Reader Poll: Phone Sex In Romance Novels?

So the book I’m reading now has the hero just returning from a harrowing and narrow escape from a serial killer.  He gets home safe, had promised to call the heroine (whom he swore not to get involved with) who had nursed him from a gunshot wound.  As soon as he assures her he’s safe and she chastises him mildly for making her worry it pops out of his mouth “What are you wearing?”

What popped out of mine was a snort.  I continued to read and they go through this whole little phone sex scene where they’re both getting aroused and then the heroine stops both because she feels indecent and because she wants more from him.  Fine whatever.  The scene took me entirely out of the book because I was too busy roaring with laughter.  The latter half of the conversation was fine and added to them getting to know each other, but the prior portion with the phone sex–or maybe phone foreplay is a better term for what it was–did not work as a way to legitimately heighten the sexual tension.

See, “What are you wearing?” in a phone conversation that is not in the context of a consult with a girlfriend over a school dance or some other date just makes me imagine some 400 pound dude named Norm on the other end of a 900 number who happenes to have a husky, feminine sort of voice and spends his nights impersonating a sex pot.  There’s nothing sexy about phone sex to me, so the idea that I’m supposed to find this believable rather than farcical is pretty far fetched.

I’m wondering if I’m alone in this.  Has anybody read a book with a phone sex scene that actually worked for building the sexual tension of the story?

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2 thoughts on “Reader Poll: Phone Sex In Romance Novels?

  1. I said no because I can’t remember ever having read any, so even if I had, it didn’t stick with me at all. Seeing as how they’re so rare, it should have at least registered.

    And it goes along with that thing I’m on lately that having characters just sit around talking to each other just so the author can disguise exposition as dialogue is kinda boring.

    And the pet peeve about fluffy bits I have to read just because the author thinks it would be cute and wants to play brain dolls– You know, she plays with her brain dolls and I just get to watch and she doesn’t engage me and let me play.

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