Once in a Lube Moon: Why We Need More Lube in Romance

I love lube. It is an oft-overlooked and quite versatile tool in erotic life. In my not-at-all-humble opinion, it is one of the simplest and most straightforward ways to improve the experience of vaginal penetration. Unfortunately, I don’t think romance loves lube nearly as much as I do.

Recently, in a very un-scientific experiment, I searched through my extensive, romance-dominated Kindle library to see how many books mentioned the use of lube during sex. I searched for “lube,” “lubricant,” and “oil” and paged through the results to see which ones were sex-relevant.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the only mentions of using any kind of lube during sex were for anal penetration. No lubricants or oils or other friction-reducing agents were mentioned in the context of vaginal penetration.

The books in my collection cover such diverse acts as role-play, bondage, domination and submission, spanking and other pain play, voyeurism, menages, orgies and play parties, mutual masturbation, literal sex magic, analingus, and sex on a church altar (thanks, Sierra Simone!). There are occasionally dildos and sometimes condoms (I could write an entirely different post on the woeful state of birth control and STI protection in romance, but that’s a little out of scope for now).

But no lube, except for during anal.

In a genre that often prides itself on its emphasis on (mostly cisgendered, most heterosexual) women’s sexual pleasure, I am troubled by the general lack of lube in romance sex scenes, and I am about to outline exactly why. Consider this my lube manifesto.

(Note before we proceed: this post focuses primarily on cisgender man-cisgender woman pairings within romance both because that is both what remains most common and that is what I have the most reading experience with. It is definitely possible that queer romance is ahead of the curve in this regard. In fact, I would love to hear from anyone who has a sense of this in the comments!)

Somehow, romance heroines never seem to be dry. Often it only takes the touch of the hero’s hand or his breath on her neck for a heroine to experience a sudden wetness between her legs. When I searched my Kindle library for “slick,” I got hundreds of hits, most of them describing how drenched with arousal a woman was. Lots of heroes feel the heroine’s wetness and say something satisfied about how ready she is. Sometimes, particularly among established lovers in a novel, she’s so ready after a few kisses that foreplay can be dispensed with.

But the trouble is, from a science perspective, a lot of us folks with vaginas just don’t get that wet (certainly not wet enough to have foreplay-less, lube-less quickies with penetration). This can be for a number of reasons. One major one is arousal nonconcordance, namely, that there is on average only a 10% overlap between what a cisgender woman’s genitals are doing and how sexually aroused she reports feeling. It’s not terribly uncommon, then, for a woman to feel really aroused and hot and bothered and to not be wet enough for comfortable vaginal intercourse even if that’s what she wants. 

Also, decreased vaginal lubrication is a known side effect of hormonal birth control, and, hey, a lot of people who can get pregnant are on that these days! It’s also a known consequence of menopause, another thing a lot of romance readers are familiar with! Basically, if you have a vagina, while it’s perfectly normal to have your own personal Niagara Falls between your thighs when you are interested in sex, it’s also perfectly normal to…not get that wet. (It’s also normal to get wet when you are actually not interested in sex, but I’m focusing specifically on enthusiastically consensual sex encounters on the page here.)

In considering the preponderance of naturally slippery vulvas and vaginas in romance, I’m reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s famous Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story.” In it, she describes how having one predominating narrative of a culture, or a person, is dangerously reductive. I would extend this logic to our sexual scripts. If we only see a limited number of representations of sexual encounters, we believe that those few stories represent what is normal and correct. Deviation from those narrative depictions can easily become a source of confusion, anxiety, and/or shame. 

This is not to say that the predominating story of sex in romance novels is bad; if it was, I wouldn’t read them. I think the romance genre as it stands now does a great job of emphasizing that cisgender female sexual pleasure is important in a sexual relationship, and that partners must care about it–or else you can throw the whole man away! I feel good about the fact that the genre emphasizes the primacy of oral sex and manual stimulation as tools for female sexual pleasure. There’s nothing sexier than reading about a partner getting turned on and/or genuinely enjoying giving a female-bodied partner pleasure, and romance is chock full of that! I also think romance shows that there is incredible diversity in what erotic acts people enjoy, and that this diversity is a cool and neat thing.

These things are all awesome, but they do not really help with the fact that the primary narrative of female arousal + vaginal penetration in romance novels is that an aroused woman will be dripping wet and ergo not need lube if she’s “ready.” In fact, the existence of lube is rarely even acknowledged. If she’s not wet enough, the logic seems to be, the man hasn’t done enough. Conversely, if she is wet enough for penetration, it’s probably fine to just skip ahead to that.

