Sex Positivity Blog Hop

I like sex. 


There I said it!


What I don't like is the shame people attach to sex being portrayed in print, photography and film. 


I'm not talking about porn-I really just laugh at most porn, it's so cheesy. However, I have no issue with other people watching and promoting porn. I do love erotic photography.


However, that's not what I wanted to talk about today.


I want to talk about sex. Liking sex is not a crime. Sex with someone who doesn't want it is a crime, but this post is focusing on safe, consensual sex and why it's okay to like it.


A year or so ago, someone posted a comment to me, I don't even remember where (and I'm paraphrasing here) asking how I could write such dirty books when I have children? One of my authorly friends suggested I remove the comment, but I didn't. This person, from the name I guessed a woman, had the right to her opinion. The first thought I had when I read this comment was where do you think we call came from lady? 


If you answered SEX you get the prize.


I write books with gay couples as the main characters. Established couples are my favorite, but I dabble in the first blush of romance that leads to established couples as well. To me there is nothing sexier than the couple who still loves and, yes craves one another after many years together.


I like reading books that revolve around a mystery of some sort be it scifi, contemporary or urban fantasy. So, I tend to write those sorts of books. Since my main characters are a couple (or in the process of becoming one) their relationship, whether it be a first date or a marriage of a decade, is also part of their story.


Now, you'd better sit down for this part: Couples have sex! 


Shocking, I know.


I don't care if the couple is boy/boy, boy/girl, girl/girl or boy/girl/alien, or...you get the idea---they have sex in some form. It's what is part of a healthy loving couple relationship!


There is nothing more fun (and sometimes heartbreaking) in the course of reading a novel than seeing your favorite couple at their most intimate really enjoying each other. For me that simply cements the fact they are a WE in every sense of the word. They love one another, they show it, and darn it all I get to read about every other little detail in their lives, I want to read about this part too.


Yet, there are many people who say ick, it's wrong, I must cover my eyes and can not look, it shouldn't be there. Um...why? No one seems to balk at a novel with wall-to-wall angst. Let one of the main characters break down in sobs, react strongly out of anger or do something out of character in the course of a story and everyone is cheering the depths of characterization. 


Let him enjoy a little one on one time with his partner that might involve sex and there is gasping in horror. Frankly, I'm more opposed to gratuitous angst than I am gratuitous sex.


Humans use sex as an expression of feelings. The best sex is with a loved one, but sex with strangers can have a place in a story as well. There are still feelings expressed, and characterization being shown and developed.


In one of my books there is a scene in which the couple face a life-threatening situation (I know that doesn't really narrow it down to which book). After they find safety there is a small sex scene. Some readers and reviewers didn't like that and thought it was inappropriate and should have been removed. 


The editors of the book liked it and the larger majority of readers/reviewers who commented on it liked it as well. I'm glad most people took this scene for what it was supposed to be: affirmation of this couples's love and their relief to be alive and still together. Instead of lines of dialog discussing their predicament they used their bodies and showed readers (and each other) how and what they were feeling. Showing that they had a sexual encounter isn't wrong or dirty. It's life.


I don't know how or why sexual expression became such a controversy in literature and visual art. What I do know is to accurately portray the lives of people in a marriage or budding romance it is important to show all aspects of their lives and interactions together. That means not stopping at the bedroom door, but following right along with them.


Reading about the sexual encounters of our characters or looking at photographs and film depicting erotica isn't wrong. Sharing our finds with others who enjoy them isn't wrong. 


Sex is simply one more part of a story being told. Read it, see it, and enjoy it for what it is: a complete look into the lives of your favorite characters.

---

Available from Dreamspinner Press November 26, 2014

Now for a little bitty look into the lives of Todd and Nick Ruger:


Nick shoved the door shut behind him with his foot. “You know, maybe I like old ladies grabbing my ass. I hear they have a lot of—” Nick shrugged. “—experience.”

“Um-hum.” Todd untied his tie and pulled it off. “So you’re into women now?”

Nick went to the bedroom door. “Wow, this is nice. That bed is huge. Couch is small.”

Todd snorted and slipped passed Nick, grabbing his ass on the way by and laughing when Nick squawked. He seized Nick around the waist, took a few steps sideways, and spun him around. “You’re learning to dance.”

Nick hooked one foot around Todd’s shin and pulled back, dumping Todd on the bed, then pounced on top of him. “Maybe old ladies know stuff we don’t.”
“Ha, I bet not.” Todd flipped Nick off of him, reversing their positions. “I bet she can’t make you beg.”

“You’re jealous.”

“You’re my Lucky.” Todd grabbed both of Nick’s wrists, pinning his hands over his head. He leaned down and kissed Nick, tongue sliding in his mouth. When Nick arched up against him, Todd pulled back and sat Nick up. 


“Clothes off. Now.” Todd was already tugging Nick’s dark green shirt open. His hands pressed against Nick’s heated flesh, rubbing over his nipples, up to his shoulders, and over and down his back, easing his shirt off as he moved.
When Nick shimmied off the bed and stood to shed his pants, Todd turned and watched, a slow, wicked smile spreading over his face. 


Heat shot through Nick, starting at the tip of his hard, moist cock. “Maybe I want to find out if Heidi can make me beg.” He stretched his arms, then flexed his biceps and pecs. A second later he shoved against Todd’s shoulders. “And do it faster than you could.”

Todd reached forward, taking hold of Nick’s hips. “Let’s see,” he said and jerked Nick to him with enough power that Nick was thrown off-balance and landed on Todd’s lap, straddling his legs.

Leaning forward, Todd scraped his teeth along Nick’s neck and collarbone. One of Todd’s hands went to the middle of Nick’s back, pulling him in close. He licked the fingers of his other hand before moving it down and massaging over Nick’s left buttock.

As soon as Nick arched against Todd, his mate nipped a path along Nick’s chest to one nipple, sucking it between his teeth. At the same time, Todd’s finger slipped between his ass cheeks and circled his entrance until Nick was squirming and gasping.

The instant Todd’s fingers pushed inside Nick’s body, he ground down on them, moaning out, “Oh yeah, more, please!”

“You’re so easy,” Todd chuckled, the vibration reverberating through Nick’s body.

He bent his finger and hit Nick’s sweet spot at just the perfect angle, rubbing so lightly it was barely felt. Nick held Todd’s shoulders, fingers digging into the thick muscles while he ground his cock against the material of Todd’s trousers, thrilled with the sensation of pleasure/pain that shot straight through him. Todd bit, then licked Nick’s nipple.

Nick gulped down a protest and whined when Todd pulled his fingers from Nick’s ass, both of his hands again on the juts of Nick’s hips. He pushed Nick back, ordering, “Stand up.”

“I can’t.” Nick closed his eyes slowly and panted out the words. The air surrounding him felt as if it were on fire.

Todd snickered and pressed his thumbs on either side of Nick’s cock. “You want my pants off so I can do more to that fine ass, you’ll figure it out.”

____________________________________________________________

Their story and a few other couples' are all available from Dreamspinner Press. A head's up...all those stories include sex.

---

Blog Hop