Would you like a condom with that?

by Kate Pearce

Condoms-who needs them? Especially in fiction. It's an interesting question much debated in the romance community. There are some people who hate reading about condoms because they introduce the boring reality of life into what is, in essence, escapist erotic fantasy. Others won't finish a contemporary novel if the hero doesn't even suggest using a condom.

Can a talented writer slip a condom into a scene, (or an orifice) without taking the reader out of the story? Can a condom tell us something about the characters and how they feel about their partners? My critic partner and I had a very interesting discussion the other day about how what a man does with a used condom is very indicative of character. Does he leave it hanging, drop it in the sheets or your shoe or is he the conscientious type who puts it in the trash?

I asked some of my fellow Lusties to show you just how well a writer can deal with the whole issue. First up, keeping it short and sweet is Madeline Moore from her book Wild Card :

'I would wear a condom and I would not hurt you.'

'It's not possible to do it without hurting me,' she protested.

'Of course it is. I simply take my time. So? May I?'

He began kissing her tailbone.'

So sexy, so simple, so appropriate.

And then we have the very talented Madelynne Ellis from Dark Designs with an excerpt where the little details enhance the mundane and make putting on a condom an amazingly sexy and hot experience.

Dolores gave him a lip-gloss smile, and led him by the tail to the wooden stile. ‘Let’s get you dressed. I’ve brought some wet-weather
gear.’

She rolled the condom down his shaft as if she was arranging one of her turtleneck sweaters. Dolores, he decided, would have enjoyed the days when sheaths had to be tied on with ribbons. She’d have fussed until everything was straight and neat.

‘Mmm, you’re so beautiful,’ she purred in her fake cut-glass accent. ‘All ready to come inside.’



Last but not least, in a contemporary setting we have the lovely Portia Da Costa who brings her own unique talents to the condom issue in her story In Too Deep



‘Give me that!’ I grab the condom and wrench open the packet. The contraceptive inside is slick and silky, but nowhere near as silky as the head of Daniel’s cock. Clear, silver fluid is seeping from the little eye there, his arousal just as eager and revealing as mine.

It’s a while since I put a condom on a man, but it’s one of those skills you never forget. Because it comes with the perk of handling a man’s delicious stiffness in the process. I manage to achieve our goal without fumbling, but the heat in his mighty flesh is unnerving. As is the agonised beauty of his face as I enrobe him.

Finally, he’s ready. Clad in rubber and even harder and higher than before, if that’s possible. My pussy throbs and purrs in anticipation.


What I like about all these excerpts is that each author makes the whole rubbery messy process into something special, somehow part of the foreplay and the thrill of having sex. So yes, it can be done. In the right hands, condoms are art.


And what about historical novels where characters happily fuck away and nobody gets a sexually transmitted disease or gets pregnant?



I did a bit of research about the history of condoms which I thought I'd share. Apparently, all my historical novels are obsessed with the idea of fertility and contraception. I didn't notice this until one of my critique partners helpfully pointed it out. Perhaps it's the result of being brought up as a Catholic and having four kids.

Here's a short excerpt from my book Antonia's Bargain, which deals with my heroine's fear of getting pregnant:

“If I’d had more time with you, I intended to introduce you to this method of ensuring a man doesn’t pick up the French pox.”
Antonia studied the thin envelope which seemed to be made of some kind of filmy animal skin. “Is it snake skin?”
Gideon opened the envelope and withdrew another piece of the thin parchment-like material. This longer narrower piece had ribbons around the open end and was sewn shut at the bottom. He carefully slid one finger inside and held it up.
“It’s pig intestine. The same thing used to make sausage skin.”
She glanced down at his groin before she could stop herself. “It goes over your cock?”
“That is correct. Not only does it prevent disease, but it means that a man’s seed remains trapped inside it after he comes which seems to prevent pregnancy.”
Antonia touched the wrinkled cream skin with her fingertip. She imagined it might feel as if you wore a glove.
“Do you use these?”
“Of course I do.”
“Did you use them with your wife?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “My wife refused to allow me to use them, which is why I eventually refused to have sex with her.”


