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I knew you were expecting it – the dirty talk finally arrived on the 15th.

Okay, okay – the bad sex scene award winner has been announced. I have been told by NUMEROUS sources this is something I must comment on being a romance writer and all. I’m not sure how romance writer and sex are so linked… (do you believe that?)

So here goes. I write romance novels. I write about people who meet, fall in love and ultimately decide to form some kind of monogamous commitment. And when people fall in love – that’s when the sex comes into play. In my particular writing case – a LOT.

For some reason, the sex in romance novels seems to be the only thing people want to talk about. As if there is no sex in other genres. As if romance writers don’t also worry about character development, plot twists and you know, other important writing elements.

Often someone will open a book directly to a sex scene and proceed to read it out loud. This is an old joke. If you are this someone – you’re making yourself look silly. Stop it.

My husband will also get the jab in the ribs, “Do you have to ‘research’ all the love scenes (complete with air quote)?” I do the eye roll, dh does the heavy (tired) sigh. “Yes.”

So maybe in the past, a few romances may have referred to the “loverod” “the love sheath” or “love honey” (sheesh – I’m not even sure what that is!). I don’t refer to anything as a flower, very few things quiver or heave and nothing involving Venus. I call a penis a penis and a breast a breast – we’re all grown-ups (or should be). Of course I run into the problem of sometimes I just have to refer to a penis more than once in a paragraph. Those are a bit tricky, Roget’s Thesaurus is NOT helpful in this situation, but I do my best to avoid the flowery, purple prose.

I try to write about real people – people with normal struggles (financial, family etc.) and normal appearances. So you’ll never see me refer to my heroine’s smooth thighs. I hate these women anyway – they’re not going to be in my books. All my heroines have thigh issues. My heroes look good with a shirt off (this is, after all female fantasy and I do love summer!) but honestly, I prefer defined over bulk. So as long as the hero can pick up the heavy stuff (including the heroine) it’s all good.

By the way, the person who WON the bad sex scene was NOT a romance writer, they rarely are.