novel heroines are apparently born with very loose sphincter muscles.
8. The Third Arm
No, I’m not making a penis reference here. This is when the hero and heroine are getting it on missionary style and he reaches down to rub her clitoris while still keeping himself propped up over her and gently stroking her cheek.
Wait, what?
Or sometimes (especially in Old Skools) he wipes her tears away with both his thumbs while again, staying propped up on top of her.
Either he’s got a friend hiding behind the curtains on the canopy bed, sneaking in to help a bro out or he’s got the most amazing ab muscles ever. He can do a plank without his arms, motherfucker. Now that’s a hero.
9. Three’s a Crowd
I’ve read my fair share of menage scenes. I’m always amazed when the heroine has sex with two dudes for the first time and no one falls down, tips over, or slips out. Double penetration is apparently only slightly harder than anal for a newcomer (hur hur). And how is it that when she’s with two different dudes (maybe even three) the dudes never touch.
I’m thinking specifically of the Maya Banks’ Colter series. The Colter brothers share a woman, and engage in four-way sex with her, but they never ever touch because that would incest, I guess. C’mon. Someone is going to brush a thigh or suddenly get a handful of his brother’s balls. It’s just going to happen.
And my all time least favorite?
10. Cervical Penetration
The hero’s wang is so amazingly big that the heroine can “feel him in her womb.” Well I fucking hope not. For that to happen he’d have to push through the cervix and anyone who has had an IUD placed can tell you that you don’t want anything pushing through your cervix. I’m breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it. Here’s a passage from Passion by Lisa Valdez that will induce a PTSD flashback in anyone who has Mirena IUD:
On a low moan, her cunt began to draw. With the first strong, sucking pull, Mark bore down with all his strength, grinding the swollen head of his cock against the opening to her womb.
There are so many, many things wrong here.
1. It’s a vagina, not an octopus. It’s not drawing or sucking anything into it’s maw.
2. Is the vagina moaning? Because grammatically, it is.
3. YOU DON’T WANT ANYTHING PUSHING INTO THE OPENING OF YOUR WOMB. At this point the heroine should be screaming in pain or least saying “FUCK!” really loudly, and not in the good way.
Passion also contains the following passage:
He choked back a groan and bit into her pale shoulder as he thrust against the tight, tilting fingers of flesh that protected Passion’s womb.
I’ve checked. There are no fingers growing out of my cervix. If there were, I’d be in the ER right now breathing into a paper bag. Also, are cervix fingers like chicken fingers?
So what about you? What drives you nuts about romance novel sex in the not-so-good way?
I hate worn out phrases that seem obligatory in sex scenes to too many writers. Curves “in all the right places,” oral sex where she drains his “every last drop,” climaxes that ignite “colors behind her eyelids.”
Hackneyed references pull me right out of the moment the same way that phone numbers beginning “555” ruin movies and TV shows. It has to be a mighty good story to keep me reading after one of those.
Thanks for such an awesome, hilarious and so true post. I don’t even know where I’d begin with things that I hate about sex in books and truthfully you hit all the doozies so I’ll leave it at that. Again thanks for sharing.
This is for Romsfuulynn! The Hero in Escorted by Claire Kent uses a dental dam for oral sex. She is paying him to get rid of her pesky virginity and its actually a really good book. Really! Also, If no one mentioned it I DO remember sex on a horse in an old Laura Kinsale novel. The one with the deaf Hero I think. Prince of Midnight. I also think Johanna Lindsey did it in Savage Thunder. I’m abashed that I can remember these and apologize if someone posted any above since I haven’t read all the comments!
I just remembered another one. I hate it when the virginal heroines from historicals think they know all about sex because they’ve seen animals going at each other and don’t automatically assume this means anal because every time i’ve seen animals it has always been from behind. It drives me crazy that they know it isn’t like that even if that’s all they supposedly know of sex.
I’ve never read a sex on a horse scene, but Candace Camp used foreplay on the horse in at least two books in the same series. In Secrets of the Heart, the hero and heroine are blindfolded by a highwayman and being led on a horse to the thief’s lair. Instead of worrying what he might do to them, they’re arousing each other. There’s more horseplay in No Other Love, which is the highwayman’s book. In another one of her books (can’t remember the title), the heroine is sitting on the horse and getting aroused by the feel of the horse moving. Uh, what now? That can’t be normal.
