Home Economics: Love, Sex, and the Marriage Ending

I've been thinking out loud over at my own personal blog, about a new project I'm playing with, which I hope will be (as I say there):

[...a] thoughtful, highly literate and very smutty piece of writing, with[...] no monogamous ending; no ultimate sorting [of characters into happy coupledom]; no cozy, well-protected final retreat back behind the gates of Pemberley. And yet (I hope) no loose ends either[.... A] way of bringing together all the stuff I’ve been meditating on during my loopy journey from erotica to romance and now, perhaps, back.

A collaboration, as I see it, between Pam Rosenthal and Molly Weatherfield target="_blank" -- an exploration of mean(ing)s and end(ing)s, where we get to play close to the edge of the provocative margin between romantic and (if we must call it that) erotic (with a wink and a nod, here, to Celia May Hart and her funny recent post at this blog).

Is my collaborative idea saleable? I have no idea. I'm not far enough into it yet, and I'm not even going to try to shop it around to publishers until I know more about the shape it will take. So I'd be grateful for your comments about the distinctions between romance and that other thing -- and what role ultimate monogamy and the marriage ending plays in all of this.

And if you're interested in the topic, you might also want to go over to Tracy Grant's blog post about the popularity of courtesan themes in recent romance novels, which I think is related to this issue. What does the widespread recent interest in erotically experienced heroines tell us? Does it widen romance fiction's purview or does it ultimately domesticate the question of erotic experience? Also and always germane is anything our own Jane Lockwood has had to say on erotic pairings and happy endings (or not) in in Forbidden Shores. (What's a good post you did on this, Jane, from the vast archives of your web-hopping?)

Other examples from the huge mess o' online discussion would be appreciated as well... Links to other readers' and writers' cherished beliefs, prejudices, and finely (or even not-so-finely) drawn distinctions are all good. Monica McCarty's opinionated post about Romance and the One True Love a few months ago at the Fog City Diva blog is a great example of taking a position (not my position, but an enduring one), and stating it with impressive clarity.

Let me know what you think, if you've got a mind to.

And meanwhile, here are some closer-to-home messages from the material world.

• Sending my thanks first of all to Lacy, whose post on dildos a while back has evidently been inspiring some action in my back brain, to surface in the scene I'm writing right now in the new collaborative project (I'm stealing one of her fabulous illustrations, but there are more where that came from).

• And adding an update from my own real life and times. Because the little anniversary present my husband bought me at Good Vibrations last autumn (when I read there with Lacy, Eden Bradley, and Lillian Feisty) turned out to be of shoddy workmanship. No, I'm not going to tell you what he bought me, but I will say that -- for my birthday this month -- he replaced the shoddy original with a terrific little number from the Xandria Collection online. And that at least from our experience, Xandria seems like a pretty excellent site. Have you used it? Anybody else have some consumer info to share?

• And... oh, this old illustration? Well, some of you may know a certain sex toy scene from Safe Word. And some of you may not. I may post the scene on my website when I have time for that, but it's not there now, so you just may have to employ some lateral thinking to guess (though I couldn't have). I will tell you that it does work: unlike some of the more farouche stuff in my erotic books, I tried this one at home -- and so did a happy reader. It's subtle, though. You might just have to read my Molly Weatherfield books...

Happy consuming, everyone (the inner nerd insists that I tell you that the word "economics" comes from the Greek for "household"). And happy theorizing . And do tell me what you think about the erotics (or not) of the marriage ending.

The erotic of the everyday

I've mentioned before how I like the hidden eroticism of everyday life--particularly useful if you're writing books set in a time where the appearance of propriety was more important than propriety itself. I came upon this splendid picture a few days ago, Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables by Sir Nathaniel Bacon, c. 1620-25. It is altogether rather odd. (The perspective is very strange. Why the gigantic cabbages in the foreground? They have to be three feet tall.)

And the, uh, blatant symbolism of the uh, big melons. For at least a couple of centuries, portraits of women at work, particularly in kitchens and surrounded by fecund heaps of produce and game, had great erotic significance. If she displayed a melon, she could display her own; if she could peel a carrot, she might peel his.

