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!
the ones that bother me are the ones where they talk about contraception and get it *wrong*. Several Diana Palmer books come to mind where the older experienced hero assures the virginal heroine that he will take care of everything, then proceeds to use the withdrawal method. It knocks me right out of the book, And while I know that young girls aren’t supposed to get their education from romance novels some still do. And I shudder to think that someone is going to figure that since this is in a book, it must be the truth.
In the book Hollywood Dirt by Alessandra Torre, the heroine uses the morning after pill.
In contemporary I except at least the mention of a condom or I’m going to worry a surprise baby is coming. Historical seems to mostly avoid the topic except a few authors will mention pulling out. It’d be nice to see more concern for it in historical.
That said, I’m kind of burned out on the “I’m on the pill and I’m clean, are you?” Talk. It’s always a quick throwaway and I just don’t know any young women in their 20s that are going to do that in a first sexual experience. It’s too risky. There also seems to be a glut of romances now where as soon as the couple is in love they make a point of no condoms. Like you can be in a committed, loving relationship and use condoms. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
On the other hand, I always find it a little hard to believe when a hero (or heroine) has condomless sex for the first time. Never in his/her at least ten years of sexual experience have they failed to use a condom? Then, there’s the related issue of condomless sex being described as the absolute ultimate in pleasure. Talk about buying into a dangerous myth! I understand that “bare” sex is often a marker for indicating true intimacy between h&h, but so much is made of it that it reinforces the false idea that condoms are a chore that detract from real intimacy.
Sorry—I left out “when a hero or heroine in their thirties has condomless sex for the first time.”
The thought of half a lemon sitting on my cervix for hours just makes me squirm. I’d think it would burn the heck out of delicate tissues like that. But in ancient Egypt they used crocodile dung. Necessity is the mother (no pun intended) of invention, I suppose.
I’m thinking about great birth control/STD protection scenes I’ve read.
Melody Thomas does a fabulous job in A Match Made in Scandal.
One assumes the lady is not a virgin and quite experienced. A courtesan? Haven’t read this one. I did, though, once read an HR when the heroine shoved half a lemon up her you-know-whatsit. Not romantic and made me cringe at all that acid …… Sometimes the closed door is more enticing.
She’s had a tiny bit of experience but she’s really just worked to be educated about where babies come from.
So many opinions. We as romance readers need to support the options of others.
Historic romances and protection of pregnancy is problematic. The adoption of condoms, especially after vulcanized rubber is essential. The other remedies??? Sponges, Lemons, Acidic??? Didn’t work. I would expect a pregnancy. The H/h should discuss (or not be surprised) by pregnancy.
In most contemporary romances, if there isn’t a discussion of the protection, I assume there will be a pregnancy.
Pregnancy is not uncommon. Use a condom. STIs are far more common. I expect a discussion of STI and pregnancy in contemporary romances. Or else I expect an epilogue with a baby.
We as romance readers need to support the options of others.
Yes, we do!
I don’t find unplanned pregenancies romantic and same goes for sexually transmitted diseases. I prefer books where birth control is openly discussed and used. I can’t stand Harlequin Present continuous persistent with accidental pregnancy plot lines. I believe it to be irresponsible in today time and age as we must perpetuate civic responsibilty in everything we do. Birth control is such an important part of women empowerment and self determination.
I almost always include birth control in my books. If my characters have sex and no condom was used, they talk about it after. It’s a sentence, a paragraph, a few words. Plus if I read a book and there is no mention of birth control I figure somebody is getting pregnant in this book and I do not like surprise baby books, really.
I thought long and hard about this topic and see that there is some importance in at least making reference to it in CRs. Probably handled as a casual aside whereby the hero frantically reaches for his pocket, bedside table, under the pillow, whatever, and makes a just in time application. It can be amusing. In an HR, it probably won’t arise very often as the most that nearly everyone knew was the good old RC method of withdrawal. I am not even sure that most virgins (men or women) even knew how their bodies worked let alone how to prevent a pregnancy. The clap was, for some cadres, a foregone conclusion anyway. The last days of Beau Brummel make very sad reading.
