What should we call books with no sex in them? AAR has a sensuality ratings system but that’s not helpful when you want a single descriptor. (It has five levels from Kisses to Burning and probably needs to be revamped.) Romancelandia seems to have settled–to the joy of few–on the term clean.
There are those who think the word clean is judgemental. Inspirational doesn’t work because not everyone who wants a clean read is looking for inspies.
So is the term here to stay? Is there a better one? What do you think of when you hear the phrase clean romance?
Yes, I’ve heard of Intercourse. I grew up around Philadelphia. I still find the term. smut, to be coarse. I do not think sexual relations between people who love each other is smut.
I would also add that the word “smut” literally means “dirty,” as it originally referred to the dust coal would inevitably leave on everything as it burned. There was a reason everything in the house had to be cleaned once spring rolled around!
In my own head, I call romances with explicit sex … sexually explicit. So called “clean” romances — which suggests the alternative is dirty, I usually call closed door or *not* sexually explicit.
Speaking of descriptors … over the past year, I’ve begun to watch romance book youtube vloggers, many of whom are in their 20s and 30s. One term they tend to use for sexually explicit romances — without judgment, I take it — is “smut”. As someone a bit older, that term *really* turns me off. To me, it has always been associated with pornography.
Smut is defined as “obscene or lascivious talk, writing, or pictures,” and I don’t find romantic sex to be obscene. Certainly, sex in a romance can be lustful and wanton, but it’s a slippery slope to being considered wrong or lewd. In any event, the only reason I bring up my age compared to the vloggers is that I mentioned my discomfort with the term in the comments of one of my favorite vloggers, and she kindly responded that it may be just a change over time in how readers view the term. However, another vlogger, who is within that younger age cohort, also expressed a dislike and discomfort with the term, so maybe it’s not totally generational. I don’t know, I just don’t like it.
I can see why the term ‘smut’ is bothersome to some, but the English language is nothing if not flexible. I live near Intercourse, Pennsylvania, a word that means something vastly different today than on the day that pretty little town was named! A few years ago the term ‘sick’ meant ‘really good’. (I’m not sure if it’s still part of the vernacular or not.) John Denver single handedly changed the phrase ‘far out’ from meaning a ‘long way away’ to ‘amazing’.
To me, smut is a mild term, while porn is not. Smut means naughty, porn means graphic, emotionless sex; sex for the sake of sex. I would object to a romance novel being called porn, but I feel that in some cases smut is the appropriate word.
Hello Intercourse neighbor! From Manheim
We live near Pottstown, just a hop away. When we were courting we spent a lot of time exploring Lancaster County. It’s such a lovely part of PA! We still enjoy Good’s Store, where we add to Hubs toy car collection on a regular basis.
I host a Lady Jane’s Salon 4 times a year at a restaurant in Manheim. We usually have 4 or 5 authors who come read from their newest books and we get to eat and gab about romances! It’s great! If you’re ever interested in attending, see our FB page at Lady Jane’s Salon Lancaster or message me and I’ll get you the details. Entry is $5 or a gently used romance, all of which goes to the Women’s Homeless Shelter at the YWCA in Lancaster.
I will keep that in mind Holly! It might be a good excuse for a side trip to Lititz and the Wilbur chocolate factory…
It seems that everyone is focusing only on the sexual content with regards to the description “clean romance”. But I suspect many readers of those types of books would also have an expectation about the language used (for example excessive use of the F-word, other swear words and crude language to describe body parts). When I see a book described as “clean” the language used inn the book seems just as important as the sexual content (or lack of).
You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that. Explicit language is also an issue in some romance novels. A lot of readers prefer not to be exposed to that, either.
That is an excellent point. I am reading a book right now that has uses f*ck and c*nt a lot. It does so because it’s a fantasy in which those ancient words are part of its characters’ quotidian vocabulary. This gives them a very different feel than when such words are used in contemporary romances but, were someone to dislike encountering them, this book might not work for them.
Just read this comment *after* I made my comment below! LOL! What a coincidence!
Im really enjoying this discussion. I’m old enough to remember when almost EVERY romance novel was either no-sex or closed-door/fade-to-black sex—and the occasional on-page sex scene would be presented in a very detached and euphemistic fashion (and would still be fade-to-black where anatomical details were concerned). I suspect one of the reasons my generation gulped down volumes of bodice-rippers in the decade following the publication of SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is because we were at long last able to read on-page explicit sex scenes written (mostly) by women about women for a majority female readership. I think it’s wonderful that we are now at a point where we can discuss the gradations of sexual explicitness in romance novels—and that there are romances at every level of sexual heat to suit every reader’s taste.