Here's a short excerpt from an earlier version of Forbidden Shores, an example of the erotic of the everyday, the everyday item in this case being a pair of gloves which Allen has lent Clarissa:

Oh, the poor young man. Such a shame, after he’d tried so hard to impress her. Clarissa cradled Mr. Pendale’s head in her lap, gingerly exploring the rising lump on his scalp. His gloves lay somewhere among her skirts. She had removed them with some reluctance, after savoring the secret warmth of the silk and leather, the heat all the more enjoyable for having been rendered by a male, and a stranger. The intimacy of his gesture and her enjoyment of her fingers being where his had lain gave her a definitely indecent pleasure. As did her exploration of his head, warm and heavy in her lap. He groaned. His eyelashes, long and dark, fluttered against his cheeks.

She resisted an impulse to touch his face, her fingers itching once again for that pleasurable roughness. Had they not been surrounded by a cluster of interested kitchen staff, she might have risked it.

Thoughts?

Real Men Do ... or Don't?

My book Forbidden Shores came out three weeks ago and there's quite a bit of buzz about it online. I'm very happy about that.

But a lot of the chat about it seems to be about the fact that the book has some m/m stuff. Nothing new, I'd have thought--except this book doesn't look like an erotic romance, it's cataloged as a historical romance, and the back cover blurb is, uh, discreet. Take this discussion at the All About Romance Reviews Board where the consensus seems to be that heroes do not take it up the ass.

The discussion of what they do do to each other was apparently continued via e-mail to protect the innocent. (Spoiler: Hand jobs, ladies! Hand jobs! Mostly.) This, plus the reaction at Dearauthor.com, where the book is the featured dueling review of the month (hooray! Although it seems to have turned into a Kinsale-fest, but that's okay), sent Erastes (a future guest here at the Spiced Tea Party) into a rant about whether romance readers are such delicate flowers as they appear to be. Plus Erastes has an additional bonus rant on the same post on the use/misuse of the term menage, something I have complained about too.

I spent some time, and had some ponderings with critique partners, about who would be top/bottom and couldn't reach a conclusion. There's one character, March, who's definitely bisexual and in a state of groveling horniness for Allen, the man he's in love with; Allen, meanwhile, will do just about anything to be with Clarissa, but out of innate decency doesn't want to lead March on, and is mostly heterosexual. So the characters defined the level of sexual activity, and I think it works. Just because it's erotic romance doesn't mean everyone has to do everything to everyone else; the characters determine their actions, not an editorial checklist.

And off-topic, Colette and I had a blast reading in NY last week. I made them laugh; Colette had them spellbound (she read the mirror scene in Unmasqued and I read the sex next to the chicken coop scene of Forbidden Shores).

So what's your definition of a real man in erotic romance?

Today's illustration is from Popular Science magazine, January 1964, in an article headlined: Automated Caveman Gets a Rear-End Drive: Despite his wide-open situation, the caveman on the preceding page is feeling no pain.

Jane does it with herself --Forbidden Shores contest!

I'm interviewing myself, and if you comment or ask me a question now through Thursday October 4 you can win a signed copy of Forbidden Shores.

Jane: Welcome to the Spiced Tea Party

Jane: Thanks, Jane, it's great to be here. Let me tell you about my book. It's an erotic historical romance called Forbidden Shores (Signet Eclipse) and it takes place in 1800 on a Caribbean island. It's about three people who are each in love with the one of the three who cannot love them back.

Jane: Ooh! A menage on the beach!

Jane: Uh. Not as such. Well, actually, yes. There is a threesome. They do do it on the beach. But there's more to the book than that. I started writing Forbidden Shores--it morphed through about thirty titles but it began as The Story of Miss O and then Chained--after reading Adam Hochschild's brilliant book Bury the Chains, the story of the English abolitionist movement. That man cannot write an inaccurate or inelegant statement--

Jane: You are such a literary tart--

Jane: Oh, shut up. Yes, as I was saying, Hochschild's book inspired me to write about people who were involved in the cause, which crossed boundaries of gender and class. Ordinary housewives boycotted sugar; Wedgwood made a special plaque that appeared on decorative items, jewelry, china. So my heroine Clarissa is a pro-abolitionist who was (literally) screwed by the movement--she's been exiled by her family and has decided since she can't be any more ruined, she might as well embrace ruination and become a courtesan. Unfortunately, her family have thwarted her plans by arranging her to go to a Caribbean island as a governess. So on the voyage there she gets to fool around with Hero #1, Allen Pendale, a disillusioned lawyer who's the odd one out in his family and has spent too much time cuckolding Bristol merchants.