I also hate reading about people having sex outside, up against a brick wall, especially when people can possibly see. Karen Rose and Victoria Dahl both did that, and I believe in the Rose book, someone was murdered outside where they were having sex (albeit not as it was happening, but within a few hours or so). At least in Dahl’s book, they were in some sort of closed of courtyard, so people wandering in was less likely.
Omg!!! I have never laughed so hard!!!! You are absolutely right. I used to wonder where the shining lights were during an orgasm and whats with somefolks passing out!!!! You guys are so right!!!! Lmao!!!! How do you have a menage without something touching! And some of the positions would probably break some bones if youre not limber. Please give me a realistic sex scene any day!!! Llololol
I find it especially annoying that once the “deposit” had been made the chick just goes on about her business like there isn’t junk dripping out of her. That shit does not stay put people! Not a comfortable feeling AT ALL. In some scenes they go at it again with no clean-up…that’s funky as he’ll!
I tend to just skim a lot of the sex scenes because, so often, they do very little to advance the plot. OTOH, there are stories where they talk during sex and it makes sense and adds to the character growth.
I also have a hard time with hygiene issues. I remember when I was much younger reading an otherwise interesting book (I should ask the bitchery to remember the title, set in and around the British experience in India) where, the second or third time they meet, the H tips the h back on the bed, flips her skirts up over her head, and goes down on her. All I could think was, dude, she hasn’t bathed in weeks.
And towels, who said towels? They certainly are needed. Or wash rags. Or baby wipes (unscented, please). And I spend at least some of my professional life telling teen girls they have to get up and pee after sex. Please. Just do it. If he gets “pissy” about it, you can do better.
Oh, and I, too, have a Mirena. After the speculum bounced off the wall, narrowly missing my OBGyn’s head, she sent me home to take a big dose of Valium before returning. Still not sure how I am going to get that thing taken out.
This has got to be the most freakin’ laughing out loud thing I have ever read! The original post was hilarious and spun off so many comments that I’m still LOLing! I was laughing so hard that both my dogs AND my husband were sending inquiring looks my way! First of all, I wasn’t even going to TRY to explain it to the dogs… but the hubby! Oh hell no!! He just wouldn’t get it… So I gave him my standard “laughing at jokes” line… 🙂
Thank you so much, y’all, for some of the most entertaining hours of my day!
I just love it when these people repeatedly go at it in the bed with fluids a-flying and no one ever fights over who sleeps in the wet spot. Where is the sex towel?
Hysterical post and great comments.
I’m a word person myself, but the current cliches for anatomy and action don’t bother me as much as horrible grammar, style and sentence structure. Not strictly sexual, but irritating none the less. Frankly, the slanting, velvet over steel, laving, pebbled or ruched nipples just make me smirk. Then there’s all the hands fisted in hair or shirts or lapels, as well as people who grit out their emotions in either passion or anger. I do become irritated by the abuse of parallel construction as a means of conveying ramped up intensity. Everybody seems to do this. It is never enough to simply kiss a body part; it has to be licked, laved and sucked or touched, tickled, and tasted. It makes me think of Norma in Victor/Victoria: “With you it’s like… pow, pow, pow, like the fourth of July, every time!” One pow is never enough, I guess.
Also, it isn’t only virgins who don’t achieve orgasms during every first encounter. Does no one in these books ever get distracted by circumstances? Arousal is always mutual and instant and overcomes all discomforts? Never mind bugs and sand, I recently read a first encounter (not virginal) in which the couple was outdoors in the snow giving one another hand jobs. All I could think of was ooh, ooh, ooh, cold hands, cold hands! But they, hot-blooded young things that they were, just didn’t care. Then, all I could think was how can you do that without gushing all over yourself and, eeewww, isn’t that stuff going to freeze all over your high performance cold weather gear? And, of course, no one back at the lodge is going to notice that….
Oh, yeah, and how about the regency couple who sneak off to the library or the conservatory during a ball, enjoy a bit of the old in-and-out, return to the ball immediately after, and no one notices that they’re a mite whiffy in a very specific way.
