Is it possible to write an emotionally satisfying sex scene without consummation?  I think I did today.  Taking in all the dynamics of my WIP and characters, it's way too soon for them to be knowing each other in the biblical sense. But it's certainly not too soon for them to be chomping at the bit to do the deed and to find it impossible to keep their hands off each other.  

They both have baggage (or it wouldn't be a romance, or fiction for that matter), and both have compelling reasons not to jump into anything permanent. In Victorian times nothing screamed "PERMANENT" louder and with more vehemence than consummation, unless of course the hero was a cad and the heroine rather less than a lady, which he isn't and she isn't. They REALLY need a ton of motivation and irresistible urges to ignore every moral standard by which they were raised and throw caution and silk drawers to the wind.

Hence a lot of intense but prolonged foreplay. And of course by "emotionally satisfying" I mean about five seconds of sheer bliss immediately followed by an onslaught of brand new angst and conflict certain to drive my poor characters crazy as they resolve to resist each other from now on.  Uh huh.  Of course they will.

Anyway, this was pretty much my challenge today: have them do it, without really doing it.  My hero, being the gentleman that he is, helped me out quite a bit by taking the high road and adhering to the honorable standard of "Ladies First." But of course now I owe him.  Or rather, my heroine does. Can't wait to see how she handles that - or should I say how she handles him.

 

Your last paragraph really made me laugh!;)

I agree with the "non-consumation".

As far as I know, this would have been quite true of the era and I think an author should know enough about her subject not to write scenes that seem out of place in the era she is setting the book in.

Good for you.

Carol