Romance Isn't Romance If The Bedroom Door Is Left Open...

There was a rather interesting column up at Romancing The Blog, (I know, I too was shocked, interesting RTB columns only seem to happen about once every six months) when this comment caught my eye:

"The trouble is the borders, subjective borders, between romance and erotica. Personally I would call anything that has graphic sex scenes in it erotica rather than romance - for me Romance “closes the bedroom door” when it comes to The Act itself."

The column itself was talking about too much sex in romance books, erm or something like that (yes I know we've been here before). The columnist was careful to point out that she was talking about traditional romance (does anybody know what traditional romance is these days btw?), not erotica. (g)

What bothered me most about the above comment was the implication that books which keep the bedroom door open, aren't true romance. Now I know this is obviously her opinion, but my opinion is that that's the most absurd thing I've read for at least a week (Hey this is Blogland, there is no shortage of stupid comments around these parts).

I think the columnist herself made a pretty good point about overblown (heheh) sex in books, but I'm thinking this does depend on the writer.

There are some books that I've read where the book was essentially made up of one sex scene after the other, (not that that's always a bad thing mind, depends on the mood I guess) and very little plot. These are the books that annoy me no end, but on the other hand, Valdez's Passion, started off with a sex scene (erm, not the penetrative kind, mind, I think it was more groping, than anything else) and let's face it, there was enough sex in the rest of the book, to defrost even Anne Coulter, but for me, the key to the sexiness, was the writing itself. Passion was very much a character-driven story, which makes all the difference in the world.

Bad sex can spoil a romance book for me, but no sex, basically guarantees that that romance book wont ever get the chance to piss me off, cuz I aint buying it. Myopic much? Probably.

This is why me and inspirational romances could never be.

Hmmm... Does this mean I'm a sex-obsessed freak? *g*