I think that in the main CR and HR are fairy tales for grown-ups. Too much technicality can be a distraction. Maybe younger readers need to be reminded, I don’t know. I am a Post-Pill/Pre-Aids woman who has had the blessing of always being in control of my fertility and married both of the men I ever slept with so I am probably pretty old-fashioned in my outlook.
In HR, particularly, TMI would be pretty disgusting. Here’s a link to a wonderful social history – a not-for-the-squeamish journey back through the centuries to urban England, where the streets are crowded, noisy, filthy, and reeking of smoke and decay. Read it and you will appreciate that true-to-life, gritty realism is debateable in romance. It’s a fascinating book:
“Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770” by Emily Cockayne
I don’t think we need lectures and power point presentations, but a nod to safe sex is important in CRs, I think. In HRs it’s not so important, imo, but it can still be managed with clever writing.
I have a niece (who is not a reader), but she wanted a certain 21 year old boy when she was 14 so they deliberately got pregnant in order to ‘stay together’. I would have handled the situation entirely differently than her parents did, because statutory rape anyone? But both set of parents supported the couple and the union lasted about 3 years. He’s now a mean drunk and she’s still raising the kid. And I know they are one of many thousands of young couples who behave like idiots due to hormones. So, I want the safe sex message imparted to people as often as possible. In fiction, it needs to be with a delicate hand, but examples of couples taking care and being responsible are important, I think.
@elaine s: I’m the same generation as you. One of my friends referred to us as the ABBA generation. “You mean because we were all Dancing Queens?” I asked. “No,@ she replied, “I mean A.B.B.A.: After Birth-control, Before AIDS.”
Love it! ABBA. Sums it up perfectly
I was born in the early 60s and still marvel that, when I was coming of age sexually, we were all terrified of herpes.
Not just herpes or any of the STIs. I do recall what happened to some of the older sisters of my school chums who went off to Mexico before Roe v Wade. I can’t comprehend the mentality of those who want it repealed. Particularly the men who argue against it who, of course, have never had to deal with the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy.
I perhaps was unclear. My point was I grew up in an era where abortion was legal, sex was an option for nice girls, and the biggest thing we were worried about was getting herpes. Birth control was a given. It was a very non-stressful time compared to what came before Roe v Wade and to what came after: AIDS and the slow and steady rollback of accessible abortion.
I’m always struck by Armstead Maupin’s Tales of the City books. While they are amusing and fanciful, they march from the halcyon days of free love to the grim spectre of AIDS in real time. They were originally newspaper serials, and they depicted the adventurous sex lives of men and women in San Francisco of the late 1970s, and then suddenly beloved characters were dying of AIDS. I know people who were there in that time and place who can no longer bear to go to funerals. I can’t blame them.
This is one reason why I think it’s so vital to depict safer sex in CRs, Not using condoms can be far more destructive than an unplanned pregnancy, although that’s scary enough. More so now that abortion is under siege again.
I never think of Plan B as it wasn’t available before I settled down and made birth control permanent. But you’re right, I can only think of 2 books where it is referred to, and in one book it failed. In the other book the h is fat and the pharmacist tells her it may not work because of her weight. The reader is left to assume that it does work because we are never told otherwise.
I think maybe it isn’t used in books because writers think that their readers may see it as abortion, but my understanding is that it prevents implantation, it doesn’t get rid of an egg that has already implanted. Abortion is such a hot button that I get why anything that could be perceived as abortion-like is avoided. Still, a brief explanation of the mechanics would prevent that. And it’s realistic to use such an option…condoms do break, as you point out. Plus, it’s an opportunity to gently educate folks which is always good.
Thank goodness I live in a country where the use of a morning after pill isn’t equated with abortion.
