Bottoms Up

The Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy novels report that anal sex is creeping into romance novels.

I think the first anal sex scene I read in a romance was in something by Robin Schone. Was it The Lady’s Tutor
or something else? Anyway, anal sex is currently in the realm of what I
think of as “vanilla kink.” It’s not exactly standard sexual practice
in Romancelandia yet, so there’s definitely a sort of charge to
including it in a mainstream novel, like you’re breaching a
taboo–something that’s definitely not present in, say, oral sex scenes
in romances. On the other hand, it’s not too terribly exotic, like,
say, furry fetishes or whatever.

In erotic romances–the relatively few I’ve read, anyway–anal sex
seems to be de rigueur, and I’m wondering how long before it’s going to
leak into most, if nor all mainstream romances. Anal sex: it’s the new
oral!

That observation prompted someone to comment:

Anal in romance and erotica by straight women (as opposed to gay men)
is either vague or comical.  Either the writers sum things up a la Zane
– “[Reader], I took it up the ass” or they go all hazy and mystical
with the heroine having some sort of assgasm the the instant her
b’hymen is breached with only a dairy-based food product as lubricant.

Assgasm. That’s a new word for me. I can’t wait to start using it in casual conversation.

3 thoughts on “Bottoms Up”

  1. I recently acted as managing editor and project coordinator of Searchlight, the publication of the AIDS Research Alliance, and the topic of the entire issue was rectal microbicides. (Yes, writing is a glamorous job). Anyway, one of the articles had to do with past and future studies on sexual behaviors. A fairly recent study at Johns Hopkins found that about 1/3 of straight women reported having anal sex at least once, especially in slightly younger women. So, in this case, it’s possible that the increase in anal sex in romance novels (romance?) is really a reflection of the so-called “real world.”

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