This is me. <3
Me too! Maybe a kiss before ‘The End’, and that was it. I never much cared for bodice rippers because of the treatment of women in many of them…way too rapey for me! But I’m totally on board for books depicting men and women mutually enjoying sex, experiencing love and desire, and dealing with the ebbs and flows of life together.
Agreed that in retrospect the sexual politics of bodice rippers were awful and you couldn’t pay me enough to re-read SWEET SAVAGE LOVE or any books of that type and vintage today, but it is important to remember that as a cultural watershed bodice rippers did have some positive value: they gave women something they’d never had before—sexually-explicit material written by women, about women, and marketed to women.
On yes, I know what you mean! I read some of them, I was in my late teens/early 20s when they started coming out and they intrigued me. But I got my fill after just a few and basically stopped reading romance for a long time.
I started reading Elizabeth Lowell in the late 90s sometime, and came back to romance quite eagerly! I miss Lowell’s westerns so much. I guess she’s retired now, since it’s been years since she’s given us anything new.
Interesting side note here: Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander book was described by one critic as a bodice ripper. Diana took issue with that, and wrote the scene in which she and Jamie meet the very young Lord John Grey on the eve of battle, and Claire’s bodice gets ripped in order to get Lord John to give up secrets about the nearby British encampment. I think this is hilarious, and shows the clever and devious mind of Ms Gabaldon to be truly a thing of beauty!
I also associate myself with this comment. That’s why Woodiwiss literally blew up in the 1970s.
Just a note to say it would be exceedingly difficult to change our sensuality ratings system. AAR’s database goes back decades and we couldn’t go in and change the ratings for those earlier reviewed books. And were we to create a new set of ratings, well, that too would require extensive programming.
When I said I thought we should update our sensuality ratings, I was thinking about better definitions for the terms we’ve historically used.
When books don’t have ANY sex/touching in them at all, we typically use N/A.
It might be possible for reviewers to make a note on each new review about the sensuality, but it wouldn’t be part of our database.
Is there a way to bring up review comments in power search?
No. Adding anything to the Power Search is remarkably difficult. The database was begun years ago and is coded in a way that makes changing it dangerous.
I’ve noticed that some historical writers I read refer to their books that do not include any sex scene as ‘in the style of Jane Austen,’ or ‘drawing room not bedroom.’ Both are a bit cumbersome but I appreciate the descriptor. Sweet sounds too much like it’s going to be insipid. I wrote a book with no sex scenes although there is kissing and I get called out on my other books because they do contain sex scenes typical of historical romance. Those folks get pretty unpleasant in their reviews.
“Those folks get pretty unpleasant in their reviews.”
No kidding. When my first romance was published, I got a review on Goodreads calling me “a dirty old pervert”.
I really wanted to reply, “Excuse me, I am not old.”
Wow! There are a lot of great suggestions here for a new AAR rating system. The struggles with defining what is mild versus smoking hot reminds me of the MPAA ratings. There was an entire documentary about the often arbitrary differences between what constitutes an R versus NC-17 rating. It is entitled “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” and I highly recommend it. (Warnings for explicit movie sex scenes used for illustrative purposes.)
So much about ratings is subjective, as Caz Owens pointed out through her use of “warm” versus “hot.” And things definitely change over time. Using movies as an example again, rated G films used to allow mild swearing, non-sexual nudity, and war violence that wasn’t deemed too graphic. None of those things would ever get near a “G” rating today. On the other hand, a lot of non-explicit, non-violent movies with homosexual content or even implications used to be routinely slapped with an “R” or “NC-17” (used to be “X”) rating. And the big issue today is that PG-13 films tend to have more violence than rated-R films. A lot of people complain the system is outdated and arbitrary, and I agree it is. But changing cultural values and attitudes can make creating a rubric difficult.
As for AAR’s rating system, I like the suggestions of a 1 to 10 or 0 to 10 scale or “no sex,” “implied sex,” “vanilla sex scenes,” “BDSM sex scenes,” etc. I’ve also seen romance sites that rate from 1 to 5 chili peppers for spiciness or 1 to 5 lips. The tricky part is creating a rating system that gives readers the information they want to know without creating too many spoilers.
Regarding “closed door sex,” this can be a bit vague for readers who would prefer their characters to remain chaste. Does “closed door” mean there is no sex mentioned/happening at all, or does it mean we *know* the characters had sex but the author isn’t kissing and telling the details? I think this needs to be specified.
Even erotica or erotic romance can have different levels of steaminess. Is it erotica with toys and/or BDSM, or are the characters having somewhat conventional sex in extreme detail? Should there be a rating system or content warning system regarding certain sexual practices that may be a turn-on or turn-off to individual readers? Or would readers find this to be too much of a spoiler?