We have an appalling lack of education about reproduction and contraception in the US. Sometimes it feels as if people take pride in their ignorance. And now the reproductive rights we fought so hard for are under attack once again. It’s scary.
Sadly, the UK does have a high rate of teenaged pregnancies – although as a teacher who has taught sex education lessons in many of the schools I’ve worked in, I can’t see how it’s due to a lack of education. And fortunately – in general – abortion isn’t such a touchy issue here.
Since no one has mentioned it yet, PLAN B. All these accidental pregnancies in CR, or the “oops we got carried away and the author’s gonna let us get away with it,” and no one ever gets Plan B, or considers getting Plan B. I have read exactly one book where they got Plan B (and then she didn’t take it). Romancelandia is apparently an alternate universe where it doesn’t exist.
I’ve taken Plan B twice, thanks to condoms breaking. It sucks. The side effects are wretched and mess you up for days. But it’s affordable, and it’s worth it, and it also doesn’t even need to be incorporated into a sex scene. It annoys the hell out of me that it never gets so much as a nod.
I always wonder why that it isn’t mentioned more. It’s so used by many and yet it never comes up in CR. I wonder if it’s too close to the spectre of abortion which is resolutely ignored in most of romance.
Just trivia:
interestingly, I read plan B in a few Harlequin presents.
Surprised me.
The sense was of the heroine running off to Granny’s deathbed and therefore not able/forgetting to take it, or being arrested for some reason and not able to take it, but it got a mention.
Impressed me, in a strange way.
In CR I’m pissed off if there is no talk of birth control. Condoms can be sexy. Penny Reid has her heroes reaching for their condoms and it never detracts from the sex scene. One of the older brothers in the series does random “Condom checks” in the wallets of his younger brothers. I think that’s great. And at least two of those younger brothers were embracing celibacy at the time – but the condom are there just in case!
Since I read mainly historicals, I generally find the birth control a bit unlikely. The heroine learns about sponges and vinegar from a chatty maid or a friendly prostitute? Really? Or the hero whips out his trusty condom made from sheep gut that he has carefully washed out after every use? Yuck. Withdrawal is at least plausible.
Of course, what’s even more unlikely is the heroine who brushes off the possibility of pregnancy as no big deal. She’ll just have the baby and go off and live in a village someplace and no one will think anything of it.
I really dislike characters who are dumber than dirt.
Co-sign on the dumber than dirt characters.
Historicals are definitely more problematic when it comes to birth control. Most methods were still quite risky, especially withdrawal. Men of the aristocracy had access to sheaths, but they were very expensive and unsanitary. So I can submit to the fantasy more in HRs as long as at least brief lip service is paid to the issue. I just choose to ignore the reality of those times and dream on.
It’s much more of a challenge for me in CRs. I was a single, sexually active woman during the height of the AIDS epidemic, so protection is hard-wired in my brain. Everyone I knew used condoms and spermicide both, regardless of any other method they might use. There were no tests for AIDS for quite some time, and when there were they were very expensive and not covered by insurance. You just operated under the assumption that everyone was positive, including yourself. Now tests are private, covered by insurance, and the results are fast. Plus, there are treatments so it’s not an automatic death sentence. Nevertheless, I still want the characters to at least use condoms until they get tested, unless both are virgins. Total lack of protection is a turn off for me.
Oh, yes, that’s guaranteed to drive me bonkers as well – that whole – “I wanted to experience passion and now I have but you don’t have to marry me!” thing in an historical is almost always completely ridiculous given the conventions of the time.
Romance is wish fulfillment, righto? My wish is that passion be senseless. Chatting about rubbers usually turns me off. I don’t want romance novels to be like reality–I read them to get away from reality.
Birth control is more than just that especially in contemporary romances. It’s a protector against disease as well.
