I recently picked up a book that the author stated had "closed door" sex references. Imagine my surprise when I came across the first open door sex scene in it.
Unlike "Sweet" romances, which have a variable definition, "closed door" and "open door" sex in novels is pretty well defined. Closed door means the couple goes into the house together or into the room together and the door closes. You see them the next day. Open door means you go in the room with them.
In this particular book, you were more than in the bedroom with them. This is not an open door blog, so I won't be going into details, but I can give you an example of "closed door" with my Baroness of Surli serial novel. Note, this starts with both of them fully clothed inside an ultra-helio, a futuristic flying machine. He has carried her inside it after rescuing her from thugs, set her down, and then she kissed him. In other words, the kiss he comes out of at the beginning was the first sensual contact between them.
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When she allowed him to come up for air [from the kiss], he stammered, “Juliabella, please, you are not yourself. You do not want this.”
“You know my name, but you have not given me the pleasure of yours.”
“Actually, I did several months ago, it is Talrederick, but you knew me as—” Juliabella laid a finger across his lips, silencing him.
“You saved me Talrederick. You are my hero. I most certainly do want this.” With that, she leaned forward and planted slow kisses down his neck. As a moan escaped his lips once more, Talrederick felt his control slipping.
[That was the end of that chapter.]
Chapter 7
Talrederick lay on a mat outside the ultra-helio staring up at the stars. He had always bragged to his men about how strong he was, but tonight, he discovered he was horribly weak. Guilt riddled his soul.
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As you can read, there is nothing described that goes beyond fully clothed kissing. She kisses only his neck and nothing lower that clothing covers. Then, the screen effectively goes black. When the reader returns to the scene, it is much later, the man is outside (she is inside the ultra-helio). He is upset about what happened between the two of them and blaming himself (as he should have in this case). Although anyone reading the book should know what happened, it would be possible to read just the above information and conclude that he was feeling guilty for kissing her. You will not find the word "sex" anywhere in the book. The reader never sees anyone take his/her clothing off or go beyond kissing--hands, faces, and this singular instance of a neck.
"Closed door" and "off screen" mean the same things: The reader can conclude your characters had sex, or the reader might also conclude something else happened. One of my beta readers, who apparently wasn't used to reading "closed door" romances, was left confused as to what happened between the passage above. And that's how it should be.
The problem is that when you are like the author I first referenced and you tell your audience your book only has "closed door" sex scenes, but that is not true, you are going to have someone pick up your book and get angry when s/he stumbles across your very open door sex scene. You have performed a bait and switch and that will cause readers to not only leave bad reviews but also stop reading any of your books. There are audiences for everything--find yours and market to it by writing accurate descriptions and warnings.
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