Safe sex

Personally I think it's fine if there is no safe sex. Erotica is a form of escape, and the last thing on my mind when I'm reading is if the writing conforms to everyday safety practices. People read about people jumping off buildings, following strangers through dark alleyways while alone at night, and all other kinds of things that would be crazy to do in the real world. So why should erotica have to conform to "safety first" when no one else uses it in their fiction? Makes no sense to me.

Filigree said:

As far as partners in committed, stable relationships, there are times when they probably want to use condoms - it's a lot faster and may not derail the momentum like decontaminating things with soap and water before the next round of blow jobs or vaginal or anal sex. Then again, if the participants have washing/cleaning fantasies, it can be just as hot.

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This is very true. Condoms can make clean up or switching between what's being used on which partner quicker and easier. It's different if people enjoy lovingly washing the toy and their partner before continuing, then it's part of the fantasy.

Erotica is a form of fantasy, and some people do read it for escape, so in that case the safer sex discussion might not be completely necessary.

Erotica does not always equate to erotic *romance*, where there's sometimes an assumption that characters are going to behave more in line with real-life human beings. In some cases, erotica is the fantasy of sex, while erotic romance is the fantasy of *romance*, which for some (authors, readers, publishers) includes the respect and consideration between partners that is sometimes demonstrated by practicing or at least discussing safer sex.

I'm like Lori; I don't include safer sex or the discussion thereof as a public service; I do it because I feel to do otherwise would be a *disservice* to me as a person and an author. It's what *I* feel right writing. Not for the readers, but because I had friends who died of AIDS and hepatitis contracted from unsafe sex, and I want to have my characters not do that.

I did have one story in which the heroine got pregnant, though; the hero was a werewolf and said, "Well, werewolves don't carry diseases and can't contract them, so we don't need condoms"; neither considered the possibility of pregnancy because in that universe, female werewolves can't carry pregnancies to term and so the hero just plain didn't think that he was fucking a *human*, who could get and stay pregnant.

Honestly, it's a fantasy. My characters do lots of unsafe stuff that I wouldn't do. It's part of what makes it hot and dangerous.