Retro Wendy: Let’s Talk About Sex, or Not: Sexual Tension For the Win!

This post originally ran at Heroes & Heartbreakers on August 5, 2015

As long as the romance genre has existed, it has had unimaginative critics. Sometimes even before the word “trash” is uttered, we get “Mommy porn.” Women should know their place. If it’s something you enjoy, if it’s something you take pleasure in, it must be wrong, and nothing screams wrong quite like dismissing readers and suggesting they are “dirty” for liking something. What these critics are really reinforcing is the old adage that women shouldn’t like sex, talk about sex, and heaven help them, they shouldn’t want sex. The truth is that if these critics asked a large sample of romance readers why they enjoy the genre, “I read it for the smokin’ hot sex!” is pretty far down on the list, if it’s on the list at all. Oh dear, silly, hopeless naïve critics. We don’t read romance for the sex. We’re looking for all the delicious things that lead up to sex. The tension, the chemistry, the foreplay, two characters who are beginning to realize that taking on the world together is ever so much better than taking it on by themselves.

To illustrate this point, all three of these recent releases, of wildly varying heat levels, illustrate that it’s not the actual falling into bed we love – it’s the journey the characters take to get there.

Charlotte Stein writes erotic romance, a sub-genre that one would think would be “all about sex.” Except, of course, that it isn’t. Good erotic romance knows that it takes more than pages of kink and fetishes to make a story “hot” – to make the romance work. In Sweet Agony, Stein takes anticipation to a boiling point featuring a young woman looking to escape poverty and despair and a young man with a mountain of entitlements emotionally stunted by a past he’s unable to break free of. So haunted by a traumatic past, our hero is emotionally crippled at the mere thought of basic human touch. Which makes navigating a sexual attraction particularly tricky, but leads to a story filled with tension. That old saying about the brain being the biggest erogenous zone? Yeah, that.

He just did the equivalent of throwing everything in on a pair of jacks, so sure I would back down that he barely saw the straight flush lurking in the river. He was too explicit, too rude, too eager to say that word: spanked. He should never have said spanked. Maybe he could have to someone else, someone who cares only a little, someone less like him. But I am not nearly so closed off, nor so silly. And when he pushes, I push back.

...

I glance over my shoulder. I meet his gaze. His face is so pale it could pass for a fainting lady’s. And I say with the most relish I can muster: “Would you like me to leave my dress down, or do you prefer a bare work surface?” followed by the longest silence the world has ever known. It goes on and on and on, and the longer it does, the worse it gets. If nothing happens in the next thirty seconds I am almost definitely going to die. 

In The Fighter and the Fallen Woman, Pamela Cayne is working within a sensuality landscape that is fairly typical for the historical romance sub-genre. It’s in that middle ground between just-kisses and erotic romance. What this story features is a forbidden sexual attraction between a boxer/hired thug hero and a prostitute/mistress heroine who both happen to work for the same dangerous crime lord. The tension between the two hits a boiling point even before the reader is out of the first chapter, when our villain suggests his mistress kiss his fighter for “good luck,” something the hero, King, is reluctant to do.

“Come, King, it’s only a kiss,” Lady said, deliberately pitching her voice low. She would give the kiss and pray her trembling barriers would hold, keep her safe against the desire to close her eyes, breathe in his scent, and feel for one moment that a fighter and a fallen woman had a future together. 

…

“Lady, you should know when it comes to you, it’s never only anything,” he whispered so that only she could hear. “It’s everything.” 

…

He grabbed her hand only for an instant, but it was long enough to brand his touch on her skin before he let go. Lady pulled back and her eyes drifted open, her held breath slipping from her mouth and into his. King was right. This would never be only a kiss. 

Deeanne Gist started her career writing inspirational historical romances, but her most recent books have moved towards secular Americana. This has been a move that has not been met with enthusiasm by all of her fans, and there is criticism, in some circles, that Tiffany Girl is “pornographic.” This is laughable for the most part since the only love scene fades to black while the hero is helping the heroine out of her wedding ensemble….on their wedding night. But upon closer inspection, these critics have somewhat of a point. Gist does more with sexual tension in a “just kisses” historical romance than some erotic romance authors do with an encyclopedia of fetishes and a chest full of sex toys. Things heat up for our hero and heroine when they agree to help a photographer take a series of photographs of them dancing so he can make a phenakistascope.

Now they were cheek to cheek. Flossie’s face, nearest the camera, shielded his. Her ear lobe peeked out from beneath her coif and was within an inch of his mouth. He resisted, resisted, then could resist no more. He took a gentle tug with his lips. 