Anyone brought up in the UK probably watched a children's show called 'Blue Peter' which was kind of a junior chat show, educational, sometimes funny and not to be missed. They were very keen on diy projects such as make your Mother an xmas gift using an old can, sticky back plastic and a tube of glitter, kind of thing-but I digress. Here is my very own diy project for those of you willing to make a considerable effort.

How to make a sheep gut condom (1824)

Soak a sheep's intestine caeca in water for a number of hours, then turn inside out, and macerate them again in weak alkaline, changed every 12 hours. Scrape them carefully to remove the mucous membrane, leaving the peritoneal and muscular coats, and expose them to the vapour of burning brimstone. Then wash them in soap and water, inflate them, dry them and cut to a length of seven to eight inches. Finally, border the open end with a ribbon to tie round the base of the penis, and before use soak the condom in water to make it supple.

(See? it's easy when you know how!)

Apparently, the two most famous London condom sellers in the mid nineteenth century were Mrs Phillips and Mrs Perkins, who produced competing pamphlets to promote their shops. Mrs Phillips also had a wholesale company on Half Moon Street off the Strand. For those who could not afford the services of Mrs Phillips and Mrs Perkins, Miss Jenny did a roaring trade in washed, second-hand condoms.

Oh Miss Jenny, how could you?

And just to prove that even in the future my characters still worry about the whole condom problem, here's a bit from my upcoming book Secured Mail, which is all about Sven an intergalactic viking trying to understand the strange sexual rituals of Earth women.

“What is that? Another toy?”
Thea held out the can. “It’s for your cock.”
Sven glanced at the gaudy can and then down at his erection. “I do not understand.”
Thea shook the can. “This stuff coats your cock and stops you impregnating me.”
“Why would you wish me to use that?”
“Because I don’t want a baby?”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, one hand wrapped around the base of his cock. “Ah, my queen told me about this. It is a form of contraception, yes?”

“That’s right. It’s much better than the old-fashioned sheaths which basically tried to stop your semen getting inside me, not always successfully.” She pointed at the can. “This stuff allows you to ejaculate normally but sterilizes your sperm as they pass through the coating. One spray works all night.”

Sven still looked dubious. ‘It is difficult for me to understand this, my lady. On my planet, every woman is desperate to conceive.”

Thea allowed the can to fall on the rumpled bed. “On this planet it happens to be the direct opposite. If you can’t accept that, then we can’t make love.” She held her breath, aware of a strange feeling of hurt inside her. Was she only desirable if she could become pregnant? He met her gaze, his brown eyes open and direct.

“I would consider myself a lucky man if you allowed me to impregnate you.”

She tried to laugh but the sound stuck in her throat as she registered his sincerity. “Thank you, I think, but I’m not changing my mind. No Sperm Be-Gone, no sex.”


So you tell me-how do you feel about condoms and contraceptives in erotic fiction?

Crush Wednesday: Fantasies about Fantasy

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

Long before puberty, I was enamoured with the brave men and fierce women who inhabit the worlds depicted in fantasy novels and movies. Brawny barbarians, elegant sorceresses, wily wizards, valiant knights, sardonic swordsmen and warrior women who quipped in the face of death? Elves, dwarves, hobbits, and other fascinating non-humans? I reveled in it all as an escape from life as a shy, bookish kid without a valiant bone in her clumsy body.

After puberty, my thoughts about my favorite fantasy heroes and heroines changed a bit. I didn’t just want to share their adventures. In some cases, I wanted to have adventures with them, if you know what I mean.

Take the Lord of the Rings series. Tolkien’s Eówyn was my first girl-crush, although I didn’t have words for it until many years after I first read the books. Miranda Otto’s beauty and gravitas reawakened that crush in the movies, and now I have words for it. And very explicit mental images.

Aragorn, with his heroism, his fateful destiny, and his seemingly doomed cross-species love, also got under my teenage skin. Why couldn’t he love a nice human girl, like Eówyn, or better yet, me? Thinking “Why not both of us, and I could take the middle? And Arwen could come play sometime when she wasn’t too busy being all otherworldly” was a little advanced for my teenage years, but once again the movie versions of the book reawakened old literary crushes in much more grown-up ways. Sandwiched between Viggo and Miranda—yum!

