Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Sex and the Single Novelist

      No one is reading me tonight so I can write anything. All the responsible adults are watching the election. I check in occasionally on the results, but I'm not needed there. Since everyone is gone, I can talk about sex. That's right. SEX. Catch your breath.
      In my fantasy novel, which is a love story as much as it's an adventure story, my characters have a couple of scenes where they have a bit of fun. I wanted to give enough details so that the reader could realize that they were having hot monkey love, but not so much that it caused an "ewww" reaction as they held the book.
      I went to my local library, waited until right before closing, and then checked out ten modern romance novels. I was pretty sure I'd know the plots of the book: girl meets boy, he treats her badly, they fight the whole book, and then they fall into bed as the last page is turned.
      Man, am I out of date! They fall into bed a lot sooner and more often these days. Many times. The rest of the plot is still the same, but they're doing the naughty and doing it with a lot of detail. A lot of detail. Of course, they don't use clinical terms to describe the sex -- apparently that would kill the mood -- instead we are treated to phrases (and I didn't make up any of these) like "his throbbing man-shaft of pleasure iron," "her snow white, silky soft nursing mounds," and one that I had to read twice to fully appreciate it: "her undulating cavern of velvet passion."
      Cavern?! My gosh, how big is this woman? Do they give tours? Is her last name Carlsbad? And that undulating couldn't be good. She needs to see a doctor and fast. And "pleasure iron?" I showed that part of a book to a female friend of mine, and she said, "Ouch." Then she borrowed the book.
      And the way they talked during sex. This is quoted from Passion's Rogue. "She spread her arms wide and cried out, "I cannot wait! Take me now. Fill my senses with your savage love. Let me fly among the heavens. Let us soar to the stars above, my love, and we will shine among the hosts." Look, lady, he's a guy, not a space shuttle.
      I was shocked by the graphic nature of the books. As I read them over and over and over, I kept wondering what is this world coming to? And these were at the public library. Not in a brown paper wrapper or anything.
      Still, reading those books was informative and helpful. I learned what phrases I would not be using in my book. In fact, I think they might just shake hands and let go at that. Any more than that and it could cause undulating, and none of us want that. I don't think we do. Do we?

12 comments:

CrystalDiggory said...

Can I make a suggestion? Do us all a favor and write the love scenes from your own fertile imagination -- or experience. :) I'm sure it would be much better than anything from those romance novels.

Trixie said...

Crystal's right on, of course. Real life is a lot more interesting than Harlequin ever dreamed of. But hey, don't knock undulating if you haven't tried it.

I was crushed when I stumbled across a web site that was a phrase generator for those kinds of books. You clicked on a button to choose a random adjective, noun and verb -- hence the snowy mounds jiggle kind of construction. It's sick and sad that the hot stuff has been reduced to random syllables produced by a computer.

And I'm trying to figure out why no one was blogging last night -- I was making the rounds and NOT ONE post from anyone before I crashed waiting for election results. (Oh wait, I didn't post either, mostly because no one responded to my voting post.)

Anonymous said...

OH TECH BABY!!! :) I just rolled when I read this!!! I could just hear you saying this!!! So, so, so funny!!!
-Susan1

Erudite Redneck said...

Someone very close to me who I won't reveal, but her intitials are Dr. ER, is a consumer of somewhat high-class versions of such books. Betty Neal Harlequins. Proof that predictable, comfortable story lines don't have to be cheapened with tawdry sex -- or any kind of sex at all, for that matter. Um, not that I've, um, READ any of them. Ahem.

Kitty said...

While living in Memphis several years ago, one of the local radio stations had a woman ("Granny Annie") they would ring up every now and again and get her to read to them from the latest turgid romance novel she was reading. Of course, you have to hear an old lady with an Arkansas accent reading about heaving breasts and throbbing rods to really get the full effect of Granny Annie's delivery!

Trixie said...

ThePress, I do NOT want to hear about any undulating anythings involved in Dr. E.R.'s reading materials... NYAH NYAH NYAH Can't make me listen!!

Erudite Redneck said...

My point, dingdang it, was that their not like that. I bet there's not more'n three heavin' breasts in any one of 'em.

Unknown said...

RE: I was shocked by the graphic nature of the books. As I read them over and over and over, I kept wondering what is this world coming to?

More sense of humor. That stuff hardly graphic. Check out the teen section next time in the library. That's where you'll see the more accurate words. Little kids wouldn't either understand a romance novel or would find it icky. Teens would find it too ridiculous ("typical of adults not know what sex REALLY is. I mean, like, they're using all these youphomizms...." or funny: "Hey, did Charlies have a hard-on or a throbbing iron? A thumb tack? Really? BWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Erudite Redneck said...

Dr. ER, who is in D.C., asked me to post this for her:

I'm connected via ethernet and for some reason, blogger isn't working with me, so will you please post the following to tech's blog:

Betty NEELS died a couple of years ago and her books are in hot demand at every used book store because her books are COMPLETELY CHASTE. There's no heaving nothing in them -- the best you might get is a swoop and a kiss. They're sweet. They all use the same formula, pretty much, and I began reading them when I was about 12. ThePress hasn't any idea of what's going on here....nothing, I repeat, NOTHING heaves in Betty's books.

ER here: My attempt at humor re: the three heavin' breasts per Betty NEEL book was lost in the heat of Dr. ER's defense of same. ERa culpa.

Trixie said...

That's more what I expected from the good Dr.E.R. But back to Tech's fantasy (er, fantasy novel, I guess I should say...) There's still fairly strong demand for undulating, throbbing, pulsating and heaving even though those descriptions are usually saved for particular romance novels.

I think the new challenge isn't to ignore sex, but to find some new verbiage with which to paint those word pictures!

night-rider said...

I think the best modern love novels describe the feelings rather than the throbbings. I've just read a fantastic one that makes you believe that men do have them - feelings, not throbbings! Check it out Tech - I think he's a man after your own heart. The Naked Husband by Mark D'Arbanville.

Gloria Williams said...

I find myself embarrassed to read all the "details." I love the old Grace Livingstone Hill romances and collect them at used bookstores when I can find them. They're marvelous, touching, Christian stories.