It might be too specific to write types of sex scenes included in each book, but in some of my books, I think a clear description helps readers know what to expect. Maybe you could have a drop button to open comments that contain spoilers, like they do on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books?
For illustrative purposes, let me give you an example of a warning/come on I included in “Sweet Fever Dreams,” one of my more humorous m/m erotic romance novellas:
“‘Sweet Fever Dreams’ contains six sex scenes/fantasies that include, but are not limited to, the following sexual practices: public spanking on a football field, a historic desert sheik with a jade butt plug, naughty nurses, 1970s funky soul music, and lots of frottage and c*********g.”
Sorry for the plug, but I couldn’t figure out how else to explain a possible sexual explicitness description system. Kind of like how movies now say, “This film is rated R for extreme violence and persistent language.”
When I wrote about Genre labels on the old AAR message boards, I said “I think more than half of the content of a book should belong to a single genre to get a single genre label: romance, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, etc.”
I suggested the term “Romance Quotient”, used as follows: “The Romance Quotient is the portion of the book devoted to genre romance content OR advancing the relationship even though at one level it could be categorized as belonging to another genre. If the Romance Quotient of a book is less than 50% I would like to see it categorized as something other than a genre romance.”
I think something similar could be applied to the sexiness label problem: a Sex Quotient (SQ) or a Sex Act Quotient (SAQ) or a Sex Percentage (SP) or Sex Act Percentage (SAP) or a Sex Ratio (SR) or Sex Act Ratio (SAR). There would need to be agreement about what counts as sex or a sex act (intercourse, oral, manual stimulation, masturbation, but what about heavy petting?), but then a simple page count ratio could be used. If 100 pages of a 200-page book are spent on sex acts, the quotient or ratio or percentage is 50%. Using a page ratio removes some of the subjectivity problems.
Nice to meet you again! But I fear your labels are a bit too complicated for as readers.
Anyone here know more than me about “cozy” mysteries? I believe they lack graphic violence, language, and sex? Would that work?
I vote no on “clean” for all the reasons stated above. Hadn’t heard about “keeping sweet” (eew!) but if sweet wasn’t doing it for me even before that concept was presented, it definitely doesn’t work now. “Closed-door” is probably the best so far if cozy doesn’t work.
I’m not crazy about “cozy” for mysteries either. It’s a bit too cute for something as inherently violent as murder. I’m not asking for blood and gore, but surely murder should be taken a bit more seriously than “cozy” suggests. I’ve read some romances that would fit under the “cozy” umbrella, but they aren’t all “closed door” or “clean” or “sweet.” Just cozy—as in not making any emotional demands on either the reader or the characters.
Yeah, I’ve always had trouble with the term “cozy” too. I’m not much of a mystery reader, never have been. But it seems to me that a plot revolving around someone getting *murdered* can’t really be that cozy by definition.
My personal preference is for whatever amount of sex and level of heat that suits the characters and the style of the book. I’ve read oodles of books that get the balance wrong. And additional sex scenes are never an effective substitute for actual conversations and sharing of thoughts.. Just sayin’, all you authors out there…..
‘Closed door’ is too specific to replace the term ‘clean.’ ‘Closed door’ suggests that the characters have sex during the period of their relationship depicted by the book, but the scenes are not described to the reader. It doesn’t fit romances in which the characters do not have sex at all during the story, like most old trad regencies. The book ends with a declaration of love or proposal of marriage and any sex will take place after the events of the book.
Since there is so much personal interpretation involved in the current AAR ratings system, I like Camiah’s suggestion of literal descriptions – no sex, implied sex (i.e. closed door), explicit sex, etc. That would be especially good for audiobook listeners, since I can always skim the sex scenes on the page if they’re boring or redundant (which in my experience they frequently are), but I can’t escape listening (and secondhand embarrassment prevents me listening to explicit romance which I’d otherwise be happy to read).
“And additional sex scenes are never an effective substitute for actual conversations and sharing of thoughts.” Absolutely! I remember reading a book review on SBTB that said a certain romance novel (can’t remember which one) had too much info dumping when the hero’s backstory could have been more naturally woven into the plot if it was sprinkled during pillow talk scenes. It got me thinking. Romance could use a lot more of that- pillow talk during the morning after.
I remember one of the last pre-code films, “Queen Christina” with Greta Garbo, was famous for its scandalous morning after scene in an inn. It is sensual, touching, and gives great insight into the heroine. And because she and the hero are talking and eating grapes during afterglow, there is a soft, vulnerable quality to their conversation that wouldn’t have happened in another context. So let’s hear it for more pillow talk in romance novels!
I am in the minority here, as clean is perfectly acceptable to me, fade to black, off page and closed door are more cumbersome, but still work. Sweet would be a no-no as I really like sweetness in the romances I read, even when they have sex scenes.