I care less about the disease protection in historical romances–if there can be that many titled types, I’m willing to buy that they don’t all have syphilis as well. But in contemporary romances, I want it made clear that, when jumping into bed with someone you don’t know really really well, our leads have thought about pregnancy and disease.
Your friendly grassroots sex educator here: Because this is a public forum and because there’s way too much misinformation on the web… Infection and disease prevention doesn’t fit under the umbrella of birth control. As an example: Birth control pills do not offer any STI protection. The withdrawal method has a low success rate as birth control, but offers no or little protection against STIs. People who can’t get pregnant still need to use STI prevention strategies.
I know it sounds like I’m being pedantic. But, as I said, there’s just too much misinformation being spread around by conflating these terms. I didn’t want AAR to contribute to that.
(And, more related to this post’s subject…yes, it is a giant buzz-kill for me, with all the things I know, when risky sexual practices are going on. I have taught myself not to cringe when reading contemporary gay male romance (which is why I don’t read much of it), because they’ll be all up in each other’s stuff without using condoms, then pull the condoms out for penetration. Actually, now that I think about it, the same happens with straight couples in romance…there’s all kinds of fluid exchange then the condoms come out.)
(Apologies in advance if this is too graphic.) “Swallowing” is the thing that always makes me want to yell, “Hey, you do know that is one way to get an STI, right?” Whether m/m or m/f, there’s lots of enthusiastic swallowing going on in CR (I rarely read HR, so I don’t know about what goes on there)…and then the condoms come out. I can think of exactly two romances I’ve read where the couple discussed the implications of swallowing: Julie Kriss’s RICH DIRTY DANGEROUS and Cara McKenna’s WILLING VICTIM; and I’ve only read one romance, Annabel Joseph’s LOANED where the hero puts on a condom prior to getting a blowjob.
I’ve read one or two m/m novels where condoms are used for bjs – I can’t remember the titles – but it’s not common, and I admit, I always scratch my head about it when, as has been said, the characters are scrupulous about using condoms for penetration.
If it’s a contemp, yes please – enough with innocent heroines who don’t know how their bodies work! Enough with modern heroes getting carried away! Enough with abortion never ever being mentioned in these situations!
I’m 100 percent in line with Marian’s POV re historicals, and frankly like it when the worldly heroes bring out the primitive condoms but also don’t mind if they kern baby heavy.
But my biggest problem with romance novel procreation is when the author drops a babies ever after epilogue for characters who’ve either been adamant about not having kids for the entire novel, they’ve been adamant and they and their partner not only understands but they’ve had several convos about it being okay, or the characters have struggled with acclimating themselves to infertility issues throughout the book. If they either don’t talk about it or there’s a clear longing for kids, I don’t care. If 90 percent of the book is about how they can’t have, don’t want, or hate kids, “true love totally changes your mind” is not a message I want to hear.
So, it’s a turn-on, not a turn-off, when birth control comes up. …and I think it can be done skillfully. Lots of potential for the sexy rubbing of bodies as one or the other reaches for a side table drawer or discarded pair of pants and pulls out a condom.
I can’t come up with any authors who do this skillfully, but I’m sure there are some. I know I’ve read some authors who do the grabbing of the lube bottle with lots of sexiness.
Honestly, I’m twitchy when birth control and safer sex don’t come up at least in some way (even if it’s not while they’re naked together). Ironically, the ability to procreate (or not) often comes up in paranormal romances, and it’s where I worry about it the least. I’m also less concerned about it in historical novels because, well, to make it truly sexy most historical romance has to have at least a little bit of fantasy.
Funny – I have the opposite reaction.
In Historicals, if they are meant to be historical, not just fantasy, sexual innocence and purity were often women’s main value, women are utterly ruined by even minimal sexual contact (kisses) and illegitimate children have a horrible outlook in life. So, heroines who are just swept away and easily consider (and have) sex sweep me out of the Historical completely. These heroines very rarely work for me.
