Forcible Seduction in Erotic Romance

Modern romance has always featured some mild kink. In the first bodice ripper romances, you could see the heroine being tied up and often even spanked. Gentle kink hasn't completely died out in the mainstream romance of the day.

In Christina Dodd’s My Fair Temptress, there is a mild bondage scene in which the heroine ties the hero up and teases him while he promises all sorts of delicious punishments for what she is doing.

If you now think that this punishment involves tying her up in return, you are wrong. The hero takes revenge by teasing the heroine mercilessly in an opera box where she can't cry out for fear of being noticed. Psychological restraints take the place of physical ones in a common fantasy - sex in public.

For any serious romance writer, his or her hero's main concern is that his partner should enjoy the sex. His own sexual pleasure is secondary. A hero is never sexually abusive, however, for some readers, it’s not all that cut and dried. Taking this into account, many publishers began experimenting with the concept of forcible seduction.

Forcible seduction happens when the hero defeats his heroine’s reluctance to have sex by turning her on whether she wants it or not. But there is a risk involved - for many people, there is no fine line between forcible seduction and rape. This in not the case with all readers, though. Many women dream about being forced into sex by a good-looking stud, and they will enjoying reading about it immensely.

A good way to show that the hero cares deeply about the heroine's well-being while having forcible sex play with her is showing the scene through his eyes. The woman keeps giving cues that yes, she's aroused. And he's always ready to stop if she says no.

In erotic romance, the heroine always has a moment when she can choose whether to stop by getting the drop on the hero or to submit to him - she has the ultimate control in her hands. For many writers it feels a bit iffy to have the hero deliberately provide this moment of choice to the heroine and so they don't do forcible seductions at all. Besides, it's not very heroic.

If you like forcible seduction fantasies, you'll love reading Morgan Hawke's Victorious Star, an erotic romance that goes about as far as you can without having the reader lose sympathy for the heroes.

The author's hero, Ravanos, is a hunky savage of an interstellar agent who kidnaps Imperial starship pilot Victoria Stark in an intricate plot to catch a double-crossing starship captain.

Victoria is an imperial officer and cannot let herself be pushed into service unless she wants to lose her job. The villainous Ravanos and his first officer leave her with no choice but to be dominated in forcible seduction.

Still, the author successfully conjures sympathy for Ravanos in a complex romantic triangle that she engineers. The fact that there are two men makes the plot especially spicy, and they both are needed because oftentimes the author only manages to evoke sympathy by having one of them protect the heroine from the other.

Victorious Star also features scenes of unexpected tenderness as the heroes look after Victoria, showing how much they care about her well-being. Make no mistake, Victoria is nobody’s victim, but a real kick-ass heroine fully capable of going up against anybody to stand up for what she believes in. In one scene, she makes short work of 2 villains that try to rape her. If she really wanted to, she could do the same to Ravanos and his first officer.

In short, in the erotic romance of today, a hero seems to be able to get away with a lot if his heroine is a good match for him in terms of strength, courage, and wit.

Of course, beside being a pig, the hero has to serve a cause great enough for the reader to excuse what he does to the heroine. In Victorious Star, Ravanos is going after a serial-killer who will not stop until someone stops him.