The key to making sex scenes romantic is portraying a sense of intimacy between the characters. Give them their moment of aha! This is different than its ever been before. This is special. But how do you do that? There are many complex feelings and emotions involved in the situation as it is, but how do you show the intimacy without overwhelming the reader with description? Or worse killing the sexy?
1. Show the intimacy with touch.
A slow gentle touch to a non sexual area during a love scene can go a long way to display the intimacy between two characters. Let your alpha male caress his female’s jaw. Let him run the back of his hand down her cheek. Have him hug her close without the tension of arousal between them. These are all ways to show that your characters are about more than just sex. One of the main complaints for new romance writers is that there is no sense of a developing romance between the main characters. At the end of the story it just seams that the I love you’s come out of nowhere. One way to show that romantic feelings are present is to increase the amount of non-sex related touches between your characters.
2. The eyes as windows
The eyes are such a tool of expression. Use them! A prolonged stare can portray so many things. Desire, longing, love, aggression, fear, interest, envy. Use the eyes to increase the tension between characters. The eyes are front runners to facial expressions. Can you really read sadness in the eyes themselves? Of course not. What you read is the expression on the face but as humans we are most taken with eyes because they are often the center of our focus. Use that attention to your advantage. Think about the difference in what you feel about a love scene that shows two characters who stare soulfully into each other’s eyes, versus one where that is never mentioned. Does it feel like the difference between love and lust to you?
3. The penetration correlation
Many a great romance writer has employed the penetration correlation. The deeper the connection the deeper the …. well you know. And it is true. This feeling that a connection is formed through intense love making. We can use this idea to our advantage. Making whoopee isn’t just about procreation. Its about a sharing of emotion, energy, and intense trust between two people. Even if it only lasts a few moments. Make your love scenes an outward manifestation of the emotional development between your characters. The deeper in love they are, the deeper they go.
4. Kisses aplenty
Kisses are amazing! Sweet, spicy, sexy, tantalizing even sad. People in love kiss, people in lust? Well not so much. Use kissing to portray sustainable connections between your couple. A kiss is like a mini-love scene. Even a small peck can bring the reader’s focus to the developing tenderness in the story. Don’t over do it, use your kisses strategically to bring your characters to where they need to go.