Agree on the paranormals, there I do not worry at all about it :-)
Something I don’t want to read in a contemporary is if the topic of protection comes up and she says, “It’s OK, I’m on the pill” and then they go at it like rabbits. The pill doesn’t prevent you from getting an STD!
“It’s OK, I’m clean” from someone she first met a few hours ago is also not going to cut it. In situations like these, I’d much rather the two of them just had sex rather than drawing my attention to the fact that they’re either ignorant or hopelessly naive.
Another of my favorite contraceptive moments in fiction, though this one’s not from a romance : in one of the Alien Nation novels, Matt (a human) explains about condoms to George (a humanoid alien). George looks at the condom in its packet. “And it fits?” Matt says you have to unroll it. George unrolls it and is even more disbelieving. “And it fits???”
I too find the “I’m clean” discussion in a new (temporally) romance to be jarring.
Well, yes, and besides, talking about “being clean” in reference to not having STIs-STDs is disgusting and inaccurate. Having or not having a STI-STD has nothing to do with being clean or dirty.
Such a great observation. I’ve always hated the “clean” or “clean as a whistle” comments in romances, and it is because it sets us up to think in terms of binaries of clean vs. dirty. STDs are undesirable and should be avoided if at all possible, but they shouldn’t be stigmatized.
Yes to all this. If it’s a contemporary, and you’re just meeting, if the heroine accepts a simple “I’m clean” from the hero, then I’m immediately torn out of the story. Likewise if the hero accepts a female characters “I’m on the pill.” People lie!!! Oh my gosh I hope even teenagers have more awareness. Take care of your bodies!! Sometimes my inner mom comes screaming out ha
Yes, in a contemporary romance if they are having sex. Doesn’t have to be a prolonged discussion, can be as simple as someone pulling out a condom or ‘the telltale rip of foil’ but I expect it. If there isn’t any, I expect a surprise pregnancy.
This is a great question. I haven’t delved into the world of contemporaries yet and I think my answer would be very different for those. It would bother me to have no mention of contraception or “what ifs” in a scene that felt like the present day.
However, in historicals it doesn’t bother me. I suppose because I already happily accept many unrealistic pieces of most of the stories I love – good dental hygiene! “Anachronistically woke” heroes, to borrow Scarlett Peckham’s phrase! Epilogues where everyone has seven healthy children and no one ever dies in childbirth! Okay great! I don’t mind the fairy tale feeling with historicals (more literally, I just read Eloisa James’ retelling of Cinderella and liked it more than I’d expected to.)
I do appreciate it if the lead characters in an historical have a discussion about the possibility of pregnancy, or even if only one of them contemplates it seriously in an internal moment. And as Marian said above, this is handled beautifully in The Countess Conspiracy, a book that I absolutely love. It’s an important part of their love story and it’s done so well.
Totally agree with Lieselotte’s comments re Harlequin Presents—nary a condom nor birth control pill in sight and an commensurate quantity of unplanned pregnancies and secret babies…but that’s the m.o. of HPs. In other contemporary romances, I do prefer there to be some use of birth control—the hero has condoms in his wallet or the heroine keeps some in the bedside table—and, even if the heroine is on the pill or has an IUD, the need to know that your partner is “clean” before there’s any condomless sex. There’s a writer (I can’t remember her name, perhaps someone else will, but she writes primarily erotic/bdsm stories) who has a disclosure at the beginning of her books that “condoms aren’t sexy—and this is a work of fiction and the characters won’t be using any birth control or STI protection, but be sure you do use those in the real world” (rough paraphrase—she also reminds her readers to be careful if they go to bdsm clubs and, unlike her heroine’s, not to expect to meet the love of their lives during their first visit). I thought Cara McKenna always did a good job of incorporating the actual placement of the condom into her sex scenes (I’m sorry for a variety of reasons that she appears to no longer be publishing)—the heroine’s always seemed to enjoy watching the hero “sheath” himself. Most of my favorite go-to writers include quick references to using a condom (and an equally quick reference to its post-sex removal), but both Sybil Bartel and Kati Wilde are kinda lackadaisical about writing in birth control use. I prefer there to be some reference to birth control and STI prevention in contemporary romance because to me those references are markers that the hero and heroine care about their own and their partner’s health and want to take steps to prevent an unplanned pregnancy.