I worry that this predominating story reinforces the already-prevalent idea that using lube is somehow “cheating,” or that it means your body works wrong, or your partner is not doing enough to turn you on. The lack of lube in romance novels shows a strange gap in our collective erotic imagination, when lube is used to enhance eroticism in plenty of real-life bedrooms. Although not as many bedrooms as I would like! The truth is that the lack of lube in romance is probably a symptom of lingering stigma associated with lube in general. But the absence of lube use from the pages of our sexiest literature only reinforces the stigma by implicitly painting it as totally unnecessary for mutually enjoyable penetrative sex between the “right” couple pairing.

I also worry that the emphasis on female pleasure in some heterosexual romance novels becomes nothing more than a way prove the masculine prowess of the hero. This is an especially common problem when the heroine has had previous sexual partners; even if she’s been in love with a man before, she never seems to have had particularly explosive sex with him. The hero’s ability to “make” her wet and “make” her come then becomes some kind of proof that he is a better man than the previous one(s).

In real life, the idea that it’s a man’s MANLY responsibility to give his partner orgasms can create a lot of pressure for women to orgasm “for” masculine partners, which makes the orgasm even more elusive. The inclusion of lube in romance novels would at least help suggest that attentive and caring men who want to give pleasure aren’t deficient if their partners don’t invariably turn into Slip-n-Slides in response to their attentions.

I want to read about heroes lovingly using lube on heroines who are experiencing vaginal penetration for the first time. I want couples in romance who are both ready for a quickie to pull out the Liquid Silk (a great lube, PS). I want well-endowed and condom-wearing cisgender men to proactively offer to lube up to increase partner comfort. I want established couples to be shown using lube as a part of their sexual routine. I want more lube in romance, which means I want more conversations in romance during sex about what partners want, not what their bodies “say” they want. 

Come as You Are
A | BN | K | AB
Sure, there is an element of fantasy in romance. But the realm of fantasy should be accessible to the full spectrum of human diversity, and I think the lack of lube in romance closes off part of that fantasy to a lot of people. To normalize the use of lube in erotic life, we have to create narratives where lube itself is part of the erotic encounter.

This has been my lube manifesto, y’all. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

P.S.: if you are interested in how anatomy, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience all interact in a very concrete, hands-on way to create your personal sexual experience, I cannot recommend Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski highly enough.

P.P.S: If you have any recommendations for books that feature the use of lube in a vaginal penetration context, drop ‘em in the comments!

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  1. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I do think lube usage (there’s a phrase) is much more common in m/m romances. It seems to be a standard part of the repertoire (at least in the ones I’ve read). Based on my reading, lube for anything other than anal in m/f romances is rare—so rare, in fact, that I remember being surprised by its use for regular p-in-v sex by the hero & heroine in Cara McKenna’s WILLING VICTIM/BRUTAL GAME.

    /and thus begins my Monday…posting about lube.

  2. Lynn says:

    I support this manifesto holeheartedly. The lack of lube is not only a problem in romance novels but also in sex education classes in my opinion. I wish teachers would spend half as much time talking about lube (and how/where/when to apply it) as they do talking about boners and how they happen. I’m sure a lot of first times would be less painful if they did. I know mine would have been. It seems like even in fiction some topics still feel taboo to people and I hope discussions like this will help change that.

  3. Sarah Cords says:

    AMEN SISTER! I read a lot of romance before I was sexually active, and it would have been SO helpful to read about the wonders of lube. Nobody else told me that, maybe because they didn’t need/use/understand how great it is? A major gap in sex ed, female conversations, and romance novels!

  4. Emily B says:

    Yes! There’s always such an emphasis on how wet women are, and male characters always find this so hot, but very rarely does a man in romance bring up “hey, know how we could make this even better? Lube”.

    Sarina Bowen’s male character in The Year We Hid Away brings up lube when he and the heroine have sex for the first time (and it’s her first time in general). It’s a new adult college-age romance (this whole series is very sweet).

