Take this scene–it’s from the second time the two have sex. And it’s worth noting that all they’re doing is having sex–this is not, yet, for them, about intimacy or emotion. It’s just about pleasure.
Call-and-response, her body to his and back again. Layers upon layers of pleasure and sensation.
His lips moved under hers. “Yeah,” he said. The word came out knowing, confident, masculine.
Whoa.
In many books, I need to know there’s an emotional connection between the two leads in order to find sex sexy. Not so here–it is in no small part the fact that the two are so firmly grounded in their bodies and not their hearts and minds that makes this connection shimmer with heat. Calhoun is justifiably famous for her sex scenes–Liberating Lacey is a classic for damn good reasons. When she quit writing romance, we lost one of the greats.
What do you find exceptionally erotic in your reading? What book(s) have the greatest sex/love scenes?
Sometimes just the merest suggestion of sexual attraction/needs reflects the most charming eroticisim. Capt Wentworth writing to Anne in Persuasion is subliminally erotic and far sexier than descriptions of heated, sweaty sex complete with a narration of every grunt and orgasmic groan.
but that’s not erotic romance. Erotic romance has to lead with the sex and the sexual attraction.
I guess I’m really just curious about two things:
1) What do AAR readers find the most erotic?
2) With books that have sex, what books stand out for you as being super erotic?
For me, a book cannot be sexy without some kind of connection between the characters. Otherwise it’s just a description of acts.
The hottest stories are ones where there has been some kind of longing or yearning by the character or characters. Without emotions behind the acts, even if it’s just well written lust, it leaves me unmoved.
Yes, this.
As others have said here, there are scenes I’ve found intensely erotic in which the characters are fully clothed. For me, it’s about the chemistry and sexual tension, and I’m sure we can all point to authors who can do more with a look or touch than others can manage with a full on bout of rumpy-pumpy!
And see in the first part of Uncommon Passion there is no emotional connection between the leads. That’s part of what makes it so hot.
There is technically a difference between erotic and Erotica. Erotica is a style of literature that deals with abundant sexual content but erotic simply means sexually stimulating and what that looks like to people can vary. Dabney used the term erotic so I think that is what people are responding to – what they themselves find arousing or enticing.
I meant erotic as a term, not as a book label!!
Why not? Part of sexual attraction and sexual satisfaction is largely in the mind. Sometimes erotic romance, in your terms, such as Robin Schone or the Fifty Shades series, teeters on the edge of porn. I am not anti porn particularly as I read both with great enjoyment despite the poo heaped on the latter by all and sundry. But the subliminal or implied can be very erotic in the privacy of the reader’s own imagination. I have read of recent studies suggesting women can reach orgasm purely through the power of mental will.
I think she might have been talking about the professional terms, not the concept.
I also prefer when the characters have an emotional connection for the sex between them to feel sexier and to be something that they just need to share.
However, I feel sex scenes are so often repetitive and boring and way too long… I often skip those scenes and lost my general interest in anything also labeled “erotic”.
To me, a story, even if not labeled so, can feel way sexier and hotter if the sexual tension between the characters before they have sex is done well. I fondly remember some Sandra Brown books for this, even if the sex scenes descriptions weren’t that special.
I used to write for Ellora’s Cave. It did a lot of things wrong, but what it did right was spot that gap in the market – a genre they called Romantica. Erotic romance. Erotic sex scenes with characters to care about, and a romance, ie character development, not just sex scene after sex scene.
I wrote mainly for the E line. They had three – S,E,X (geddit!) Sensual, erotic and X was ramped up and included menages, kink and BDSM (done properly – they didnt accept things that were non-consensual, or broke the rules of BDSM – sane, safe, consensual).
To be considered erotic, sex had to be in at least 60% of scenes, either actual penetrative sex, or significantly sensual, like BDSM scenes, serious foreplay, oral sex etc.
and they wanted a romance. So there’s that. (50 Shades didn’t qualify on so many levels!) But something like Lord Of Scoundrels would have qualified for the sensual line, because of things like the glove scene – only a glove is removed, but the intent and the connection between the two main protagonists was so clear. And so well done.
I also wrote menages for Siren Publishing later, which had the same kind of requirements. Under a different name, because Siren liked an exclusive author name.
That was from audience research, btw. People who read erotic romance wanted lots of sex, and they wanted believable characters they could identify with.
Ellora’s Cave got a lot of flack (and I won’t go into the whole business side) but I think it was hugely influential and ahead of it’s time in many ways.
I can look at authors from EC like Laurann Dohner and see the influence on huge writers now like Ruby Dixon. At the time the content was *so shocking* to a lot of people because a lot of it didn’t use euphemisms and purple prose. It also included things you mention above like kink, BSDM etc that only villains were allowed to enjoy in the “mainstream” romances.
IMO there’s always been a huge hypocritical slant among a lot of the romance community that was probably consuming these edgier works but would maybe look down their nose publicly or act shocked about them.
I wish readers as a whole would be less “judgy” about what others read.
I wish EVERYONE would be less “judgy” about what others read.
Personally, I find the novels of Robin Schone deeply erotic, though not always a turn-on. The scene at the end of Gabriel’s Woman, my favourite, made me cry, because it was so emotional and both characters had been on such a journey together and separately.
In The Lady’s Tutor, the two mains don’t touch for the first half of the book. When they do, it’s a society dance, but that scene is so erotic, so full of longing.
I think Robin Schone really pushed the bar of what was considered OK in a “romance” rather than straight erotica. It’s funny to see how far things have come and what was “blistering” hot years ago we don’t blink an eye at now.
I think what was formerly Erotica and what is just Romance have blurred boundaries now.
I think that a lot!
