Flesh for fantasy

Lately I've been wondering how much boffing is too much boffing for traditional fantasy. Because right now my WIP seems to need a cold shower.

I've always had a bit here and a bit there in everything I write, but really, I'm not writing erotic fantasy.  I may even have erred on the side of caution in some of my books for fear of bringing too much sparkly-girldom into my fantasy, because heaven forfend my future fans upset the status quo at sf/f cons by having, you know, vaginas.

And yet even as romantic vampires are supposedly ruining conventions all across America, we have columnists like Ginia Bellafante in her recent review of HBO's Game of Thrones telling  us no self-respecting woman could possibly enjoy traditional fantasy, and that if we like it it's because it's been "sexed up" and we ren-faire losers are too stupid to notice we're being fed pablum to keep the boys happy.

Meanwhile, self-hating-woman columnist Liz-something of the Daily Mail tells all of us stupid boorish sex-positive feminists that women pretty much hate sex and only do it to get a man to take care of us. So really, HBO can't possibly be engaged in imaginary sexing-up of George R.R. Martin's writing to get women to watch, cuz we're all frigid. (Welcome to somewhere in an orange and avocado polyester jumpsuit in 1972, and grab yourself a valium and a vodka tonic because the last 40 years were all in your head.)

It all has me a little confused. Do I dance around the sex to avoid being accused of (gasp!) writing for women readers or do I sex it up for the hordes of Lifetime watchers I might be able to lure into the genre?

The problem is, I keep doing this silly little thing where I write what I enjoy reading. And right now in The Palace of Wisdom, all of my characters are going at it like they're at a South of Market sex club in San Francisco on a Saturday night.

But maybe it's okay, because Jacqueline Carey has a fabulous anal scene in Kushiel's Justice. Whether it's because women writers and readers are tarnishing fantasy's good name or not, it looks like the sex kitten is out of the bag.

And now as bonus post-script eye candy, and apropos of nothing, Maroon 5's Adam Levine seems to have a little something Belphagorian going on:

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Cup o' Porn for turning me on to this yumminess. ;)