…

She closed her eyes, her lips there for the taking. He didn’t so much as breathe. “Okay. Ready?” Holliday settled himself beneath his shroud. “Just a few more shots.” Holliday took them through the rest of the dance, one step at a time. When she had her face shielded by Reeve’s, she blew across his ear.

...

The stairwell was silent. The hallway was silent. The rooms were silent. He didn’t know where everyone else was on this sunny Sunday afternoon, but he was thankful they weren’t around.  

He followed her back down to the first floor, narrowing his eyes. Were her hips swaying just a touch more than usual? Or maybe he was simply too attuned to her every move. When she began to enter her room, he grabbed her hand, hauled her to his room, shoved his door closed, pulled her against him, and took her mouth with his. 

All of these authors employ the use of tension to increase the personal stakes for their characters. Cayne introduces it to the reader from the very first chapter, in a first kiss scene the simmers and boils through the remaining early portions of the book and carry the reader to the eventual consummation. Stein and Gist both go a different route, keeping their characters apart by circumstance. Stein, with a hero who abhors anyone touching him and Gist with the social restrictions and mores of the time period. However, in the case of all of these books, something has to give. All of these characters are mere mortals, after all, and tension can only go on for so long until someone eventually snaps. It’s those delicious moments that lead up to the snapping that keep romance readers coming back for more.

Tiffany Girl

Disclaimer: Back in 2010 I won a contest the author hosted to attend an event at the Biltmore Estate.  I had to get myself to North Carolina, but the hotel room and admission was paid for.  After I met her in person, she named the town librarian in her book Love on the Line after me.  Do you think I've read that book yet?  Of course not.  But My Mom read it and really loved it (because, of course she did).

One of the things I love about being a reader is that sometimes you actually get to witness magic happen.  Those times in your life, as a reader, when the right book just magically happens to find you at the right time.  Such is the case with Deeanne Gist's latest historical romance, Tiffany Girl.  Is it a perfect book?  Well, no.  But what works about it, really works - to the point where I finished it lying in bed (instead of going to sleep) with my throat clogging up and tears rolling down my cheeks.  A story that generates that kind of emotional response out of me is a winner in my book.

Flossie Jayne is an art student who still lives at home with her parents in New York City.  By day, she paints at school.  The rest of the time she toils with her mother sewing fabulous clothes for the upper echelons of society while her barber father takes the money they earn straight to the race track.  By today's standards, Flossie is no radical.  But this is 1893 and a young woman making her way in the world, on her own, with her own job, and her own money, is pretty much viewed as the fall of western civilization.  When her father decrees no more art school, Flossie is determined to strike out on her own - which she does thanks to Louis Tiffany.  He's designing a glorious stained glass chapel for the upcoming Chicago World's Fair and the glass cutter's union has just gone on strike.  He shows up at Flossie's school with the plan to have women do the work, and handpicks her to join the ranks of his women's department.

But Flossie still has the problem of her father.  If she lives at home, he'll take her Tiffany earnings.

"I'd love to have children, Mother, but I can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for a husband who will withhold money from me when I'm the one earning it and who will keep me on a leash because he thinks he knows better than I what's best for me."

So she decides to move into a boardinghouse, practically giving her parents a fit of the vapors in the process, and soon befriends all the fellow boarders.  Well, except for Reeve Wilder, investigative journalist:

He'd mentioned the Tiffany Girl to his editor at the New York World.  It had spurred a long discussion between them which culminated in an assignment where Reeve was to write a series of exposes on this breed of New Women who were trying to infiltrate what had been - and what should certainly remain - man's rightful and exclusive dominions.

What follows is Flossie turning Reeve's world upside down and both doing a lot of growing up.

Honestly, this story could have been a disaster.  Flossie isn't a radical suffragette screeching on street corners and getting dragged off to jail.  She's simply a woman who wants more for herself than what society deems as "acceptable" for that time period.  And Reeve isn't an Alphahole jerk - he simply just thinks like, I'm sure, a lot of men thought about women in the late 19th century.  Gist makes neither of these characters wholly right or wholly wrong.  Reeve brings up valid points, like that Flossie is, essentially, a scab crossing the picket line.  Flossie brings up valid points, like that just because she's a "New Woman" that doesn't mean she has loose morals.

Flossie is, of course, a ray of sunshine that turns the boardinghouse world upside down.  Reeve begins to resent this intrusion for "reasons."  She somehow manages to escape falling into the Mary Sue trap, because frankly - she does have a lot of growing up to do.  Flossie is a touch naive and events happen over the course of the story where she finds herself learning some hard lessons.  I liked that everything she touched didn't automatically turn to gold.  Reeve is a lonely man, borderline hermit, who slowly changes his way of thinking about New Women the more he gets to know Flossie. The romance is a slow build, and as the characters grow up, so does the romance blossom.