For some reason my autocorrect keeps replacing “heroines” with “heroine’s”—it’s very annoying. I do understand the difference between plural and possessive—but apparently autocorrect doesn’t.
Eeek, that author’s bit at the beginning of her books about condoms not being sexy but her readers need to remember to use them in real life irritates me. If she’s a decent writer, she can *make* condoms sexy. Maybe they wouldn’t be used exactly as they would in real life. Maybe there would still be a lot of pushing the boundaries as far as risk goes, but she could at least make a start. …because telling her readers to do something isn’t likely to convince them to do it. Modelling consent, or condom use, or anything else is, I think, going to be much more convincing.
And even if they think they can’t make them sexy, they could make them realistic, or true to life.
* Or funny!
I think condom use is very sexy. It means you genuinely care about the person you are with as well as yourself. What is sexier than that?
Also (at least in my experience!) if you routinely use condoms, your body can come to associate the sound of the wrapper tearing as “yay sex time,” so that it becomes a conditioned sexual stimulus, so literally kind of hot.
(and I admit it, I love watching men put them on)
Yes, great topic, and it matters to me, authors can lose me big if this is not handled well.
If I am supposed to care for these people, if they are actually taking care of themselves in a sensible way, it the hot sex is supposed to be or develop into love between people I can root for, then the setup up for contraception in the book needs to reflect that. I do not need every single book to mention it, but if we go into detailed sex descriptions of the first time, it needs to be somehow integrated.
(There are many romance versions, like the wounded self destructive people, or the crazy exceptional situation, or .. or… where not mentioning or even having H/h forget about contraception works for me. But then this is a specific plot device, not a relationship developing and sex happening in it.)
So, in normal circumstances, I need a man to be caring of the woman, and of himself. And her the same. Though, for contraception, I need an extra careful approach from the man, as he is not the one left with the pregnancy if they just had hot sex and walked away from it. And I need the woman not to be an idiot about it.
I agree that in HR, caring means a different things than in contemps of all kind.
Like Marian above has mentioned.
But in contemps, especially YA, some mention of it needs to be made.
I hate having to have the thought and the discussion before sex, all my friends hate it, and yet, we need to do it, so we are not idiots about it. So, romance should reflect it, in the normal run of things. Because it is a hurdle to the next stage of intimacy, and how this hurdle is handled matters, on the road to HEA and intimacy.
That said, I give a pass to authors for that one as long as it is not too glaring that they are just glossing over this bit in a book that has a more more realistic tone overall.
…And I give a pass to every Harlequin Presents, too – I know what I buy when I read those ;-)
I agree with the above poster, as long as the character don’t come across as idiots, either mention it or don’t mention it is fine for me.
I’m OK with a lack of birth control in historicals as long as 1. the characters don’t act as though they know the author is saving the baby for the epilogue, so they can have lots of unprotected premarital sex now 2. the characters don’t seem blindsided by pregnancy. Especially if the heroes are set up as intelligent or experienced men of the world, they should be prepared for the existence of a Secret Baby unless they take precautions.
Which reminds me of the scene in The Thorn Birds where Ralph finds out his passionate interlude with Meggie resulted in a son. And he is STUNNED. I wanted to tell him, “You had unprotected sex over and over again with a healthy young woman who was desperately in love with you and who longed for babies. What did you think was going to happen?”
One of the my favorite uses of contraceptives in a historical was in Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy, where it was not just necessary to safeguard the heroine’s health but a sign of how much the hero cared about her. I really enjoyed that.
This is a great topic, by the way! I look forward to reading everyone’s thoughts on it.