Monday Musings with Jessica Lauryn

Writing about that which takes places between the sheets is
a complicated endeavor for even the most practiced romance novelist.  Red-hot love scenes that steam up the pages of a
story are what many readers crave, yet when I uncover negativity in a review
it’s sometimes because the reader found that a story contains “graphic sex” which
they deem “unsuitable for young readers.” 
With the exception of sweet romance (romance which contains no sexual
content whatsoever) I imagine that many of us romance novelists are gearing our
stories for the 18+ audience and that this disclaimer is stated clearly or
understood wherever our books are sold. 
That said, “making love” is a topic which seems to spur a very heightened
emotion, sometimes loudly stated, though more often in my experience it spurs a
most compelling drive, incomparable to almost anything else, which creates an
urgency to continue reading without pause as a story comes nearer and nearer to
that oh-so-thrilling moment when the hero and heroine give into their
all-consuming desires.  I, personally,
find such an enormous amount of excitement and passion in this moment that I’m often driven right through the first half of a novel and by then, I’m so hooked on the
characters that I simply must see how they work through their differences, come
together and confess their love.  But
that is me.  Though I’m sure many, many
of you share my passion where love scenes are concerned, there are others who occasionally
take offense to the very idea of them.  As
human beings who are sexual by nature and discuss sex openly and often loudly
in our society, what exactly spurs this reaction?

One theory that I have developed in this regard is that it
may be a lack of knowledge concerning the classification of sub-genres which
causes readers to be offended by the idea of sexual content, perhaps without so much as actually
reading the story they’re referring to when the criticism is stated. 
Heat levels vary in romance novels, and labels such as “erotic romance” and
“erotica,” in which the heat levels are much higher, are labelled as separate
genres accordingly.  As a mainstream
romance writer and reader, I tend to gravitate towards sweeter romances than
these both in my profession and in my leisure, however I have enjoyed the occasional
erotic romance which I find to be a most interesting shake-up to what I
typically read and write.  There are
sub-genres to suit all tastes and my only suggestion to fellow authors in this
regard would be that they continue, always, to be true to their
characters.  When the characters step
outside of themselves, in a love scene, in order to be more, or less, erotic than
what instinct would have them do, (perhaps in the effort to make the overall
heat level of the story something it’s not) it shows.  It is my personal believe one should be true
to her characters and seek a publishing house who will be true to them in turn.  That said, as readers and writers, we should
all become well-versed in the many categories of sub-genres, in order to find
reading material that brings us the most joy, publishing houses that will celebrate
our works in the very bright lights they deserve.

When I first toyed with the idea of writing about sex I was
in college, taking a play-writing class. 
Though I had not done any greater deal of reading in the romance genre
(none, in fact) I was determined to write about romance because romance was
what I loved more than anything.  In
this class we were to write short plays and bring them to class, then assign
roles to our classmates and have them read the various parts aloud.  Ironically I was chosen many times over to
portray roles very much unlike myself, promiscuous women
who, shall we say, worked in rather unethical professions.  I wasn’t exactly keen on doing this but I was
in front of my classmates and professor and obviously was not inclined to say
no.  And so I recited the dialogue for
the parts my dirty-minded male classmates had written and…a whole new world was
opened up for me.  Rather like an actress
who gets a thrill out of playing a villainess I realized that I could say
anything, and later realized I could WRITE anything I wanted, all in the name
of that which is fantasy.  I’d had my
breakthrough moment!