A word now about The Sex.  Gist got her start in inspirational romances, but with the last couple of books she's strayed a bit away from that territory and gone more Straight Up Americana.  You get the impression that the characters attend church, read the Bible, and have faith, but calling this an inspirational strains at the seams.  The author has gotten a lot of flack in certain circles (cough GoodReads cough) for this "pornographic" turn of events - so let me address it here.

There isn't a single sex scene in this book.  Not a one.  What we have is a passionate kissing scene where Reeve and Flossie succumb after sharing a dance - but immediately jump apart when they hear a door slam in the boardinghouse.  Then (and I don't consider this a spoiler because hello, romance novel) the book ends on their wedding night with Reeve undoing the gazillion tiny buttons on Flossie's wedding ensemble and getting her (slowly I might add) out of her multitude of underthings. We don't actually GET a sex scene.  It's fade to black with Reeve helping her undress.

This all being said, I think I understand why some readers are up in arms because Gist does more with those "gentle" G-rated scenes then some erotic romance authors do with the most kinky of fetishes.  The slow build of the romance in this story gives the readers plenty of tension and chemistry.  I'd be totally comfortable giving this book to my teenage niece (if The Hunger Games didn't warp her, this book certainly won't) or to my long-past pious grandmother.  But I'm a deviant, so what do I know?

The story isn't perfect.  The pacing bogs down on occasion and while I liked the Tiffany "stuff" - I was much more interested in the boardinghouse dynamic.  I would kill for a historical romance that is all boardinghouse all the time actually.  But it's all worth it for the emotional scenes when Flossie confronts Reeve over a Big Secret, and Reeve realizes 1) crap, I'm in love with her and 2) she's right, I can't keep living like this - I'm lonely as hell.

There's a lot here I liked, and a lot I really loved - including the Americana-feel and the big emotional scenes that spur our couple to their happy ending.  I feel quite strongly that there aren't enough stories like this circling the romance universe and if you feel anything like I do?  Don't miss this one.

Final Grade = A-

New Photo And Reading Updates

I love it when the DC Comics universe decides to release new photos of yours truly.  Apparently there's a new video game coming out (after a series of delays) called Batman: Arkham Knights and fans have been criticizing the yearly subscription rate as being "too high" when very little information has been made available about what the game entails.  So to appease the fanboys and girls out there, the studio behind the game released this image of Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) that you can play in a "prequel story" as part of the game.

Or as I like to title this image: Wendy, Working a Sunday Shift at the Library.  Seriously.  Just. Like. This.

+++++

So, in other news - how am I doing after my epic whiny post from earlier in the week?  Better.  Oh no mistake, I'm still whiny (Rome wasn't built in a day y'all) and my Tigers seem incapable of beating the Chicago White Sox at the moment, so blah.  But as for reading?  I'm getting there.

I burned through Anne of Green Gables on audiobook, which I enjoyed.  I think I'm going to go through the rest of the series, but am taking breaks in between so I don't gorge myself on Americana Goodness and hit saturation levels.

I'm also pretty well invested in Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist, despite reading reviews on GoodReads that made my head explode.  Gist has been moving away from inspirational with her last few books, but trust Auntie Wendy on this one - it's not like she's putting on latex, carrying a whip and going full blown Fifty on us. 

Ladies, I know filthy naughty times and this is so far away from that - well let's just say please do not come over to the Bat Cave and go merrily traipsing through my bookshelves.  The shock would either 1) kill you or 2) lead you to call a priest to perform an exorcism on me.  Wait, does the priest look like Ewan McGregor in Angels & Demons?  Maybe?

Anyhoodle.....

The "feel" of this story reminds me quite a bit of the Americana "sub genre" that existed in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Folks like Pamela Morsi, Stephanie Mittman and Stef Ann Holm.  That kind of vibe.  So while I wouldn't say this book is inspirational per se, I'd still classify it as a gentle read (thus far).  Time will tell, of course.  I mean, I've got several hundred pages left.  Full-length review will follow, I just need to read the whole book first.

I'm also finding myself hankering for Harlequin - which should shock no one.  Looking back at my reading year thus far, I haven't really read that many category romances yet and Lord knows the last Harlequin Historical I read.  I've got a couple library books I want to try, see if they hold my attention, but then I might go on a bit of a category binge.  I certainly have plenty to choose from.