Foreplay in f/f or lesbian erotic romance

Yesterday on Dear Author, one of our contributors, Jill Sorenson posted her review of Fool's Gold by Jenna Byrnes.

In her review she said that she felt that there was a lack of foreplay between the two main female characters during sex and she was disappointed in that or didn't like that. She compared it to m/m sex, which is usually portrayed more like how men are thought to like sex; without preamble or any warm up.

This got me to thinking about foreplay in f/f or lesbian erotic romance. To be honest, this has never been an issue for me. Or, I've never noticed any lack of foreplay in an f/f or lesbian book.

That got me thinking about what foreplay means. For those of us who are straight or bisexual and have only been with men, I think technically it usually means that a man gets a woman warmed up and turned on by breast play and clitoral stimulation for the big (main) event, which is intercourse. Or that's how it is for many women since many men aren't into long drawn out kissing and cuddling sessions before sex, which is also considered foreplay.


In m/f erotic romance, the lack of foreplay is something that I notice immediately. There are quite a few authors who dispense with the foreplay altogether because the magical penis and alpha energy of the male is so intense that they can just jump right in and viola!, the woman is immediately ready and has the most amazing orgasm. Lisa Marie Rice is one such author who does that and her books are like crack to me. Do I usually believe it, that the woman is all wet and comes right away without any stimulation? Nope. But it's one of those things in m/f that is very noticeable and a big deal.

The usual in m/f erotic romance foreplay is not so much the kissing and cuddling, but that the hero spends a lot of time on the heroine's breasts combined with clitoral stimulation, either orally or through manual stimulation. He's usually totally focused on giving her an orgasm this way before they even start intercourse.

Foreplay becomes an issue in m/f because it's a common complaint among women that men just don't take the time to get them warmed up and in fantasy, this is what we want to read.

But then there's f/f sex. F/f sex in its totality, is for the most part, the same thing men do to get a woman warmed up. While in many lesbian stories and in erotica a strap on is used, usually, it’s oral sex and fingering that is the main event between women.

So what is usually foreplay in m/f is the main event in f/f. To me, it's a given then that a woman is going to be warmed up and satisfied in f/f sex and foreplay then becomes something else altogether.

And this is the interesting thing to me, I wonder of readers of f/f have different expectations about what foreplay is between women as opposed to foreplay with men? Is foreplay more about the emotional dance between two people prior to the sex, like in verbal banter and flirting? Or is it more about the actual physical act of foreplay?

I think many of us who like to read f/f are looking for an emotional connection before it’s expressed in the physical, which would mean more time spent cuddling and kissing, talking about feelings and such and just connecting maybe on a softer physical level regardless of how the actual sex is eventually expressed: rough, intense, soft, aggressive, etc.

I know when I started reading lesbian romances, one thing that struck me clearly was that often the characters got excited and were satisfied just with cuddling and kissing and I totally loved that. I felt that was something totally missing in m/f romance. It's something that I think many women respond to, but don't read too often.

Personally, I prefer that there is an emotional connection whether it be m/f or f/f. However, what I consider foreplay in f/f is probably more different than in m/f.

So what do you all think? Do you have different expectations when it comes to sexual expression and foreplay between women than between men and women in m/f?