Oh, heck, bring on most of the Fellowship! Between the ones whose characters I love (Sam might be on the short and round side, but I have a feeling he’d be fun, even with that service-oriented d/s thing he has going with Frodo) and the ones who are pure sex on a stick (Boromir didn’t seem like crush material until I saw him played by Sean Bean, but for Sean, I’ll forgive a few tragic flaws. And consider Legolas—body of a buff college student, two thousand years of experience!) it could be quite a party.

Gratuitous Sean Bean as Boromir picture!

But I don’t confine my fantasy-fantasies to the Lord of the Rings. One of my early crushes was Robin Hood, and once I grew up a bit, I got all sorts of interesting ideas about “Merry Men”—some hotly homoerotic, some about what a lucky, lucky girl Marian was, alone in Sherwood Forest with all those men in tights. Leaving aside smutty thoughts (yes, I can do that sometimes), I love the Robin Hood legend to this day. I’ve enjoyed all the film incarnations I’ve seen, from Errol Flynn to Michael Praed, who was, in my opinion, the hottest Robin Hood ever. (And his Robin of Sherwood had Herne the Hunter in it, which moves it from historical fantasy into mythology, which is interesting even to me.) And the somewhat obscure 1991 Robin Hood featured the ever-intriguing Uma Thurman as a butt-kicking and fun Marian. (I haven’t seen the most recent BBC series yet, though. Netflix time!)

Heck, I even loved Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves because it’s Robin Hood, even though it was silly and Kevin Costner, while not unattractive, was entirely wrong for the part.

Of course, that might have had something to do with Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham. Yummy, campy evil with a voice like silk: He can take me captive and do terrible things to me any time.

The Arthurian legends? Who hasn’t daydreamed at some point about being swept away to Camelot and all the hunks of the Round Table? As a young woman, I wept buckets—and fantasized copioiusly—about the tragic love triangle at the center of the legends. Lucky Guinevere to have two such amazing men as Arthur and Lancelot in her life, even if it ended horridly! Now, I get annoyed, thinking that before they tore a kingdom apart when they obviously all loved one another, they should have tried poly. Less tragic, and much sexier.

Barbarians? Those who’ve read Lady Sun Has Risen know one of my guilty pleasures is the dominant, underclad, totally politically incorrect barbarian hero. You wouldn’t want one around full-time, but the women they kidnap always end up looking bonelessly happy. It’s the sword-wielding and the alpha quality that gets to me, not the big muscles—Arnold Schwarzenagger didn’t appeal to me in any other roles, but as Conan? Whew! I have a huge weakness for barbarian movies, from The Scorpion King to the Conan epics to the really cheesy ones like Kull the Conqueror (both Kevin Sorbo and Tia Carrere are lovely creatures, whether they can act or not) and The Barbarians. I saw the latter with my gay best friend, both of us laughing our butts off and still getting kind of hot and bothered. It was in Spanish with no subtitles and you know what? It made absolutely no difference. The whole point was brawny, heroic alpha males wearing very little.

And finally, I’m putting in a picture just for Dayle. I never saw the TV fantasy spoof Wizards and Warriors, which came and went while I was in college in a place where TV reception was non-existent. Dayle has fond memories of the evil Prince Dirk Blackpool, though, and just because I love her…here’s a picture! Hey, he’s pretty sexy. Between him and several shady characters played by Alan Rickman, maybe we need to revisit the theme of Hot Evil…

Note: The Arthurian illustration is by Howard David Johnson and can be found here.

Titilating Tuesday

Welcome to the very first Titilating Tuesday here at Lust Bites. I thought perhaps it would be a nice way to spice up the space between Monday and Wednesday. I'll be talking about all things sexy and titilating as we go along. If you've got any suggestions, please feel free to make requests. A disclaimer: As always, what is sexy and titilating lies in the eye of the beholder. This is about my eye but there's no one true way. What I like you may not or vice versa. So if I hit on something that pushes your buttons in all the wrong ways, there's always next Titilating Tuesday (remember I said I took requests).

As I lean in and put on the next record to play, relax and come along.

To start with - What is Sexy?


