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the ask @AAR: Must romance include birth control?

They kiss. His hand slips beneath her skirt. She fumbles with the zipper of his pants. Mouths fused, they tumble to the bed. Their clothes melt away and finally, oh so wonderfully, finally they’re naked, skin to skin, hardness to softness. Staring deeply into each other’s eyes…..

And what?

He says he’s got protection? She asks if he’ll make sure there’s no child? They discuss their sexual histories? They say nothing because it’s understood they’ll be safe because it’s fiction and it doesn’t have to hew to the laws of real life? They’re so carried away by a wonderful passion that it would derail the scene to introduce the mundane consequences of sex? They joyfully pull on a condom/french letter/sheath?

And do we have different expectations for different genres? And have our expectations for birth control in romance changed over the past decades? Are there authors you love for how they handle birth control? Ones you intensely dislike?

Let us know!

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