  5. Nagarajas says:

    Yes. More lube for everybody and more sex education. The fantastic blogger Dangerous Lilly has an extensively researched guide to lube for both flower gardens and earthy passages:

    http://dangerouslilly.com/lube-guide/

    The very discerning Epiphera also has a guide to the kind of luxury we should all aspire to:

    https://heyepiphora.com/2016/06/review-automatic-lube-dispenser/

  6. Varian says:

    I’ve seen lube used most often in m/m romance (and I could rant about how the sex in m/m is always penetration, when I know a lot of queer men, including myself, who aren’t into that.)

    One thing that always annoys me is the “you’re so tight” comment, which makes me cringe and think that he’s actually really awful in bed.

  7. Michelle says:

    There’s a lot of oral sex, which helps with the lube issue, but in general I agree!

  8. Julversia says:

    Lube and condom usage are very prevalent in m/m, so much so that if it doesn’t happen, I’m yanked right out of the story. It’s not only used for penetration, but also for handjobs, something I’ve never seen in m/f, though there are plenty of those going on. I’m sure it’s out there, I’ve just never seen it. Mostly he gets slicked from a blowjob. Fine, but what if that isn’t on the menu, so to speak?

    The idea that m/f doesn’t mention or use lube more seems to fall back on the whole “for the man to be assured that she wants him, she has to be sopping wet, all the time” idea. That her body has to prove her desire is annoying at best. TMI, but it doesn’t always matter that my brain is two-thumbs-way-up-go-for-sexytimes!, my body isn’t always exactly on the same page and could use a little help.

    Also, other medications than birth control definitely cause dryness, and as romance evolves to include characters who would take these medications, it would be nice to include lube to make sexual encounters more pleasurable and less stressful for everyone involved.

    Basically I’m all for the inclusion of lube.

  9. Procrastinator Extraordinaire says:

    There’s a scene in AGAIN THE MAGIC/Kleypas which features some 19th century version of lube (in a jar, no less) as part of the use of an 19th century condom (sex between the heroine’s nonvirginal sister and a secondary dude, i.e., it’s not their first rodeo), but I just went and looked up the scene (because I’m procrastinating, again), and she seemingly was “ready” and “impatient” and blah-blah-“you’re so wet”-blah-blah before he lubes up. I guess he’s using the lube because those old-fashioned condoms were so…old?…. So, not sure this qualifies as lube use as manifested in the manifesto, which I thought was AMEN, YEAH BABY! right on.

  10. Jennifer in GA says:

    Your point are valid and important, especially in real world applications.

    But in my romance? No thanks. I want realistic *up to a point*, and lube is past that point.

  11. Ellen says:

    @Michelle – While oral sex certainly obviates the need for lube for many people, I think the assumption that “good foreplay” (hate the word foreplay but oh well) means no lube is necessary is part of the issue I’m trying to highlight here!

    @Jennifer – You certainly don’t have to want lube in the romance novels you read! But the whole point of having a diversity of stories is to account for different tastes and experiences. To that end we should definitely be interrogating why particular stories are absent from a given milieu, and how that both reflects on and impacts the world that we live in.

  12. Eliza says:

    Ellen, this post is fantastic. And I think you’ve hit on one of the reasons why I’ve largely quit reading m/f romance. All the sex without lube, plus multiple orgasms then yet, is such a far cry from what I’ve experienced that the message I hear is, These folks are doing it right and you never will.

    I second the Sarina Bowen recommendation. I don’t know about the Cara McKenna, the title puts me off, tbh. Not a romance, but may I recommend Dr. Jen Gunter’s The Vagina Bible. There’s a whole chapter on lube and so much more.

  13. Kris says:

    @eliza says….. but may I recommend Dr. Jen Gunter’s The Vagina Bible. I wholeheartedly agree with that rec. A totally no nonsense and honest guide to woman’s body and how the parts work. It’s funny and educational. Wish i had that book when i was a young teen. But as a middle aged woman, i still learned a lot.

  14. Denise says:

    The heroine in That Kind of Guy lets her partner know that she doesn’t get that wet, and he brings lube to the party. Also learned the term demisexual, so that was interesting too!

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43690183-that-kind-of-guy

  15. Kellie says:

    This post was fantastic! One use of lube in a historical I noticed (though I think eventually she doesn’t “have to” use it, which…) is Tempt the Devil. I was so surprised when it appeared, and she insisted she needed it, and when the hero says that she won’t because he’s just so GREAT a foreplay, but it does nothing for her…it was awesome! There absolutely needs to be more lube in romance.

  16. Lisa F says:

    God this. THIS THIS THIS THIS.

