This post is in response to Historical Romance - How Much Heat is Too Much?
The original post is by Evangeline Collins, author of Her Ladyship's Companion
In the comments I explored what I thought made the difference between a sexy romance and an erotica romance and then I thought it deserved to be explored some more.
I agree with Evangeline that the lines are blurring but will the line ever disappear? My guess is not anytime soon.
How are sexy romance and erotica romance the same or merging?
Both types of romances can have vanilla or kinky sex. It can be explicit and it can be blush inducing… it can turn you on and rev you up. Yummy.
How are they different?
As I said it’s not so much anymore that the sex is there and is explicitly described; both types of romance write it and write it well. The main difference that I see is language. The diction between sexy romance and erotic romance are two very different types of words.
Sexy romance still uses in many cases the tame terminology romance has used since the beginning. I say tame because it’s many times wrapped in euphemisms. It's still polite.
Examples: cock, center, sheath, thrusting, pumping, bundle of nerves.
Erotica romance takes the words people use today and waves it like a banner. It’s not your mother’s romance in other words... pardon the pun. Modern/urban colloquial terms are the cornerstones of erotica.
Examples: cock (hey it’s versatile!), dick (even though old romances used it, it’s not used now in sexy romance [or if it is I haven’t seen it]), cunt, pussy, twat, fucking.
Wrapping up:
They are also different because erotica romance also has a history of ménage a trios/multiple partner sex. Same sex stories currently fall under erotica. Do I expect this to change? Yes and no. I expect the forbidden aspect will fall to the wayside and some sexy romances will start incorporating multiple partners/same sex. However, I doubt sexy romance which is firmly entrenched in romancelandia will ever buy into more than one soul mate at a time as romance’s cornerstone is the perfect match, the happily ever after.
How about you? Do you think the lines are blurring or have blurred all they’re going to blur?
Photo Credits: zenera
Originally posted 2009-04-05 14:15:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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