What Drives Me Crazy About Romance Novel Spicy Scenes

Erotica is all the rage these days, ever since Fifty Shades of Grey made explicit sex scenes and taboo kinks a normal reoccurrence in modern-day erotica, also known as ‘spicy’ romance. At twenty years old, I remember standing in a Chapters store with Fifty Shades in my hands, flipping through all the dirty scenes so I could see what all the fuss was about. I never read the book cover to cover, but I had to admit, as I stood there, careful to make sure that no one could tell what I was reading, some of the kink was turning me on.

At that point in my life, I’d never been in a relationship, gone on a date or even kissed a boy. I’d also never read erotica. My romance novel experience was extremely limited, though Wuthering Heights was longstanding as one of my favourite novels of all time, and I was drawn to the wild, powerful and at times, cruel, nature of the antihero.

Just over ten years later, I still haven’t read a lot of erotica or romance, not because I don't want to, but rather because I’m almost always left disappointed and frustrated by what I ultimately find.

I’m sure that different people read romance and spice for different reasons, but I personally read it to feel something both deep and real. ‘Deep’ as in something pulsing with vulnerability that opens up a well of emotions inside me and drowns me in the intimacy of its depths. ‘Real’ as in a feeling I can relate to within myself, an entrancing written representation of my own fear, confusion, desire, mirrored within and teased out of the character. I read to feel more powerfully and to feel seen, understood, expressed. For me, that’s the hook of romance. That’s the life that it awakens in my soul. Or at least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.

The issue that I often find in these types of books is that, while they start off great, with an appealing hook, a punchy antihero, flames that leap off the pages—as the book goes on, the characters often lose their flair and become boring, whiny and repetitive. The sexy brooding antihero almost always makes a 180 degree turn-around with The Prince Charming Cliche (explored here), and the sex scenes, which often hint at the promise of something deep and real, crumble into a robotic, cringe-worthy act. Let me explain.

In my opinion, the sex scenes often fail to deliver for two reasons: 1) everything is perfect, and 2) the heroine seems robotic.

Even if the heroine is a shy, inexperienced girl who blushes at the mere word, ‘sex’, such as in Fireworks by Sarina Bowen, as soon as she is having sex with the hero, everything flows perfectly.

Now, I have to give Bowen credit for at least trying to make it realistic, for portraying the heroine as being a little annoyed with and scared of sex. She believes, from her sparse experience with selfish men, from being bent over the desk in her sexy (and married) university professor’s office, that she doesn’t enjoy it. She also experiences shame from her verbally abusive stepfather, and on several occasions during or before sex with the hero, she freezes, triggered by a memory, and has to stop. That was a wonderful twist which showed depth to her character and made me actually interested in her story.

However, the trauma is smoothed over all too easily and on other occassions, as soon as the actual sex happens, she melts in his hands, wondering how she could possibly not have liked sex before, since she decides it’s actually wonderful. Every touch is pure bliss. There’s no movement that’s too hard or too soft or not enough or too much. There’s no position that’s uncomfortable, even when she rides him for the first time on a chair outside on the back porch in the cold. She seems to love going down on him and has zero apprehension or doubts. She comes hard and fast every time they get it on, and she can’t get over how amazing and hot and incredible in bed he is. In my book, this makes for incredibly boring and robotic sex.

Why do I use the word ‘robotic’? Because I feel like the heroine is not acting the way a real human woman would act. She seems to be lost in a sex trance, where her behaviour seems almost drugged, in La La Land, oblivious to reality and going along with everything, enjoying it, no matter what it is. Because let’s face it, real sex, even with someone who loves you in a committed relationship, is not perfection. There are definitely fireworks, but sometimes he’s grabbing you too hard or didn’t warm you up enough or the angle is weird or off, or you're just not in the mood for certain things.

I’m not saying that I want spicy romance novels to be full of sexual mishaps, but I want the sex scenes to be grounded in enough reality so that I accept the character as a complete being with a full and dependable range of emotions and logic, so that I watch the scene in my mind as something real, rather than an inconsistent, badly written fantasy that comes across as forced or fake and that doesn’t hold any water or even my attention.