Another annoying thing: The man who can climax (either from sex or fellatio) then get it up and climax again in a few seconds. Even the best of us need 5 or 10 minutes to recharge, and a half hour or more is pretty common for guys. So the “I’ll be good to go again as soon as I finish this sentence” is ridiculous. Would make for an interesting MYTHBUSTERS…
As for the earlier question about whether men prefer virgins, it depends on the man. Some guys like virgins, either for the supposed tightness, the alpha male-ness of being the first, or always being her first. (The movie KIDS had a very dark take on this.) Other men like women who have more sexual experience, as they are more likely to know what they like, what he would like, and there’s no pressure from it being her first time. Personally, I prefer experience.
One reason one might have sex on a horse is that, difficult as it is, it’s preferable to having sex in the sand with the ants and rocks and scorpions and rattlesnakes and cactus and so forth.
Not that I would know anything about this personally, you understand 😀
I haven’t laughed this hard in a very long time. I was afraid I was going to wake the family up. I have become rather tired of all the descriptions and goings on. As some others have commented, we know what is going on and what happens. I don’t need a 10 page description of an encounter. In this case, less is more. My reaction shouldn’t be boredom with the passage or ewww. It is sad when I start skipping pages because “who cares” lets get on with the story. I am often to the point of “get a room and shut the door.” We know what is going on and don’t have to watch. How about less sex and more character development and story.
Thanks for the post. I enjoyed it and the comments that followed.
There are many words for a clit, but ‘nub’ and ‘mound’ should be outlawed! When I read mound…I think of dirt. Look, there’s a Mound of dirt. When I read Nub….I think of missing fingers. Shit, I cut my finger off and now I’m left with a nub.
Triangle of curls? Please, Don’t! You could just call it your penis garden. And your Vag could be your ‘Weapon Storage Area’ since it only accommodates ‘Big Guns’. Hey, I’m down.
#7- Don’t think for a minute that a little spit and a little juice spread is gonna be enough for the elephant dong to penatrate that ‘tight puckered hole’!! And tight puckered hole? No, Let’s call it… the Entrance to the Underworld. Lol
I’ve asked several times why all the heroes have to be huge. And someone pointed out we wouldn’t want to read “Honey, I just love your tiny package”
Well, okay but how about a happy medium?
And what did happen to love scenes mirroring the characters? JAK was great at this: if the hero flew in a glider, or the heroine maybe danced, then “the moment” was like the ultimate in their pastime.
A bit more in the rant…do not, please do not think there is anything remotely appealing about sex on a stack of hay. That stuff gets into every possible opening. At least use straw (marks off to the authors who bed horses down in fresh hay so the couple can go at it. Horses eat hay, it’s too expensive to bed stalls)
@romsfuulynn Darlin’, write those checks! I wrote a romance (book two in the series) where the heroine uses a condom during oral on the hero, not once but for quite a bit of time because they find the unique way she applies it, sexy. Plus, it’s for birth control in addition to avoiding STDs. And also in Escorted by Claire Kent, dental dam is used. Both acts are sexy.
It always amazes me that the happy couple orgasm not very long after penetration (almost always mutually of course). I don’t now about you, but I’d feel mightily ripped off if red-hot mindblowing sex only lasted a minute or two. I understand they’re both gagging for it the first time but … surely if it’s THAT good you want it to last?
This amused me greatly, I got a big laugh out of this. I love romance books like the next person but recently I have found myself skimming through the sex scenes to get to the rest of the story. Some of them are so repetitive your just like, enough already. There have been a few authors that I like that do great sex scenes and always keep me on my toes and interested. Every once in awhile I will come across something new that I haven’t read before but it’s really rare. Lauren Dare is one of my favorites as well as Laurell K. Hamilton. I say her because it’s not all about sex, she goes into the emotions and her characters actually talk about things before they do stuff. If during sex they come across something they don’t like they speak up and say “stop” or “that hurts”, which I love because communication is key.
I’m am always wondering where the clean up towel is too in some books I read, you just finished and instead of washing off or taking a shower you get up, get dressed and continue with your day…..um ew and hell no. That is just nasty in so many ways, I have never understood that. Them you have the one’s who do morning sex, um at least let me get up and wash my teeth and go to the bathroom first, thank. This post hit on some very good topics that have bothered me for years. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was bothered.
Lauren Dane
You guys are all so funny! I’ve seen most of these situations, unfortunately. Here’s one that made me groan with pain, even though I loved the book and it’s by Eloisa James, who’s one of my favorite authors. The heroine went to visit her man in Newgate Prison the night before he was supposed to be hung. He’s been in there about a month so you can imagine how he SMELLS and the brutish guards are right outside the door. But they get it on all night long. So that goes under the smelly body category times like, 200! And don’t tell me those guards aren’t going to peek. Ewwwww!