The worst term in romanclandia is enemies-to-lovers when meaning hate-to-love or dislike-to-love. It renders finding (different sides) enemies to lovers like Romeo and Juliet impossible.
I don’t like the unspoken implications of “clean and wholesome” (sex suddenly isn’t?). I like fade to black. Tue of what happens on page, and film noir classy.
I don’t like either clean or sweet for the reasons that have been discussed here. Closed door or fade to black work for me, although I can’t see either being widely adopted.
Maybe a numerical scale of 1 to 10 could be used as an indicator of the amount of explicit physical sex in a romance with 1 being utter chastity and 10 being demi-pornographic. I agree with those above who think that “clean” implies that explicit descriptions of physical sex are “dirty” but I also think that “closed door” smacks of the old Hollywood Hays Code. Remember the twin beds and one foot on the floor rule? In the end, no matter how a romance is “rated” it will be the interpretation of the reviewer and maybe not the reader.
This discussion reminded me of Georgette Heyer’s Venetia. Definitely clean, closed door or chaste – whatever – but the conversations between Venetia and Lord Damerel over the dinner table were shimmering with sexual tension and, for me, quite erotic despite the fact that they never so much as touched each other. A well-written romance can be red hot where the sexual content is all in the mind and that takes true talent.
I was thinking about Heyer as well while reading through comments here. I don’t think any of her characters did more than kiss once per book, and if that, always at the very end of her books. It is an interesting thought exercise to consider, if she were writing today, would she write more explicitly? Other issues in her writing aside, the attraction/tension between her characters is always palpable and without a single reference to engorged body parts anywhere.
@Elaine s and @nblibgirl- You are so right about palpable sexual tension in books without a single sex scene. “Forever Amber,” for example, was banned in Boston for being so sexually frank and scandalous- but there isn’t a single on-page sex scene! Everything is implied or fade to black but good Heavens! It’s a fantastic book that I highly recommend, a real page turner. And I assure you that despite it’s lack of explicitness, it is hardly rated G.
I’m a fan of fade to black or closed door. I would also be okay with a rating system that went something like no sex/implied sex/explicit sex. I don’t require sex in a romance novel, but don’t like the judginess inherent in clean or proper, which is another term I see used occasionally. Sweet isn’t as bad as clean, but sweet to me also implies fluffy/low-angst, and that isn’t a good descriptor for books that have a higher emotional pitch that are also no sex or implied sex. I pretty much avoid any book labeled inspirational, since that usually implies religious/spiritual overtone that I really don’t enjoy, so I definitely don’t want to see books without sex be labeled that way just because they don’t have sex.
I prefer closed door or fade to black to “clean”, they don’t carry a value judgement to me whereas “clean” does. I don’t like hearing stories labelled clean, since it implies all other stories are somehow “dirty”, and I’m not here for that.
I read both closed door and explicit or even erotic romance and enjoy all levels of sexual content. All of them can have layered, compelling emotional development between the leads and that’s what I’m looking for.
Sweet means something completely different to me. I don’t know if it’s cultural, but when I say sweet, I mean a lighter story, with that adorable warm fuzzy feeling between the leads. No angst or tortured characters. It has nothing to do with sexual content or lack thereof, but with the tone and the type of rapport the couple have.
“off-page” as an analogue to “off-camera?”
For me, closed door implies something that should be hidden and is thus, perhaps, unsavory.
Hmm..I never thought of it that way. I like off-page, too.
I think it’s just me–words are ultimately so idiosyncratic!
I think private instead of hidden which is why I think I prefer it over clean. Very interesting how perceptions are so different
That doesn’t work for me because, in a book, the author is omniscient. So we as readers can see something that is hidden or private in the world of the book but is erotic.
“Something unsavory”? I never think of “closed door” that way. Private, maybe, but not in any way judgmental. I think I have read too many explicit scenes that go on far too long and end up, frankly, boring. I prefer the closed door scenes that leave more up to my imagination. (It’s in good functioning order, thank you.)
I like our current system with ‘closed door’ as an addition or replacement for Kisses. I don’t like sweet or clean. Hot (or warm) sex can also be sweet – in fact, I love it that way in my romance novels. I enjoy sex in novels and tend to steer away from romance where it is 100% absent or wholly off page.
” I enjoy sex in novels and tend to steer away from romance where it is 100% absent or wholly off page.”
Same here. I feel that if an author lets me into a character’s mind and heart, the character’s body shouldn’t be off-limits to me.
“Sweet” always makes me think of something sickly and treacly – and I certainly don’t want that in a romance!
Edited to add: I don’t mean I don’t like sweet characters or gestures or whatever – I meant as an overall descriptor, I find “sweet” too cloying.