Ask and ye shall receive!
Earlier, we posted a Guest Rant on slut shaming and we’re loving all the comments we’ve received so far. If you haven’t read them yet, I definitely recommend it! Because of all the awesome books mentioned, Reader Jazzlet suggested a post to compile suggested sex positive romances, and we’ll look for any excuse to connect readers with more books!
Below is a list of specific books mentioned that have aspects of sex positivity:
Wild Child by Molly O’Keefe
Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney Milan
Extreme Exposure by Pamela Clare
Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl
Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren
A Gentleman in the Street by Alisha Rai
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Built by Jay Crownover
The Ivy Years series by Sarina Bowen
Act Like It by Lucy Parker
Twice Tempted by a Rogue by Tessa Dare
Neighborly Affection series by M.Q. Barber
Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction
What other books would you recommend? The more the merrier!
By request, since we can’t link to every book you mention in the comments, here are bookstore links that help support the site with your purchases. Most of them are affiliate linked with the exception of Google:Play. If you use them, thank you so much, and if you’d prefer not to, no worries! We are always glad you’re here hanging out with us and giving us more reasons to add to our TBR pile.
Eloisa James sometimes has a virgin or near-virgin hero, and occasionally a sexually experienced heroine. She does, however, fall into the terrible habit of having her virginal heroines, when first confronted with the sight of the hero’s straining manhood, talk about how big it is and how it won’t fit. Is it weird that I just want to read a damn romance novel with a hero with a small to average sized cock?
Robin D Owens Celta series features a society where a percentage of the population has a perfect heart mate but even those lucky enough to locate that mate come to the relationship already sexually experienced. In one of the books a family takes in the orphaned infant neice of the husbands ex lover until she can return home and the meeting between ex lover and wife is not where the drama in the meeting occurs.
First, let me note that I generally skim past “the kissing parts” of books. I’m just weird like that. But it doesn’t stop me from reading books with boinking if the story is very good. (It bothers me a little less in recent years, now that I am no longer sharing books with my grandmother.)
Despite that, I love Courtney Milan, and Joanna Bourne’s Spymaster series, and has no one mentioned Teresa/Tracy Grant? I loved the Lescaut Quartet–I don’t think any of the heroines in that series were virgins–in fact, one was pregnant at the start of the book.
And I’ll second Madeline Robin’s Temperance series. And anything by Ellen Kushner.
Mostly, I just like female characters with agency (ie I want the heroine to rescue herself), and I think that those kinds of women are more likely to have sexually healthy ideals.
I (literally) just finished Margaret McPhee’s Mistress to the Marquis. The heroine is an illiterate Irish actress who was formerly a prostitute (for real), and the book begins with the aristocratic hero ending their relationship after six months because he needs to find a wife. It does make concessions to genre expectations, but surprisingly few. The heroine was awesome; the book doesn’t gloss over the social rules of the times, but never portrays the heroine or her friends (most of whom are prostitutes) unsympathetically; there are plenty of strong female friendships… it’s intense and heart-breaking, and I’ve never read anything else quite like it, especially not from a traditionally-published author.
Thank you Amanda and all the commenters, the Bitchery ROCK!! I like romance, but have ended up not finishng so many books because of things like slut shaming that I had almost given up on the genre, so you are all saving my genre reading if not my purse!
Stop it! Stop giving all these suggestions! Stop adding to my TBR list!
::Hysterical laughter. Adds books on goodreads, checks library, checks amazon::
Since someone mentioned Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder, I thought the whole story of the heroine’s younger sister was pretty great — what starts out for her as a disastrous collision with her era’s attitudes is worked through thoroughly and positively.
My reading list just got much longer…
Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear series deserves mention. In A Gentleman Undone, the heroine is another man’s mistress for much of the book. She enjoys her sexual relationship with him and likes sex in general, but there’s no magical p/v trope. Her sexual experiences are varied both emotionally and physically. It’s also a smexy historical without aristo leads and with an alpha/beta hero who, while an upright guy, is not quite as smart, inventive, or resilient as the heroine. Catnip all around.
Late to join in, but I just finished reading The Companion Contract by Solace Ames. The heroine is a porn star, and the hero is a rock star guitarist who hires her to sort of act as a sober companion to his newly-sober singer, mostly by distracting him with sex. She likes having sex most of the time, she’s not ashamed of that, she’s never slut-shamed by any of the people in or associated with the band, but the book still acknowledges the complexity of emotions in the situation, around sex and expectations about sex and sex work, and also around sobriety and family and a bunch of other stuff. A lot of it was fascinating.
Note: Some BDSM, so if that’s not your cup of tea…
I know lots of people ar recommending Victoria Dahl but I stopped reading her in rage after the book about the sex shop owner who was actually really iinexperienced (a trope Lauren, I think, mentioned in the previous thread). I was particularly incensed because I was so excited and relieved to be reading about a sex positive, sexually experienced sex shop owner for a change… Only I was reading about the 21st century equivalent of the virgin widow. [The only time that was done well was Heyer’s Reluctant Widow. Once, just that once.]
I seem to recall Emma Locke’s historical series – the Naughty Girls – as being sex-positive. The first two feature courtesan heroines, and I especially liked the second one (The problem with seduction), which is about the hero’s need to prove himself worthy and not about the heroine’s need to … be anything other than who she is! I actually find the valorising of virginity in many romance novels a little tedious after a while, and similarly where women feel bad about having a sexual history (which seems to be the other common trope). I love the opening scenes of Victoria Dahl’s A Little Bit Wild for this reason; sometimes sex is just meh, which makes the electric sex so fabulous!
@Katrina: I believe that the book you’re referring to is Real Men Will, and I really disagree with your characterization of it. Beth was not inexperienced, or the equivalent of a virgin widow; she wasn’t particularly adventurous sexually, and was uncomfortable with being viewed as though she had all the answers when it came to sex. She’d also been slut-shamed at a young age, and it affected her ability to trust people – but it didn’t not make her stop having sex, which I think your post kind of implies. I thought that Dahl did a good job portraying the process Beth went through in trying to be more honest about what she wanted and who she was.
I definitely consider Dahl sex-positive, because her message is clearly that nobody should ever be ashamed of who they are and what they want sexually – no matter what that is, or what they have experienced, or what others might think of them. To me, being sex-positive isn’t about who can write more sexually experienced and open characters (though Dahl has done that, too); it’s about writing a variety of characters and sending a positive message regarding different sexual preferences, orientations and desires. Sometimes that means accepting that someone isn’t all that adventurous sexually. Even if that person manages a sex store.
“I read “His Wicked Reputation” by Madeline Hunter last year and it was very sex positive.”
Madeline Hunter is one of the few authors who manages to write historical romance that has accurate attitudes and manners for the era, without shaming women. That is why she is a favourite for me.
“She does, however, fall into the terrible habit of having her virginal heroines, when first confronted with the sight of the hero’s straining manhood, talk about how big it is and how it won’t fit. Is it weird that I just want to read a damn romance novel with a hero with a small to average sized cock?”
What I want to read is a book where she sees it and thinks: “Right. So that’s what a straining manhood looks like. Lovely. Well, let us get on with the wedding night job.”
Why would a Regency virgin ever be comparing size, for God’s sake? She wouldn’t have a freaking clue what is normal or otherwise.
@Sonya Heaney
I have a vague memory (perhaps dreamed or imagined) of a heroine raised on a farm being pleasantly surprised when she first saw the hero naked.
If I imagined that, then someone should go write that bit.
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