    One of the worst romance novel reading experiences I’ve ever had

    *NSFW SPOILERS*

    …Involved the hero and heroine going at it, bareback and anally, without lubrication. The heroine’s bleeding and pain was treated as a virtue and a mark of her innocence, not a horrible aberration that could’ve been avoided. Hated it. More time for prep work and lube in explicit romance, please.

  17. Nicolette says:

    YES, sister. Thank you.

  18. Steph says:

    Thanks for this- I am all in for showing a broader representation of experiences. I think more sex scenes where the woman doesn’t orgasm during every time they have sex wouldn’t be amiss.

    In Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins, lube is used to improve a blow job. It’s m/m but a non-penetrative use of lube.

  19. Katie says:

    Courtney Milan’s Hold Me had lube use in the sex scenes if I remember right (it’s been a couple years but it’s unusual enough that I recall seeing it). The heroine is a trans woman; don’t know if that was part of the reason it was included.

  20. Leigh Kramer says:

    A big yes to all of this! And a special thank you for highlighting arousal nonconcordance. Ever since I read Come As You Are and learned about it a few years ago, it drives me crazy when heroes point out how wet a heroine is as proof of whatever.

    I’m sure I have read at least a few m/f or f/f books where lube has been involved but nothing is coming to mind. It’s much more rare than it should be! It’s such a regular part of m/m books that I can’t help but hope they contribute to normalizing it across the whole genre.

  21. mktoronto says:

    Jackie Lau’s Man vs Durian features not just lube but a vibrator. It’s nice to read about a hero who accepts that he can’t make her come on his own and actually does what she asks him to do to facilitate that.

  22. Aaliyah Andrews-Jackson says:

    Wow! Great article. I’m working on a romance novel now and was considering if I should include lube in a sex scene.

  23. LisaC says:

    A Very Surrey SFS Christmas by Nicola Davidson has lube usage by a MF couple. She remarks that since she had a baby, she doesn’t get as wet as before & noticed this when she was masturbating, so lube is needed. Also states to the hero to stay away from her breasts altogether, please & thank you, because they are too sensitive. This is a historical & would definitely be best read after having read the other books in the Surrey SFS series.

  24. Kareni says:

    I’ll add my vote for the Sarina Bowen book mentioned upthread. I remember butter being mentioned in a Jo Goodman historical western by a character who was a prostitute. I also recall a character using oil as a lubricant in a Georgian era historical by Elizabeth Hoyt. (Said author also had a half lemon being used for birth control if I remember correctly.)

  25. Anon says:

    30 Days by Christine d’Abo is a m/f romance that discusses (and uses!) lube throughout. I can’t remember if it’s actually used in a vaginal sex scene, but it’s definitely used in mutual masturbation scenes (no anal scenes in the book that I recall).

  26. Gemma says:

    I remember reading a book by Susan Elizabeth Phillips where the heroine buys a bunch of “embarrassing” stuff from the drugstore. The hero sees that she bought a vaginal moisturizer and gets so offended, saying, “No woman of mine is going to need a vaginal moisturizer!” Dude. No. It is not about you. And making a woman feel bad about it is a dick move.

  27. Sparkle Rancher says:

    In Lisa Keypas’s the Devil’s daughter,the widow heroine Phoebe and her love interest use almond oil for penetration. One of the first few mentions of lube in fiction for me.

  28. Abbey says:

    I just burned through Sarah MacLean’s Scandal and Scoundrels series and the BNB series, and I’m almost positive oil was used in one (possibly 2) on those books…

  29. Denise says:

    I started using various forms of lube in my 30’s b/c it enhanced sex. When my daughters started to be sexually active I bought them lube and explained why it was necessary-especially for beginners with a partner w/no experience. Being single at 50 I swore if I heard one more man say “I can get you wet w/o lube” I was going to remain celibate! I’m now in my 60’s and started listening to girlfriends complain about dry and painful sex. I was shocked to learn that none had tried lube. I suggested coconut oil, which is what I use. I’m happy to report that the add of lube has been life changing for them! The only erotica I’ve read that artistically describes all kinds of sexual predilections, including the use of oils, is the Outlander series. I believe there are 8 very deliciously thick volumes and books 1-4 are covered in a TV series on STARZ and include very graphic sex scenes. Enjoy!