I want to read about good but not perfect sex. I want to read about conflicted emotions that draw me in, rather than cut me off from the character. Because if everything is perfect and she’s in robotic happy mode, I can’t relate to or connect with her. The connection is severed, and that takes me out of the story, out of the book completely.

This robotic behaviour is even clearer in Debt by Nina G. Jones, a dark (and much spicier) romance about a woman, bored with her sex life, who hires a special service to fake-attack her and fulfil her rape fantasy. However, it turns out that the man who attacks her and ravages her on her living room floor is not, in fact, part of this company. And so begins her ‘arrangement’ with the sadistic antihero who blackmails her with their sex tape, coercing her to have a lot more dirty and degrading sex with him. Sounds grim, I know—and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. But that’s not even what annoyed me. It was her robotic responses that made me want to stop listening to the audiobook.

The heroine acts like a sex robot rather than a real, feeling woman, because even as the antihero is doing despicable things to her—which I won’t describe here—all she can think about is ‘his beautiful cock’ and how she wants it inside of her. Despite the degradation, the hatred and the humiliation forced upon her, she is still overwhelmed by her insatiable need for him. She doesn’t want him to leave, and she’s scared at the thought of him walking out of her life just as suddenly as he walked into it.

Here in the real world, even if a man is drop-dead gorgeous and does have a ‘beautiful cock’ (if that’s even a thing), the way it works for me, is that his actions affect my perception of him. He could be the hottest guy in the world, but if he’s cruel or hot-headed and selfish, his hotness fades, and I’m punched in the gut by the truth of his character: a greedy, ugly and careless soul. And that does the opposite of turn me on. It shuts me down and makes me want to have nothing to do with him.

Now, up the intensity about fifty times—if someone who openly hates you is literally trying to break your will with his dick, that would generally incite a trauma response such as fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It would naturally shut down all sexual desire and hunger for more. But not so in this novel.

Keep in mind that this is a very different from a kinky sexual experience rooted in love and trust, where despite the play actions, you know that your partner loves and cares for you, even if the fantasy states otherwise. Debt’s early spicy scenes are basically a portrayal of sexual abuse, except that somehow, she loves it just as much as she hates it.

I can tell that the author is trying to create a depth of character within the heroine’s conflicted emotions, both loathing herself for wanting it and wanting it even more. However, her responses are so far removed from what a normal human being would do that her character completely loses me. I disconnect. And when I disconnect, I don’t care about the characters or the story. And when I don’t care about the characters or the story, I don’t have much desire to listen to the rest of the audio book or any other books by the same author.

The perfection of the sex in this particular book makes things even worse. For example, despite the pain, the heroine is pleasured to the max by rough anal sex, with the antihero bellowing at her to ‘breathe’ and ‘relax’—and that somehow works? Of course it does. Sure, she’s sore and weak, but she feels waves of pleasure and ecstasy and can’t get him out of her head. Meanwhile I’m just sitting here thinking: Does this author even understand how anal sex works?

Let’s just say that, in my personal opinion, no real woman would feel pleasure in many of these circumstances, especially not the complete and untainted pleasure that the heroine always experiences in the book. It’s bland, robotic and predictable, and it annoys me to no end. Even the author’s attempt to construct the depth of conflicting emotions comes across as robotic and unrealistic, which further adds to the frustration.

I guess the point of this whole rant is to explain exactly what it is about spicy scenes that pisses me off so much.

I just got the month-free Audible trial, and the only reason I’m binge-listening to romance novels is because I’m considering doing audio books myself, for the first three books in my series, and I’d like to listen to a few first. Plus, I want to check out what all the spicy romance girls are reading nowadays. And so far, I’m not impressed.

An aside: if you think that Debt is an extreme book example, dark romance is now a category all on its own that’s quickly climbing the charts. TikTok, or rather SpicyBookTok and DarkBookTok are full of recommendations for new popular tropes such as ‘stalker’, ‘age gap’ ‘breeding’, as well as a slew of kinks.

Bottom line: I feel like these readers are searching for something deeper.

My question is—are they really getting it?

Feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions, as well as any book recommendations, in the comments below—or if you’d rather not share in public—you can send me a private message here.