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Radclyffe ©2005
As someone who came
of age reading the lesbian romances of the 70’s and 80’s, I learned
very quickly that romances were about love, and erotica, when I could
find it, was about sex. The two were mutually exclusive, and the divide
existed until quite recently in lesbian genre fiction of all types.
When two women fell in love in a romance and consummated their desire,
it happened off-stage, faded to black right at the “good” parts, or –
if described in any detail – was couched in odd euphemisms such as
“buttons” and “nether regions,” neither of which I have ever been able
to find on my person. Erotica, on the other hand, was also strangely
limited in that it almost always featured “rough sex,” stranger sex, or
other forms of “fringe” sex and rarely depicted sex between couples or
long-term lovers. Linguistically it was typified by explicit language
and anatomical “slang.” One interesting question is what prompted this
separation of emotion and body, and what forces have emerged to break
it down.
The answer to the
first question is undoubtedly timing – lesbians in the 70’s and 80’s
were just beginning to enjoy a sense of “being” and entitlement,
socially and sexually, and many were still burdened by the sexual
constraints of social indoctrination that suggested that the female was
the guardian of virtue and propriety, which was translated as “no sex
before marriage.” Since as lesbians, marriage was precluded, the
doctrine became “no sex without love.” Still it doesn’t quite explain
why lovers in a romance couldn’t have hot, sweaty sex with real body
parts in play.
Sex for the sake of
sex is the unspoken raison d’etre of erotica, but that philosophy
doesn’t hold for romance. Many argue that sex isn’t “necessary” in a
romance, because the romance is all about the love. I’ve heard people
say they skip the sex scenes to “get on with the story.” I have even
heard it said that if there is a sex scene, the “plot stops dead,” and
it has to be rebuilt again after the sex scene. And that view of sex as
a fictional roadblock instead of a building block, in my opinion, is
what has kept the eros out of romance for fifty years. We, as writers,
haven’t learned to use sex as language in our fiction.
What I mean by “sex
as language” is that a sex scene in and of itself can 1) say something
about the character, 2) say something about what is happening
between the characters, 3) or provide a forum for plot advancement.
Like any language,
the sex scene employs a vocabulary, a syntax (or structure), and some
form of “acceptable usage,” or recognizable context.
M-W defines syntax
as: 1 : a connected system or order :
orderly arrangement : harmonious adjustment of parts or
elements. I think of
the setting as syntax – the placement of the scene within the structure
of the novel. Traditionally in a romance the physical consummation
occurs, if at all, at the end of the book – as the payoff or the head
nod to the fact that yes, the “lovers” are actually physically as well
as emotionally committed. But by limiting the sexual encounter to only
one context, we restrict the power of the tool itself.
When, where, why,
and how the sex scene takes place reveals a great deal about character
and the relationship of the characters—is it an anonymous tryst early
in the book, suggesting that one or both characters is unattached,
fears attachment, or prefers physical as opposed to emotional
connections? I started a romance with one character having sex with a
call girl in the first chapter – a questionable way to introduce a
romantic lead – but that scene told the readers that this was a woman
who did not want to be or could not be emotionally involved, but
that she needed human contact. Moments of sexual intimacy often show
the characters in a different light than any other interaction, and we
can use this to reveal to the reader greater depth of character. If the
aggressive controlling character submits physically in bed, we learn
something about that individual by that very act. These scenes become
important elements in character construction. The same is true for
plot.
In terms of context,
if the first sex between the romantic pair results from a moment’s
indiscretion, leading to remorse or guilt, this may introduce a
critical element of the plot. In the romance, if something happens
during the sex scene in addition to the sex, the reader will be
much less inclined to skip it – if a discovery, a confession, or a
declaration occurs, then the scene does double duty as both an erotic
interlude and a plot point. I’ve found using “after-sex” talk to be a
great way to advance the plot. In this way, the sex scene has an
additional role to play beyond being a gratifying end in itself – it is
a powerful technical tool as well. In erotica, setting is important to
provide context but is often secondary to the action, which is one
major way in which the dialects of erotica and romance vary.
The vocabulary of
the sex scene is often genre specific and is typically different for
romance and erotica – the two use a different “language,” and by doing
so impart a different message to the reader. Slang, street terms, and
shorthand in erotica reflect the immediacy and personal nature of the
writing and the action – formal language would remove us from the
experience, which is the opposite of what is intended in erotica. In a
romance novel, especially if told in the third person, the narrator
needs to be distanced from the event, and the term “clit” instead of
“clitoris” might appear jarring in that context by introducing an
element of intimacy that throws the reader out of the experience.
One great challenge
in introducing erotic content into the romance is subverting reader
expectations: by interweaving the sexual encounters within the tone
and context of the story (by making them necessary to the work and not
afterthoughts) we can acclimate the reader to the new “usage” of such
language in the genre and redefine the place of sex in romance. On the
other hand, introducing a wider context of sexual relativity into
erotica (e.g., between long-term couples as opposed to anonymous
encounters) broadens the appeal without diluting the power of the form.
The divide between the two will narrow even as each genre maintains its
unique tone and style, while adding diversity and depth to each.
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