I was reading something earlier and it went into my “sigh, so not sexy” file. Filled with a zillion fucking scenes but not a one made me even the slightest bit tingly. It was all random body parts thrusting and rearing, twitching and *this is Lauren, scowling* lots of random buttsecks. And whatever, okay, buttsecks can be totally hot in the right erm, hands. It’s taboo, it has cultural baggage - it’s forbidden and naughty and it takes trust to give and receive. When the right author harnesses those things it’s whew, hot, guh! But it’s like any other scene in the wrong hands and I’m left sneering and rolling my eyes and sort of scared of rearing penises. So when it's thrown into a book to be edgy for edgy sake, it's just sort of random. Like throwing in a race car or a tumbler of good scotch. Both sexy things in context. But out of context, well they're just random and they don't fit.

Erotic isn't just about wall-to-wall sex scenes with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in or screwed, it's about context. It can be a married couple, it can be strangers, it can be the first time, the fifth or ten thousandth. It can be foreplay or full-on fucking - what is key is drawing the reader in by conveying what it is that draws them together.

While I’m a very visual person, sexy to me is more often than not about the stroking of my brain. It’s why porn is okay for like five minutes (ten if it's good porn) but after that I find myself bored, amused or horrified. It’s why I like authors who realize it’s not in the quantity of sex scenes in an erotic romance but in how the scenes are utilized.

Don’t get me wrong - a scene with a super-dominant dirty-talking man is hotter than the sun if it’s done right and in context. Really, really hot (eyeballs roll to the back of my head hot). But a man who takes his time to lick the back of a knee or who leans in to breathe in the scent at her neck? HAWT!

So today what in particular strikes me as sexy? So many things, necks, thighs, ears, lips - but to narrow it down for the sake of, say, a blog entry? Emphasis on the every-day, something we might even think of as mundane, can take something normal and make it incredibly erotic.

A while back I was giving my husband a massage - yes a real massage, not a euphemism - and I just became entranced by the way his back felt under my hands. The flex and play of his muscles as I worked, the way his ass felt against me as I straddled him, the scent of his warm skin as I pressed my fingertips into it. The act of ministering to him, of caring for him and easing his stress, became a huge aphrodisiac to me. Also, the fact that he was there, relenting to my control but still like a great big tiger who could pounce at any moment - shiver.

He told me about his day, just little bits and pieces and his voice echoed through his ribs. His hair, once deep black and now salted with gray, was soft against my fingers as I massaged his scalp.

What was the most sexy was the intimacy of the moment. He told me about his day, I told him about my new story idea, we laughed about the kids and normal stuff and it was good between us.

The outcome is something I’ll save for a book, heh, but there is sexy in every day things that aren’t overtly sexual in nature. There is sexy in connection.

So, what about you? What do you think is sexy? Today, anyway...

Love and Lust

I have always been an avid reader. I’m sure that most writers must be because in my estimation you have to love books in order to want to write. I vividly remember reading my first romantic novel when I was in about my second or third year of senior school. I started reading Gone With the Wind on the bus on the way home from school on the Friday evening and read it all weekend until I finished it, whereupon I returned, rather bleary eyed, to my classroom on the Monday morning. It is a long book and even though I am a fast reader it was quite a tome to read in such a short space of time, but I just couldn’t put it down because between those pages I’d discovered romance and sexual desire. Scarlett, in my estimation, was stupid in her infatuation for the insipid Ashley and even more stupid for failing to understand that the incredibly sexy Rhett Butler was in love with her. I loved the book, but I was so disappointed because when Rhett swept Scarlett into his arms and carried her up the stairs we never learnt what went on behind that bedroom door. I wanted more, so much more.

He saw concern in her blue eyes for a moment before she managed to conceal it and he knew that she feared he might perish in battle. Life as a knight could be dangerous and death was always a possibility. He could not in good conscious lead her to believe otherwise. He would go to Richard and beg permission to marry her right now if he could but, despite the fact that she had loathed Hugh, she still had to maintain the necessary period of mourning before she took a new husband.

As Stephen looking lovingly at Edwina he was reminded of the last time she had been in his bed; her lips swollen with kisses, her blue eyes languorous with desire, those luscious breast and sweet, cherry coloured nipples. Lust and love entwined like the strands of a rope, binding her even more securely to him than a wedding ring ever could. Just thinking of her, remembering the last night they had spent together and the passion they had shared, had turned his cock rock hard. He could feel it pressing against the heavy constriction of his chain mail leggings.