Jane: [comment to break up long paragraph]. There's more than one Hero?

Jane: Hero #2 is a plantation owner, March.

Jane: Ick.

Jane: Precisely. One of the challenges of the book was to make a slaveowner seem sexy if not particularly sympathetic and also make it credible that Clarissa falls in love with him, although I've always felt that love is irrational and gets people into trouble--it's a catalyst before it heals. So Clarissa is in love with March, March is in love with Allen, and Allen is in love with Clarissa.

Jane: Oooh.

Jane: Yes, it is HOT HOT HOT with some stuff between Allen (grudging) and March (desperate and begging; he's not a man used to being thwarted), and Clarissa has the best time of all; so it's a very rocky triangle that falls apart when Allen discovers a family secret. And that's all I'm going to say. You'll have to read the book.

Jane: And you could win a signed copy of the book with your question or comment! Fire away.

Three's a Crowd?

While feverishly googling myself today, I came across a discussion on Amazon (that naturally I didn't bookmark) where someone suggested Forbidden Shores (yes, me, my book, coming out in less than five weeks... oh, shoot me) was Signet Eclipse's first shy foray into the wonderful world of menage.

I'm not too keen on the term menage. Menage a trois, fine. But menage alone--well to me it has an aura of inappropriate domesticity. The heroine, with a complacent air, saunters through the marketplace, trailing her fingertips over the plump surface of an eggplant. Yes, that one. Mmmm. Very nice. Behind her traipse two men with shopping baskets, obedient and domesticated. You know they can't wait to get home, put on their aprons, and start slicing and dicing.

So I wonder about the mania for menage. And not stopping at three, but four, five... I read one with six last night. I think it was six; it could have been seven. Only one, the leader of the pack, actually got to do it with the lady (thank you, Monty Python). The others just helped out in a selfless sort of way, politely turning away when their corks were about to pop. The logistics and choreography impressed me; I have trouble if three or more characters are talking.

And I wonder if this is yet another instance of how erotic romance is becoming its own worst enemy--that if you have more than two people having sex there are specific ways to write it. I keep thinking of the 2006 Passionate Ink lunch in Atlanta where one of the speakers declared that we all wanted two gorgeous (alpha, of course) men with their two gorgeous eggplants and I was embarrassed for the waiters. Not apparently two women and one man--readers didn't want it, although I think it has far more interesting possibilities. My editor told me my threesome scenes should be all about the heroine's pleasure, even though we both knew in real life they'd be comparing scars and talking sports at worst or being obnoxiously, rampantly, competitive at best.

In Forbidden Shores, the menage is not a happy one. Without giving away too much of the plot, each of the three characters is in love with the one who doesn't love them back. Curiosity, lust, and a desperate need to do something--anything--to resolve the situation (and please the loved one) drive them into a rather clumsy experiment. They find themselves trapped by it (the original title of the book was Chained) and not much happier.

And it's the heroine who suggests it and gets the most out of it, the greedy girl.

So how do you approach your menage scenes?
And do you think a HEA with a menage in a historical is possible?

All contests all the time at www.janetmullany.com (ending soon) and www.janelockwood.com.

R*manc*ng the Ast*r*sk

I've started making enquiries about getting reviews and interviews for my October 2007 release, Forbidden Shores, and received this strange correspondence from a review site (which shall be anonymous):

Since it is a historical erotic romance, my only question is about the language. Is it graphic in a contemporary sense? or at least used the word c*ck at some point? I know it sounds like an odd question, but bluntly graphic language is a requirement. If you did use very graphic terminology please feel free to send us a copy.

I find this intriguing. First, why someone should assume that because it's a historical it may not have dirty words? And why, from a site specializing in erotic romance reviews, the coy asterisk use? It may be an anti-spam device, or it may be to spare my delicate sensibilities.

