Do Romance Novels Need Sex?
Nothing like a good spice level chart to let you know your in the romance section.
A Bookish Musing on Romance and the Slow Burn
We've all been there. Walking through the bookstore, the heavenly smell of books and coffee lingering in the air as we slowly make our way around the stacks. There, spread on the table, arranged in a splay of blush pinks, rosy reds, and dark and shady blacks, a sign with a spice level stands in the middle. An array of chili peppers, 1 being low spice to 5 being hot tamales, and that's how you know… you're where you belong.
The romance section.
Currently, the debate of romance novels needing sex is louder than ever. Readers want to know: what is the point of the slow burn without it actually turning into a sizzle? How could a book be a romance without the sex?
I have thoughts. Gentle ones. But thoughts.
Here's where I land. The truth is, romance — true romance — is yearning. The quickening of a heartbeat as your fingers brush for the first time. The heat that spreads to your face when a person's gaze lingers just a little too long. The way your breath catches as your noses brush just before your lips meet.
The hottest part of any love story isn't the sex, explicitly. (Although let's be honest, those are hot too.) But without the build-up, the longing glances, the nerves, the sweaty palms, the tingles, without the… boil, then everything after just feels lukewarm.
The truth is, I love spicy books. But what makes the best ones so memorable is not just the sex. It's the yearning and storytelling beforehand. The morally grey soldier who shouldn't be attracted to the princess who rules the very city he's going to attack makes things far more interesting, don't you think? The build-up of that forbidden love. The heated arguments in between that send their pulses rising. The chemistry splayed amongst the pages without having done a single sexual thing.
All of this is yearning.
And here's the thing. As much as I love the fantasy of a muscular warlock carrying me to his lair and having his way with me, romance isn't that simple. The reality of romance is far more complex.
It's bringing a cup of tea to your lover when they're sick in bed. It's being in a room full of people and deciding it's time to leave without saying a word. It's encouraging them to dream big even when their goals feel out of reach, and sitting at their bedside as they lay in a hospital bed.
Romance isn't always perfect. It isn't always easy. It isn't always sexy.
To some, romance is placing your slippers beside your bed every morning so your feet don't have to walk across the cold floorboards. To others, it's dancing in a tiny kitchen while you cook ramen because takeout didn't fit into this month's budget.
Either way, a sex scene can't save a romance that hasn't earned it. Without the build-up, the trials, the longing, the tension, the idea that romance is so much more than intimacy on a physical level, then you miss out on everything that makes the sex great to begin with.
So as for me, the yearning is what I come back to romance novels for. Because that's a feeling I can relate to. We all know what it's like to ache. To want someone whose unavailable. To look at someone across the room and feel your heart stop. To wait on a text message that took far too long to arrive.
Yearning is the most universally human thing one can feel. The yearning is what makes a romance novel worth reading. The sex is just a cherry on top.
So whether the spice level is a simmering 1 or a sweltering 5, it's more of a stylistic choice. An author's choice. A reader's preference. Honestly, there's room for everyone at my table.
But one thing is non-negotiable.
The ache. The yearn. These are the things that make romance… romance.
With love, Jasmine