It happened during a conversation yesterday. The words "smutty" and "soft porn" were used, again. Yes. Again.
If you're thinking we've had this conversation before, you're correct. I've shared this particular rant a time or two. So put on your hip waders, because it is about to get THICK up in this joint.
Okay, so here is the low-down for my peeps:
I write romance. And women's fiction with romantic elements. I do not, in any way, write porn. If I wrote porn, I would be working for Jenna Jamison, or the likes. But I'm not. I write a good story, chalk full of emotion and pain and growth..........and a little bit of romance. Romance is not the primary focus of my stories. My stories are about the character's journey to each other. I try to write it so that they find themselves along the way, but in the end, I crave a good H.E.A., so I try to bring the characters together in the end.
It's what I do. Wrap it all up in a bow...be it a tattered, torn, slightly faded bow...but a bow none the less. That's a Brooke Moss book.
I, personally, utilize what I call a "fade to black" method with my sex scenes. I try to give the reader enough heat before fading to black, and letting the reader fill in the blanks. This method works well for me, and suits my comfort level as a writer just fine. My readers seem to like it, too. There is a market for sexy without the entire sex act.
Mind you, I like a nice sex scene in a book. I don't like it rough and gritty and filled with certain words that cause me to make a "lemon juice" face, but I do enjoy a nice romantic bedroom scene, and I would have to say, my hubby benefits from it plenty.
I know, I know, TMI. Whatever. You were thinking it, too. So there.
Anyway....as a writer, I write what my editor calls "a closed door" bedroom scene. Everything prior, and everything post. Is it sexy? Yes. Is it hot? Mmmmm, a bit, yes. Is it soft core porn? Um, no. Is it smutty? Again, no. I do not write porn. There is a plot to every book I write, and that plot is the main focus of the story. In case none of you have ever noticed, when it comes to porn movies, the scenes are just stepping stones between sex scenes. Period. They are a means to an end. The "end" being balls and holes. Sorry to be crass, but lets just call a spade a spade, here.
My writing partner writes complete bedroom scenes. They are tasteful and classy and very sexy, a'la Nora Roberts. She does an amazing job, and is getting published because of it (Sept, Oct, and Nov are her release dates! Woo hoo!) I wouldn't classify her sex scenes as smut or soft porn. In fact, it kind of chaps my azz that her more conservative friends and family members would even joke about it. It makes me even more mad when I am drug through the mud for being a somewhat religious wife and mother who writes the aforementioned sexy fade-to-black scenes! I mean, really? Now we're authors of literary porn? Like....really?
I am going to remind the world...again: The romance genre sells the most books. Higher than any other genre. Romance sells. That, my friends, means that there are readers out there buying it and consuming it. Which, ultimately means that my writing partner, and myself, as well as all the other romance writers out there have an audience. Whether we write closed door bedroom scenes or full on erotica, we have an audience, and we are writing books to entertain that audience. We are not taking hand held cameras into motel rooms to film couples having sex. We are not taking pictures of people's anatomy, or couples in the throws of passion. We are writing stories with the purpose of entertaining. Period.
If we write a story that gets someone hot and bothered, the smut comes later. As my partner likes to say, the smut and porn is in their own head, not on the pages of our books. With my books, the reader fills in the blanks. Which means, the smut is of their own creation. If my book causes you to attack your husband and make him squeal, well.....you're welcome. But don't come to me later and accuse me of writing porn.
That's not nice, and I'm getting tired of explaining it over and over and over again.
Brooke Moss.