Of course I could have written the novel without using the word in question once--as we all know, their are many alternatives, particularly for historicals. I could have used lobster, thistle, Old Harrington, poperine pear, or potato finger (or should those be l*bster, th*stle and so on, to spare the innocent?)--just some of my favorites from our very own Lacy Danes' list of historic dirty words.

And I guess that's why they wanted to know if I was using that word since, despite its honorably ancient usage, readers would know what I meant.

The whole exchange--I wrote back that the book had c*cks coming out of its ears--has left me unsettled. It brings up a whole lot of issues with me: the dumbing down attitude I've encountered among romance writers (so what if it's escapist reading? It can, and should be, well written); the girlish coyness about erotic romance (yes, it's meant to turn you on); the belief that if you write a love scene with the 3 Cs it automatically makes it erotic romance (yes and no).

So my question is: could you, have you, would you want to read or write a hot love scene that has no body parts or euphemisms at all?

The pic, by the way, is titled Man With Large Cock. No asterisk necessary.

So...what do you call It?

It's always a source of bafflement to me that whereas men have names (many silly and highly inappropriate) names for their favorite body part, women don't go in for naming what they're proud to own. Why is there no appropriate and pleasing nickname for the clitoris or female genitalia in general? Is it because men either didn't know, were threatened, or chose to ignore it (and yes, I've encountered all three)? Or do we operate from the supreme confidence that we know what it is, where it is, and how it works, so does it need to be defined further?

And if you're writing historicals it's even worse. About a year ago our own Colette asked me for a suggestion and I suggested tickler. I'd been researching online and an etymologist suggested a German word, dating from the early eighteenth century, that translated as such. I thought it was pretty good. Colette's editor then promptly removed them. We'll see if mine make it through (same house, different editor) in Forbidden Shores (Signet Eclipse 2007).

Turning to the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, things go rapidly downhill. You're left with the impression that Georgian gentlemen were just too squeamish to get down there and have a good look. What sort of idiot would nickname a woman's genitalia the cauliflower? Mindboggling, that such ignorance of both the human body and the wonders of the vegetable world should go hand in hand (unless, of course, cauliflowers looked radically different then).

And if you don't want to use the familiar one-syllable terms or you're not into writing about silken velvet dewy crimson sheaths etc., there are some truly horrible euphemisms--womanly passage is one that makes me shudder. How unsexy can you get...it sounds like the sort of place where you'd hang the gardening gloves and knitting.

So what terms do you use? What throws you out of the moment when you're reading?

Jane juggles.

How did I know I was a filthmonger? Well, I've always been interested in that sort of thing, and when I started writing romance, I found my characters were too. So, there I was with my new critique group, and they were letting me have it on my first attempt at writing a ... romance?... something. In chapter two, my heroine, an apprentice actress with an eighteenth-century theater company, had been propositioned by a young man at a party. Their assignment is in the orangerie, and the first thing she notices is that he's squeezed the huge spot on his chin as preparation. How sweet, I thought (they were both quite young).
They then proceed to have clumsy, fast, first-time sex, buttons flying, with the occasional cry of "Ouch!"
Question from critique partner: Is he the hero?
Me: I don't know yet. I think she might just be learning how to, uh, do it.
Critique partner (very firmly): If you're writing a romance, the hero gets the cherry.
Me: Why?
My heroine then picks oranges and juggles with them.
And that's pretty much the pattern of my writing: there are no rules and I and my characters can fool around in whatever way we choose.
My first book, like Celia's, was a traditional Regency, with no juggling but rather a lot of sex, and some quite grown up sex, too (mature protagonists who'd learned how to do it).
I have a book coming out in October, from Signet Eclipse, called Forbidden Shores. No juggling, but lots of the other. Lots. It's about a woman in 1800 who is in a triangle with two men, where each of them is in love with the wrong person--the one who can't possibly return their love. There are lots of references to The Tempest (it's set on a Caribbean island) and The Merchant of Venice.
First the sex, then the juggling.
I'm so glad to be here with everyone. Milk and sugar?
Jane