In life, nobody should be forced to have sex. This may not hold for all forms of literature but believe that in good romance stories, that feature sex, the sex should be consensual. A lot of romance novels go into the darker world of domination and submission. I write in this genre myself and I know the sex scenes can be more progressive. The sex can be rougher and even out of the boundaries of what some folk would call normality, whatever normal is. Even in the framework of BDSM and D/s, the participants should agree on sex. This might make me sound puritanical, and believe me, I am far from that. I simply believe that Rape, as that is what we are talking about should not be condoned. This takes me into a grey area, rape fantasy. I have talked to readers and writers on this subject, some citing their own fantasies, so I know a lot of people have this kind of fantasy and what turns us on, turns us on. I sure as heck am not setting myself as the moral compass or the moral police. What I am saying is there is a definite difference between fantasy and reality.
One of our distributors makes us sign a declaration that our books contain no scenes depicting rape for entertainment purposes. This condition is not restricted to romance or erotic books but all books. Our books comply and I work with our authors to keep us on the right side of the line, but I do find the declaration perplexing. just who is the arbiter here? Who gets to say what is and what is not acceptable?
Do share I’d like to hear any of your stories, experience or any views you might like to share. Here, e-mail or message me on Facebook I promise not to embarrass you. blog, Facebook or Twitter