In my mind, there’s a blurry line between contemporary romance and erotic romance, and what constitutes “erotic” Is such an idiosyncratic and personal thing. For example, I would definitely classify UNCOMMON PASSION as CR not ER—despite its hot and frequent sex scenes—because the focus of the book is on the growing emotional connection between the MCs. On the other hand, Calhoun had a novella called TRANSCENDENCE (two interconnected short stories about a domme and her sub) which I would definitely put it in erotic romance category even though the book ends with the MCs connecting on a emotional level (and we later learn, from a brief reference in THE LIST, that they are getting married). I like the sex scenes in any book to be part of an emotional connection between characters or else I might as well read p0rn (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s not my thing). Last year one of the most erotic books I read was FORBIDDEN by Karla Sorensen, a slow-burn/age-gap between a widower and the woman who manages the MMA gym he owns. There’s very little actual sex—the first sex scene takes place very late in the book—but there’s so much fraught erotic tension between the MCs, even when there’s nothing actually sexual going on. For instance, there’s one scene where the MCs are standing next to each other in a small utility closet switching out a blown fuse, and it’s incredibly erotic without anything physical happening at all. That’s my idea of good erotica!
I agree with all of this. Movies like Emma can make audiences swoon by characters touching hands or a chaste kiss when the feelings have been built up for so long.
I find when someone copies out a scene they find blisteringly hot, if I don’t know the characters I never get any kind of feeling from it. If it’s in the book as part of the story I’m sure it’s incredibly hot. On its own- it’s just words to me.
I’d agree. The scene above is hot because I know the characters.
I’m sure it is in context!
It’s one reason why I’m very hesitant with reviews when I haven’t read the book. Sometimes it’s a big pivotal scene and if I read the quote before the book it can lessen the impact because I have it in my head and I’m subconsciously or even consciously looking for it when I read.
I think a lot of books are mischaracterized both by readers and by places like Amazon. If the story has a plot and feelings it’s not “erotica” to me erotica is where it’s just an excuse to describe a sex scene.
I don’t care how “hot” a story is, if it’s a complete story involving feelings it’s hot romance or romantica, or whatever you want to call it, not erotica.
Amazon will put C.M. Nascosta’s books under “erotica” because they have very sexual language and hot scenes, but some of these are slow burns and all are stories with involved plots, meet cutes etc. Some reviewers/people complained about her most recent one because the main characters don’t even meet until 40% into the book. That’s not erotica, yet it’s under every single erotica category thanks to how Amazon sorts it.
Just to be clear–I don’t care what a book is called! It doesn’t matter whether it’s erotic romance, erotica, mainstream romance. I’m just curious what you find sexy.
I will follow up my previous thoughts and say if the characters are having a good time I’m probably going to enjoy reading it.
I’m not a fan of super, super dark stories where there is force, bullying etc. I think a well written story where the two characters are having a good time can even make me look at stuff I didn’t have on my like list differently.
I will address a tangent below first. When I wrote about genre labels years ago (http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/genrelabels.html), I argued that at least 50% of the content of a story should clearly belong to the labeled genre or support the genre for the label to be appropriate. For me, sex scenes WITH or DEVELOPING an emotional connection support a romance genre label, while sex scenes WITHOUT an emotional connection do not contribute to the Romance Quotient. So my take on how to label is that a book with 60% of the text taken up by sex scenes is Erotic Romance if those scenes support the developing relationship and Erotica if they don’t.
The presence or absence of that emotional connection also provides my answer to the initial question by determining whether I see the story as Erotic Romance or Erotica. In fact, I sometimes update my genre tags AFTER reading based on that distinction.
For me, a real, authentic emotional connection definitely helps make a love story more erotic. However, how does an author convey that emotional connection? It’s not so easy. It’s not just the exchange of “I love you’s” which is the key. It’s not just thinking the other character is hot, although that helps. I really enjoy seeing the emotional connection sparking and then building, through all the myriad ways two people can communicate. A glance, a touch, a smile. A character demonstrating that he really hears the other, really gets the other, without the other person having to explain everything in agonizing detail. The conversations become increasingly intimate and vulnerable. If all this happens and is done well, then the payoff can be huge, a beautiful and erotic love story that will stay with me long after I’m done reading it.
That being said, I have enjoyed stories where the physical precedes the emotional (e.g., Heated Rivalry) and as long as the emotional connection is developed, then I am happy to go on that journey as well. Thankfully, there are a lot of ways authors can and do write wonderfully romantic and erotic love stories, and it’s great to have options!
Here’s how I differentiate Erotica vs Erotic Romance. I feel an Erotic Romance has to follow the requirements of the romance genre – the focus of the book is the relationship of the main characters and it has a happily ever after ending. An Erotic Romance differs from a Contemporary or Historical Romance in that the main plot line is about sex. Some examples would be the virgin who wants a friend to teach her about sex, the widow who had an unsatisfying sex life and is now looking for a man who can show her what she missed, or books where one main character is a sex worker. I haven’t read Uncommon Passion (on my TBR!) but from what I know of it, it would qualify under my categorization as an Erotic Romance. Another example is Roni Loren’s Off the Clock, which is about two sex researchers (very sexy book and I recommend it if you like erotic romance). There are CR or HR books that are heavy on the amount of sex scenes but if there are other storylines (work, family, etc) then I don’t consider them Erotic Romances.
I consider a book Erotica if it is primarily about sex but the main characters don’t necessarily develop a relationship or end up happily ever after. I don’t have good examples off the top of my head as I don’t read much Erotica. I suspect that much of what I consider Erotica is shorter in length than a romance novel.
What I consider erotic in a novel is the same as what everyone else has said – it’s not the amount of skin revealed or how far along the sex has gone but rather emotional connection and longing that can make even a light touch feel incredibly sexy.