Romance writers shouldn't even try to write skiffy.

[elfs]

I know I shouldn't make too much fun of romance writers. Suffice it to say that I really like Joanna Lindsey, usually, when she writes historicals. They're hot! When she tries to write SF, however, she's so stuck in the early 1960's:

He looked at the android with impotent fury, though his words were addressed to Shanelle. "You should have said he was your companion. Caris said your mother owned him, so I assumed you wouldn't be sharing sex with him, but--"

Shanelle's soft laughter cut him off. It was melodious and infectious, the kind of laugh that forced a smile even from strangers who merely heard it in passing. It had the ability to take the edge off his own jealous anger, particularly since it was genuine humor he was hearing, not anything ridiculing or sarcastic.

"I'm sorry, Jadd," she said after a moment, "but if you knew my father, you wouldn't have jumped to such a conclusion. Tell him, Corth."

Without expression, the android replied, "The Challen Ly-San-Ter would not allow me near his daughter until the Martha agreed to reprogram my abilities. I am no longer capable of sex-sharing."

"Oh, that's real tough, Corth." Jadd grinned with immense relief.

I know, I haven't written anything substantial for a while, but maybe it's just that between this stuff and John Updike, the whiplash is so bad I don't know where to start.

Comments

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Erm... we must not have read the same romances, then. I started reading them... lessee... about 1982 or so. Some were, as you said, so full of 'shafts' you had to conclude the author had a mining fetish, but others were incredibly explicit. Take Beatrice Small, for example. I recall an old 'classic' of hers, Skye O'Malley, which included forced lesbian sex twice, once with an incestuous brother-sister pair raping the MC, hints of beastiality, and a whooooole lotta borderline kinky sex. Another of hers had a scene of pedobestiality, a third was pure bdsm. Another author, Jennifer Roberts, I think, but I'm not sure, also had seriously kinky, explicit stuff during the same time period... I recall one scene where our heroine is being rented out by her current keeper, and her first 'customer' is a spoiled, young teenage boy who likes to spank tied up older women. And of course, a whooooole lot of the pre-civil war slavery-era books are... so explicit that I have no idea how they got published, but they were shelved with the historical romances. I recall scenes of forced sodomy on young boys, cannabilism, and the use of a headless frog as a dildo.

So, they've always been there. You just had to know where to look. Though, as is similar today, the language (but not the scenes themselves!) is more explicit in contemporary romance than it is in historical.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I loved Skye O'Malley! And The Kadin, and Enchantress Mine, and The Love Slave (although I was disappointed by the lack of BDSM content) and The Innocent (cuteness and sodomy: what more could you want?). Bertrice (not Beatrice, dear) Small has been absolute fuel for the fire in a lot of ways.