  30. Leftcoaster says:

    Was just going to mention Jackie Lau’s “Man vs. Durian”. It was awesome for many reasons (my pairing has a similar durian lover and hater match) but my absolute favorite part was how fucking sexy and fun she made things while at the same time completely normalizing that the heroine did not orgasm during penetrative sex period. She didn’t take the shortcut of showing “true love” by his magic peen changing her response and suddenly she had multiple orgasms (I can’t even with this in books these days). What true love brought her was a confident sexy dude who totally rolled with this (yay lube! Yay toys!).

  31. Lepiota says:

    Sex ed: My mom abdicated on sex ed with my sister (sadly typical), so we started with a long discussions on the pragmatics, and safer sex (I was a peer AIDS educator at the time, and introduced her to my bottomless drawer o’ condoms), and a then a reading list that I hoped would help with figuring out how to have fun with it. Then she abandoned her virginity in the back yard, at a party, lying in something that didn’t smell great, and didn’t seem to really enjoy the experience, so I figured I needed to up my game (I was all of maybe nineteen!) Luckily, my local sex boutique was the perfect resource for putting together a lovely assortment of lube, latex… and her own vibrator. She ceased explorations involving anyone else for over a year, and when she re-started, she knew her own body a lot better. Honestly, I think a vibrator is a perfect coming of age gift? Helps with menstrual cramps, too. Because seriously, if you’re waiting for a straight man to teach you about your body, you might be waiting for a while. (Bi men have a better track record in my experience, but still – you live there!)

  32. Vicki says:

    This last week,I got an emergency phone call from one of my close friends. Went over to find out 12 yo grandchild (that she is raising) has her period and a swim meet and has never managed a tampon.Of course, you call your friend the pediatrician for this.Talked the child through finding her vagina then helped her with the tampon (any of you remember doing this with your friends in middle school?) We were both thrilled to find that grandma had a stash of lube b/c it really helped for a first time tampon. And, from what I hear,the following ones,too. Lube is important.

    I don’t need it in all my romances but there are times when it would be an appropriate addition to a scene, especially in a contemporary. YA, too, possibly. Our teen clinic gives out free lube as well as free condoms.

  33. Cris S. says:

    My very conservative mother gave my fiancé a bottle lube the night before our wedding. “For well, you know….” she said, in the darkened hotel hallway, while he almost expired of embarrassment. That’s how important she thought it was.

    Top that!

    Oh, and for anyone that is thinking ‘even with lube, vaginal sex hurts,’ especially after having had a baby, even if by c-section, please know that there is reputable and very effective physical therapy that can help. When I went through pain I had one doctor that was very dismissive and said surgery was my only option. Two years of painful sex later I found a new obgyn who said “honey, you don’t have to live with that’ and gave me a referral to Northwestern hospital for PT in that ‘area’ (we’re in Chicago) and two months later the pain was gone. If you are in that situation- don’t give up!

  34. Alexa says:

    doing a Meg Ryan, in When Harry Met Sally, in response to suggestion that more romance novels show lube use: Slapping hands on the table, screaming, “Yes, Yes, Yes!

  35. LaineyT says:

    In Scandalous Lovers the author, Robin Schone, includes the discussion about the need for lube since the woman is menopausal as part of the plot, and even has the couple purchasing the lube together if I recall correctly. And it’s all done in a way that doesn’t take away from the eroticism of the story.

  36. ME Reid says:

    I’ve always found the sex scenes in romance novels to be a bit formulaic, even the good ones. I’m far more annoyed about the fact that every time a woman has sex for the first time it “hurts at first but then gets good”. I almost exclusively read historical romances, so the woman is often a virgin, but can we please stop acting like a hymen works like this? In fact, far more painful first times could have been fixed with lube then with all of the hooplah you read in these books…

    That said, as a woman in her late twenties with endometriosis, the treatment of which requires starving my body of estrogen (basically), lube has become not just a requirement but also an expensive journey into how to enable sex to last long enough to get to the good stuff. I have tried like every brand and consistency, which varying degrees of effect. Before that point, however, (and to the majority of my hetero friends, I’m pretty sure) lube was for anal sex or menopause. People should be disabused of that notion.

  37. Tina says:

    I believe it’s an overall misunderstood topic. IRL – men actually believe that self lubrication ALWAYS happens, and even take it as a sign of disinterest if the woman in NOT Niagra Falls.

    As far as in books, I’m guessing it just sounds “sexier” that a woman is automatically a flood zone in the southern area. 😉 Just as the hero who just ejaculates becomes instantly erect again.

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