Of course I was innocent enough to be unaware that pornographic literature (as it was then called) existed at this time, so I continued to read avidly, always secretly hoping that I would find a book that would open that bedroom door and let me creep inside. I read Jane Austin, great but even a kiss was barely mentioned let alone lustful desire, although I’ve no doubt that Miss Austin might well have dreamed of slipping between the sheet one dark night with her handsome Mr Darcy, especially if in her imagination he looked like Colin Firth dressed in that wet, white lawn shirt.

I devoured the Dennis Wheatley novel, which gave me an interesting glimpse into the world of the occult and a fascinating ride through the entire French revolution but still, frustratingly, barely any sex. Then I found Forever Amber and Angelique, where there were heroines who used men, satisfied their sexual desires and slept with whoever they wanted. Yet, now that I was older and knew more about lust and desire, the bedroom scenes seemed overly cautious and rather insipid to me.

Then a multitude of bodice rippers appeared on the bookshelves. They were historical novels, which I’d always loved, with wild heroines, lusty heroes and people who actually sated their sexual desires between the pages. To an extent this did satisfied my need for sensual encounters, because we were allowed through the bedroom door but the sex were short with few very descriptive passage and, as often as not, left the reader panting for more. I didn’t want to be greedy but why did they spent ages building up to the sensual encounter then glossing over it the blink of an eye?

By then of course attitudes had changed somewhat and Lady Chatterley was freely available but that wasn’t a turn on at all in my opinion. While the Story of O, didn’t really excite me that much either, mainly because I couldn’t understand a heroine who enjoyed being dominated and humiliated. I must admit here that many might enjoy it but it just wasn’t my taste so it didn’t turn me on.

What a blessed relief it was when Black Lace books appeared on the scene. At last I found the books I wanted to read. The first one I ever purchased was The Captive Flesh by Cleo Cordell and I loved it so much I read it in one sitting. It was the story of two young women who are captured and imprisoned in a harem ruled over by a handsome dissolute man, Kassim. There was sex, bondage, even homoerotic encounters - the book had it all and after that I was desperate to read more Black Lace. I read a fair number of them – some with a romance at the heart of the story, others just stories with a string of titillating erotic encounters.

‘Let me feel you inside me,’ she begged, knowing that Taranis was right and that every moment they spent together increased the danger they were in.

He covered her body and slid into her soft moist core. Tension and excitement surged through her as he started to sensuously move his hips, all the while staring at her face, as if he could somehow fix her features in his mind forever. Sirona’s hands reached for his shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscles. She pulled him towards her, wanting to feel the entire weight of him pressing down on her as he thrust harder, knowing that never in a myriad of lifetimes could any man ever replace Taranis in her heart.

Taranis fucked her with smooth hard strokes, angling his body so that his shaft stimulated her clit at the same time. As she felt the weight of him powering against her pelvis, an intense erotic pleasure welled up inside her, becoming so strong she thought she might expire with bliss. The Elysian Fields moved closer and closer as she heard his breath coming in short urgent gasps.

The sun had set at last and darkness began to descend as the moon appeared in the sky. Its soft silvery light bathed their bodies in an eerie almost magical light as their pleasure peaked. As Sirona climaxed she heard Taranis whisper fevered words of love in her ear as he too came.

I began to understand that, for me, I didn’t really enjoy the books that didn’t have a romance at the heart of the story. Sex purely for the sake of lustful desire wasn’t quite satisfying enough for me and after a time it became plain boring if there wasn’t some kind of emotion involved. I freely admit that I’m a romantic at heart and of course many readers might not feel as I do. This world would be an uninteresting place if everyone was the same.

For me lust was good but love and lust together were far more exciting, so I decided to pick up a pen and write my own Black Lace with everything I wanted to read included between those, hopefully steamy, pages. I was fortunate enough to have my first proposal accepted and Savage Surrender was born. A story of a young woman, Rianna, who is forced into an unwanted marriage with a man she has never laid eyes on but falls in love with Tarn, a young man who has rebelled against her husband, Sarin, and is now his slave. She loves Tarn but she also finds herself sexually attracted to her husband and soon she is seduced by the sexual depravity of Sarin’s court. I loved these characters so much that I wrote a sequel, Wild Kingdom continuing the story of Rianna and Tarn.

