Human Trial

Posted By timothy on March 5, 2011

This month the website features guest blogger Simone Eden. Ms. Simone says that she became addicted to reading around age eight when her teacher read aloud Charlotte’s Web to the class. She began writing her own novels in high school. She is a mother, wife and grandmother, has lived for more than half a century, and held many jobs. But her great passion is writing. She feels that she is blessed –and sometimes cursed– to have found something she loves to do. Readers don’t always understand that writing is an urge that can sometimes be frustrating. In her stories Simone loves to explore sensuality and spirituality but never knows what strange settings or characters will be involved. (See below her essay on how writers present intimacy in their stories and details of her contest).

The shape-shifting cat-like creatures called Baashi, have hidden from humans for eons. Jenna, a computer specialist at a laboratory  where the Baashi are being experimented on, has begun to despise what is happening to the mysterious creatures. Keth, a male of the Baashi, returns from a journey to find his pack being captured and disappearing into a lab. He’ll do anything to get inside that lab and rescue his people. Jenna and Keth are bound together in a series of mind-shattering encounters. But in order to be together, one of them will have to betray their own kind.

Do You Think I’m Sexy? How  Romance Writers Build Intimacy.

by Simone Eden

Our society spends much of its time  f  daunting sexy at us from singers to   actors to commercials to models to   movies. Romance books have gotten  bolder and bolder. The heat level ranges from Sweet to Erotic. The  relationships can be with 2 or more,  same sex, different cultures, whatever.  But most agree that what unites all  genres of romance is the way that physical intimacies reflect and nourish emotional attachment. There are some recognized steps in the journey to making love.

First comes the look.

Takes only a few seconds. The eyes over the body when our brain registers sex, size, shape, age, coloring, status, and mood, and makes a grading on a scale from extreme attractiveness to extreme repulsiveness. If the person is unattractive, that’s the end of it, but if the person is attractive, we move on to the second step, eye to eye. When you make eye contact with a stranger, both of you quickly break it off, then you look back catching one another’s glance and perhaps give a flirtatious smile.

Next is Casual Contact.

It starts with small talk. We absorb dialect, tone of voice, accent and use of vocabulary. All are fed into those parts of our brains that make snap decisions. Soon comes the casual touch, hand-to-hand contact. It may seem accidental or innocent but it’s important to establishing trust between the parties. Our hero pretends the woman needs his aid as a pretext for touching her, and the woman pretends she needs it as a pretext for letting him touch her. A little more intimacy would involve the hand to shoulder or arm to shoulder touching. Up to this point, the bodies have not come into close contact. When two people let their bodies touch, an important threshold has been crossed. These embraces are acceptable between non-sexual friends so they still aren’t threatening. Either partner can still walk away without major fallout if they’re uncomfortable. An arm to waist embrace is a direct statement of sexual intimacy, because the hand is now that much closer to the other person’s genitals. A man will sometimes put his hand on the small of a woman’s back as another of those “guiding” gestures, but now we know what he’s really doing, don’t we? It’s a possessive, sexual touch. If you’re undeniably not interested, this is the time to make a definite break.

Cherishing Touch.

Now’s the time when chemistry is in definite drive. mouth to mouth kissing, combined with a full frontal embrace, is a major milestone in intimacy. Now, there is the chance of strong physical arousal. Repeat the kiss or prolong it, and you can pretty well count on physical arousal. And once both parties are into it, there’s a good chance that further intimacy will be happening. Hand-to-head contact usually occurs during a kiss, and thereafter, if the partners accept it, may be performed without kissing. This is a signal of major emotional bonds and trust. We instinctively protect our heads from injury; therefore allowing another to touch it ups the relationship. Even more intimate is hand-to-body touch. Kids call it “getting to second base.” He touches her breasts or she touches his shoulders and chest or they touch one another’s hips.

Intimate Bonding. From here on out, the activity is strictly private for most people.

Both parties are certain they want sexual intimacy and at least partial nudity is involved now. Mouth to breast touching brings a torrent of emotion and arousal. From here on out intimacy is concerned not merely with arousal, but with arousal to climax. For the man, blood is rushing to a certain part of his body and he operates on automatic pilot. A woman will feel giddy and disoriented. Both are extremely warm, wanting to shed even more clothes. Shortly after comes hand to genitals. You can call it foreplay or “getting to third”. There is major bonding going on when things progress this far. The partners’ sex drive is strong enough that it has suspended reason. Any rational arguments are sublimated at this point. They may reemerge later, but by then things are bound to be more complicated. Finally, genitals to genitals. Each stage of intimacy has tightened the bonds between the couple but making love carries the bonding to such a degree that the couple will want to stay together even after the sex drive has been reduced. The face-to-face contact of human lovemaking is unique; the identity of one partner imprints on the other, so they associate each other with trust, affection, and pleasure.

Romance writers use these stages of intimacy to build a fascinating love story for our readers. Writers spend a lot of words describing the actions and responses of their lovers and the reason they do is because intuitively they understand how important the bond is. Intimacy and sensuality don’t have to wait for a love scene. They should be a part of your characters’ small actions, such as the way a man tenderly smoothes back his woman’s hair during the course of a conversation (hand-to-head touch). Or they are making their way through a crowd and put their arms around one another’s waist (arm-to-waist) so as not to get separated. Even if they weren’t consciously making a move, at some level, they will be aware of a shift in their emotional bonds. All this makes a fulfilling love story. Look for the steps of the journey in your next book.

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If You Think I’m Sexy blog tour, March 2011.  To enter my contest, leave a comment below about what you find most sexy. Go to website www.simoneeden.blogspot.com to find a list of other stops on the tour and visit them and leave comments as well. The more blogs you visit and comment on the more chances to win. All names from the blog tour will be entered in a drawing for a $20 Amazon.com gift card at the end of the March 2011.

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Email: simone_eden@yahoo.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/simoneedenbooks

Current book:  SPELL OF THE CAT http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-spellofthecat-473687-142.html?referrer=teasepub

Website www.simoneeden.blogspot.com

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