Thank you so much for this hilarious post and the comments. Tea went every where, tears streaming down my face. Hubby thought I was having a heart attack, even the cat looked worried. LOL
There is nothing worse than reading a “hot” sex scene and thinking ‘Is that position physically possible?’ Many times I have had to go up in the attic & get two dolls out of the old toy box only to discover that in the position described he would have been shoving it in her ear!
I hate the Anal sex scenes where she is an Anal virgin. They are always 1 finger, 2 fingers, c**k, all in the space of about 5 minutes. As anyone who enjoys Anal knows it can take hours, days, even weeks of prep before Anal is possible without serious pain.
I also hate the Oral where he/she ALWAYS loves the taste, if you have given a B/J to anyone who has eaten onions, garlic or curry you will know what I mean. EEEEWWW
But if you authors really want to put me off your books then have your H/h change sex in the middle of a steamy sex scene; ‘He pushed her fingers into his hot c**t.’ Or ‘She slid her hard c**k into her hot mouth.’ I know we all make typos but please authors read through your story occasionally. 🙂
Thanks for the laugh.
Brilliant. Truly brilliant.
My pet hate is when the hero growls ‘come for me.’ Magically she does three seconds later. I’ve never read where a woman utters that phrase. I’ve read a couple where the man had the staying power of a herd of randy buffalo and I’m yelling. “Honey it’s been an hour. Somethings up with them purple pills. I think he needs a trip to the ER.”
I’m not a fan of ‘Percy the Purple Love Muscle’ or the ‘Womb Broom’ making an appearance on the page. Don’t get me started on ‘Honey Pots’ or her ‘Garden of Eden’.
What I’ve got a a bromeliad and a bunch of daffodils going on?
I’m another one who thinks that, among all terms for the humble clitoris, “core” has got to be one of the worst. I recently found a f/f scene that read “their cores rubbed together”—there is just something not-erotic about that choice of words.
Oh yeah, and there’s a collection of lesbian erotica titled Bushfire. No fires in that region of the anatomy please, for Heaven’s sake!
Yes to “slanted his lips”! It is everywhere all of a sudden.
But my biggest, most womb-clenching cringe, is when the H slides a finger or two into her tight wet passage—right after he’s been grooming his horse or mucking out stalls or getting his hands dirty in some other manly way. Dude, please, if I wouldn’t put it in my mouth there is no way I’m letting it into my hot slick tunnel of love!
Thanks for the great entertainment, I loved it all.
But, as a 5’ woman married to a 6’2” man, all I can say is that it is possible to lave a puckered nipple while the sword of manhood is sheathed in the fleshy scabbard. Maybe the plump globes have to be ample, but it can be done. Just sayin’ 🙂
I’m totally over heroes who growl all the time (unless they are shapeshifters, I suppose). And I’m another who dislikes the virgin having an orgasm with no effort the first time.
I do think it would be difficult to think of different synonyms for body parts though. Too much use of ‘correct’ terms can be a bit clinical.
Marirra said: “May I add to the list the everpresent “wire, that snapped in her belly”? Why do so many women have wires in their stomaches? I mean, I have been studying medicine for some years and have never heard of it. Should I ask my anatomy professor about it?”
Maybe they’re suffering some sort of IUD malfunction…?
I don’t read a lot of romance novels but the thing that gets me in any sex scene, regardless of genre, is the disembodied body part.
“His hand moved up her back, fingers gently brushing her neck under the soft fall of her hair.”
Makes me think of Thing from The Addams Family. [shudder]
HILARIOUS but sooo hits it on the nail!! My pet peeve is the H/h who fall immediately into bed after knowing each other for 5 minutes and immediately proceed to “lave” ALL of eaxh others body parts…including toes!! You just met this person for cripes sake. How do you know how long its been since they had a shower/bath or even changed their socks!
just read a passage in a vampire book where H walked in on h in the bathroom and she was shavin her “nether lips” he scares her, sh jumps and cuts said lips with razor which immediately incites his blood lust and he bites said nether lips! Seriously Dude? You don’t mind a little loose hair and shaving cream with your blood?? You couldn’t hold your hunger long enough to rinse that puppy off?? All I can say is eeuww! Just ew!!
