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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

What's Your Heat? Sweet and Sensual or Hot and Steamy?

How hot can you handle your romance?
Are you the kind of gal who likes to blush while reading your romance story but not necessarily get aroused? Maybe you prefer stories focused on the relationship more than anything else. A little bit of kissing, touching is okay. To you, the sex isn’t an integral part of the story and if you skipped over those steamy pages you would still be able to follow the plot without noticing any gaping holes. HEA or Happily Ever After is necessary for this type of story. Sex is just an added spice.

But what about the stories that get your body flustered? You know, the ones where you experience heat flashes just reading about the rippling muscles. The relationship growth of your characters is developed through sex, not around it. If you skip over all the juicy details, you’ll miss the whole story – and wouldn’t that be a shame! The only time you put the book down is when you want to test the authors theory on certain positions ;) When you finally do close the book you’re beaming from head to toe because the HEA is exactly what you thought it would be.

But – what if those are too tame for you. Then my friend, you turn to a pure erotica story. Yep, the full dirty ;) The sexual journey is crucial to the character’s growth – notice I didn’t say romantic growth? You could have two strangers meet and have the most amazing sexual experience and still part ways. But something inside of them changed. HEA’s are rarely an integral part of erotica. It could happen, but don’t expect it.

Alright – if that still isn’t good enough – what then? Porn. Good old fashion porn, where plot, character development and romance have nothing to do with what you are reading. As long as your body is aroused from start to finish, then the author did his/her job.

(You'll have to use your imagination for this picture ... )


10 comments:

Stina said...

I love steamy. But YA steamy (which I love) is very different to adult steamy. Pure erotic isn't my thing, mainly because I need a heavy dose of romance too. Throw in danger and I'm sold. ;)

Gina Ciocca said...

I'm with Stina. I'm all about luuuurve. There's a fine line between a great romantic/steamy story, and a flat-out cheesy romance novel. I did a post on it once, here is the link if you have a chance to swing by:

http://writersblog-gina.blogspot.com/2011/01/romance-vs-straight-up-cheese.html

Cassandra Carr said...

I tend to like reading hot romances, which is probably why I write hot romances. The characters definitely need to fall in love, unless I'm reading with the knowledge they won't, which is fine too. But if my expectations aren't met - the characters aren't believably falling in love, for example - that's when I get mad.

Anonymous said...

I write scorching romances, and that's what I like too. I do enjoy less steamy love stories sometimes, and I enjoy the occasional flat-out erotica. But for my day to day reading, I enjoy a HEA. And porn? I'll watch it as research for my m-m stories, but to be honest I get bored.

Tracy said...

If I'm reading a paranormal story, it's fine if there is just the kissing/touching stuff, because usually there is so much adventure & excitement going on around them, it draws attention to those aspects of the story.

If it's more contemporary romance, then there needs to be super steamy love scenes. That being said, there also has to be romance. I'm not much in the way of erotica as a read. When I'm reading a story about two characters getting intimate, I want to know that they eventually fall in love and wind up together.

Miranda Stowe said...

As long as I get an HEA with the two mains hooking up and staying together at the end, I don't care if I have a sweet (kissing only) YA or a full-out smut erotic romance. I love em both from sweet blushes to lotsa description and hot buzz!

Roberta Walker said...

I love YA romance for the sweet. I love feeling the emotion, the kick in the gut, the butterflies. My all time favorite butterfly inducer: Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver and Linger.

Stephanie said...

Gotta be love, first and foremost, but while I do like as sweet romance, I need more!! I need more than a sweet kiss that takes 200 pages to happen! But I guess it depends on the story too.

Anya S. Winter said...

"I need more than a sweet kiss that takes 200 pages to happen" - LOVE IT. I'm the same way Stephanie. I can only handle the tension for so long.

Stina Lindenblatt said...

No kidding, Stephanie. I might have planned the kiss later on in my novel, but my characters have a different opinion. ;)

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