In romance blurb after blurb, books with love scenes in them are referred to as spicy. Why? I suspect it’s because spicy sounds less sexual than sexy. Which, given that these are sex scenes seems odd. It’s my personal sense, as someone who reads many blurbs every day, that the language used to describe carnal interactions in romance in romance marketing has become more coy.
Why?
Is it because we’re less comfortable with sex writ large? Boomers love to worry that today’s youth ISN’T getting laid and there’s truth to that–almost 40% of 18 to 30 year olds have not had sex in the past year. (Older generations are also having less sex but the rise is less pronounced.)
Or is it because the past several decades have championed the idea that one’s body is private–there are no shared showers after gym these days nor is it now OK for strangers to hug you–has created an environment where sex–phyiscal intimacy–seems more daunting.
Or is it just our heightened sensitivity to language? Words around sex and gender have become more charged–and describing anything in sexual terms is riskier than using cooking terms.
I suspect some combination of all of these things but, whatever is causing it, I’m not for it! Don’t get me wrong–there are plenty of circumstances where a good euphemism is the way to go. There’s a reason my generation said sleeping together rather than f*cking–much easier to talk about your relationships with your parents, for starters, but still, this is SEX we are describing. If a novel has a lot of heat–another euphemism–I’d like to know that in the blurb. Saying something is spicy tells me much of nothing. I’m ready to bring sexy back.
I’m sure I’m just being cranky and it’s possible I’m just over spiced. What do you think? When you talk about romance novels with lots of sex, how do you describe them?