Too funny! I admit that after the fourth or fifth sex scene, I start skimming. I get it. They’re into each others body. God, that’s an awful pun.
I stick to mainly historical because the sex isn’t too graphic. (Although often stupid in the ways mentioned above.) Without getting too specific, sex—vaginal or anal—that is not consensual is painful, degrading, and memorable in an awful way. Thanks for the nighttime flashbacks.
The other thing that gets just boring is the sex scene in the mirror.
And baths in 15th, 16th, etc century were small. And yet the hero and heroine have plenty of room. Now there’s Regency bathtubs with hotsprings. It’s fiction. Yes, it’s fiction.
@kath. I’m with y’all on the hygiene thing. I used to wonder about that for me personally its messy as hell and some of the heroines get up and go like nothing is coming out. Where is the shower before and the towel after. I quite agree with someone who said they meet and after 5 min they’re getting it on. They are licking bits that have been sweating and trapped in fabric all day!!! Just ewwww!!! I have been laughing all morning at all that comments. I some of the positions I have to Google cause they’re impossible. I think if I try it I will hurt something irreparable. Anybody else like to be comfortable getting it on instead of outside where the mosquitos are or some other weird place???? Lol
One major turn-off that I encountered—a turn off because it is seriously unsafe: vaginal sex only a couple weeks after childbirth.
I’ve forgotten the author at fault, but that book got put in recycling, rather than the donate pile. I didn’t want some sweet young girl reading it, and thinking that her doctor might be wrong.
I laughed so hard I cried. This was by far THE best erotica blog I have ever, EVER read!
Oh, God, this is a wonderful blog.
Uh yeah, hey buddy. I’m gonna need you to come over to my girlfriends house about 8:00. Why? Dude! I don’t have enough arms and my abs ain’t that strong. I’m gonna need you to prop me up while I’m sexing and touching my woman. Ok? But don’t touch my ass or balls, cause that would be weird. We cool?
Personally I get tired of every, single, freakin’ hero finding the “G” spot right out of the gate! All he has to do is “hook” his finger and bam! he’s got it. I mean WTF!! Just sayin’…..
Worst thing I EVER read was “He bathed her with his love cream.” I think I threw up a lot with that one.
Here’s a few peeves:
Heavy breasts. Do your breasts feel HEAVY when you’re aroused?
Copious natural lubrication: female juices running down her legs or some such crap, and male pre-cum (like you I think infection).
Orgasmic releasing of her cream. Dude if there’s “cream” when someone cums, you’re with another dude or someone has an infection.
You covered it pretty well. And I was laughing really hard, so hard that my tears flowed down into my heavy breasts with their pebbled nipples.
But the funniest ever have been typos so that’s not really fair. (won ton for wanton).
Hilarious. My peeve is the word cunt. It should just be banned. No woman gets wet over a man asking to pound her cunt. Ick. Second in line is why are none of these women the slightest bit plump? No rolls to contend with, no back fat a concern during anal. I mean honestly?!
LOL…okay, I’m guilty of clenching wombs, but i liked it when I wrote it and didn’t imagine your connotation even once until I read your article :p cheers, Cheryl
I am giggling madly at this post and the comments. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who reads some of this stuff and thinks that I must be some kind of sexual moron because it just doesn’t work that way for me in real life!!
My pet peeve is not only the virgins who automatically orgasm the first time without any effort at all, but all heroines who seem to find it easy to climax in five minutes in the missionary position without any particular effort from the hero, who is just on top banging away. Really? Everything I’ve read suggests that most women need more stimulation than that… I think??
Very few authors have successfully written menage scenes that I can read without completely distancing myself from the moment, thinking, “OK, now tab A is going to be inserted into slot B, now the other Tab A goes in some other slot B”.
The best sex scenes I read are the ones which read more like real life (someone’s elbow hits the other person while they switch position, the participants actually talk to each other or laugh or something, they have to stop to put on the condom and then get back in the mood, etc.). Also, where the emotions are intense and the sex seems to flow from the emotional intensity that the author is creating…
Thanks for a great laugh!
And for the critics of the word “laved” (a word which I also hate) and the previous poster who said that it was associated in her mind with “lathed”, I did read at least one book, and maybe more than one, where the author actually used the word “lathed” instead. All I could think was “OWWW”.