‘How I’ve longed for this moment,’ he said softly, his voice taut with passion as he lifted her, tipping her buttocks away from him so that he could slide into her with one smooth stroke. He jerked her back against his rigid stomach, filling her with the hot hardness of his flesh as he held his hand across the soft swell of her lower belly. The pressure of his fingers further increased the sensation of fullness she experienced as he began to roll his hips and thrust at the same time. A low moan escaped Rianna’s lips as he compounded the assault on her senses by lightly tugging at her clit, rolling the swollen flesh between finger and thumb.

The water eddied and swirled around them, splashing over the sides of the tub in a steady stream as Tarn’s movements became harder and more vigorous. All Rianna’s attention was focused on her relentlessly rising pleasure as she felt his body power harder and deeper. She had no wish for this to end, yet all too soon her stomach contracted as the sensations erupted in an orgasm so sweetly profound that she felt faint from its power as it ripped through her flesh.

More books followed but probably without even being fully aware of it at the time, there was always a passionate romance at the heart of my story. Even though my novels were always classed as erotica, I always felt that wasn’t quite what I wanted and so I was relieved when Virgin reclassified them as ‘Erotic romance’. Now quite often they are available on the romance shelves, which makes them more freely available to the book buying public and why not? Sex in books is not considered all that risqué any more, in fact it is much more acceptable these days, thank goodness.

Now we know all that goes on behind the bedroom door, on the kitchen table, outside under the trees or anywhere else we care to think of. Readers now have a choice – love, lust or maybe just a mixture of both. It is up to you, so go ahead and enjoy!

Coming attractions

by Olivia Knight

The week ahead is all about fantasy - which is, obviously, why we have John Barrowman almost naked, again. One day he'll put us all out of our misery and get completely naked, but until then we have to make do.

On Monday, Deanna explores love versus lust, the idea commonly being that love comes with familiarity (like contempt) - for lust, see exhibit A: the picture on the right. You can decide for yourself which one the video below is, but my bet's on both.

On Tuesday, Lauren Dane kicks off the first of her Titillating Tuesdays - a new semi-regular feature from the queen of sassy heroines.

On Wednesday, Teresa looks at fantasy men and women (like Captain Jack - mmm... Or is he sci-fi? Never mind. He's hot. Mmm...)

On Friday, Kate gets prophylactic on us: do we need condoms in our book? And what about fantasy and historical stories - bring on the sheeps' intestines or dismiss such petty concerns as pregnancy and disease?

Meanwhile, I bring you more John Barrowman. For the benefit of those who don't live in the UK, and those like me who just can't get enough, here's Captain Jack and his faithful employee, Ianto...

And just in case you think I'm alone in my obsessive Barrowman-worship, here's one of the funniest chats I think I've ever read, from the blog Memo to myself. bad-goth and entropy-comix are, understandably, discussing Mr Barrowman's charms:

bad-goth: basically i just want to see john barrowman doing stuff

entropy-comix: yeah

bad-goth: NOW PRESENTING...JOHN BARROWMAN EATING A SANDWICH!

bad-goth: READING THE NEWSPAPER!

bad-goth: WAITING IN LINE AT THE BANK!

bad-goth: *WILD APPLAUSE*

entropy-comix: A++

entropy-comix: FIVE STARS

entropy-comix: TWO THUMBS WAY, WAY UP

bad-goth: RAVE REVIEWS

bad-goth: WOULD SEE AGAIN

bad-goth: JOHN BARROWMAN EATS LUNCH 2: THE SEQUEL

bad-goth: WILL HE HAVE LEFTOVER CHINESE OR ORDER ITALIAN

bad-goth: NO ONE KNOWS

entropy-comix: JOHN BARROWMAN WALKS HIS ELDERLY DOGS

bad-goth: THE STROLLER HAS A SQUEAKY WHEEL

bad-goth: WHAT WILL HE DO

entropy-comix: I WILL GET HIM A NEW ONE

bad-goth: OH MAN JOHN BARROWMAN SOLVES ANOTHER PROBLEM

bad-goth: