Today I want to welcome National Bestselling author Karin Tabke AKA Karin Harlow.... Take it away Karin....
Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll!
I grew up in the 70s when the fallout of the sexual revolution was in free-for-all mode. Rock and Roll continued the mantra that if it feels good, hellz, yes, do it, and drugs made it feel really good no matter what you were doing! Life was a big crazy orgy everyone was invited to.
I was caught in the middle of it.
As a child of parents who were married in the fifties, and maintained the mores of that era, I was, to put it mildly, sheltered. My parents weren’t worried about continuing the revolution. They were from a different generation, and liked it that way. Don’t get me wrong, I knew about the birds and the bees, but sex was just not something we talked about.
So when my brother who is a year younger than me and far more worldly at the time (he was all of 10 and I 11) told me what a whore house was, I didn’t believe him. I was shocked and appalled that such a place existed and moreover that women would actually take money to have sex with men. I mean really!
That night at the dinner table, my brother was sitting there with that smug superior look on his face because he was the worldly city mouse and I, his elder sibling, the naïve country mouse. I wanted to slap that look right off his face, so, I did what most girls would do when they wanted the truth, I asked my dad what a whorehouse was. And after he nearly choked to death in embarrassment he told me, “It’s a place where a man pays for a mate.” He abruptly left the table. That my father knew such things was even more upsetting to me than my brother telling me. When I looked across the table to my mom for confirmation that one, my dad just told me the truth and that two, he actually knew about such naughty things, I was once again shocked. Because my mom had almost the same smug look on her face that my brother did!
Hello, who are you people!
Needless to say, I was mortified on all accounts. That’s what I got for living in a safe little box. Years pass, I get into high school and while everyone in the world was having sex while doing drugs and listening to rock and roll, my peers weren’t (at least they weren’t telling anyone about it, really, how naïve was I?). I mean seriously, there was only one girl in my senior class who admitted that she, ‘did it.’ with a guy. Again, Karin was shocked and appalled, but secretly fascinated. You see, I had discovered a dirty little secret of my own. Kathleen Woodiwiss.
The Flame and the Flower and The Wolf and the Dove changed my life. I fell in love with the fantasy of romance and finally understood what all the hoopla about sex was. It was a wonderful thing. If you were in love all the better. It was a way to express your feelings, your trust, and your wild child. The most perfect way to, le sigh, connect with your knight in shining armor. Discovering romance novels was my bliss. I devoured anything and everything remotely romance. The floodgates were wide open and Karin was in love with love. And not just the emotion of love, but mad passionate love scenes. Not sex scenes. There is a difference. To me, love scenes are when two (or in some cases more than two) people who are in love come together and express that love through intimacy. Sex scenes, though they can involve emotions, are more about the act of sex itself. I write both and each has their place in my books.
The book I just wrapped up, BLOODRIGHT, book two in my Blood Moon Rising trilogy, has mad passionate love scenes, as well as crazy out of the box, hell, out of the building sex scenes! It is the most emotional, angsty story I have ever written and because of the emotions involved, it became the sexiest book I have written to date. And I love it. I mean I loved writing that story. I loved the mad passionate love scenes, the crazy sex, the boiling over emotions, the hold-on-for-dear-life roller coaster relationships. Because of the emotion involved in BLOODRIGHT, it turned out to be a love story that will stay with me forever. Because while sex is sex, making love is where the heart is, and wherever the heart is, is where the real story lies.
So, a couple of questions if you feel like chatting. First of all, I would love to know if there was ever a question you asked one of your parents that floored them like my question to my dad floored him, and secondly, are you in it for the love scenes or sex scenes?
Karin will be giving away a copy of one of her masterpieces on her back-list so good luck!!
You can visit Karin here:
http://karinharlow.com/ 
A question for my parents? Err, perhaps I want to know if they read romance novels with smutty scenes like I do, lol! My parents so conservative and sex is taboo for my family an culture, even I'm free-spirited. I think my knowledge about sex is improved after I enter college. Too late maybe, but better late than never =)..
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm in for love scene, I'm romantic in the heart and sometimes when read the scene people jump each other because of lust, I just shake head, even I still read it, lol. For me, love and feeling is the important part of love scene =)
Thanks for the giveaway!
Ren
sawamura_foxman AT yahoo DOT com
These books sound cool. Can't wait to check them out. Thanks for the giveaway.
ReplyDeletemythic021@gmail.com
Well, yes, there was a question I asked my mother, but never had the guts to ask my father. See, they met while working at the main library at my university, and there are all these study carrels tucked into the stacks, and .... You might get the picture, but the question I asked my mother (which she never did answer, BTW),was "Was I conceived in the stacks?"
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I felt somewhat comfortable asking my mother that, even though she had been brought up to be a southern lady. You know the type - S-E-X is never, ever spoken of!! Somehow, she managed to shed all of that when she moved to Wisconsin from Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1943. My father, on the other hand? Indiana small town, very conservative upbringing, which pretty much stuck with him all his life, except in his political views. Maybe him having been a WWII vet had something to do with that, but I'll never know.
Later,
Lynn
Hmmm. I guess it would be appropriate to include my e-mail address too, no?
ReplyDeleteLater,
Lynn
lwrettig@wisc.edu
I never asked my parents any embarassing questions. My family has always been pretty open-minded so I guess there hasn't been the need for that. As for the other question, I like both in my romances. The love scenes need to make the sex scenes kind of plausible. Only sex scenes wouldn't work for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the interview and giveaway!
claudigc at msn dot com
There really aren't an embarrassing questions in my family. We are all very open with each other about things. If I had a question about something, I asked.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and thanks for the giveaway!!!
leaghchristensen@yahoo.com
Ren, better late than never is always better!
ReplyDeleteVanessa, I hope you do pick up one or two of my books! Thank you for stopping by.
ReplyDeleteLynn that's too funny! I think there's a story in those stacks!
ReplyDeleteClaudia, my husband and I have made a point to be open with our kids. and OMG! some of the conversations that go on at the Sunday dinner table.
ReplyDeleteLeagh, kudos to your family. While I don't think I suffered undully being brought up in a home that was tightlipped, I love that I'm so open with my kids. Hubby too.
ReplyDeleteI love talking to my kids about anything.
Never asked my parents any outrageous questions but chats with some of my best friends gets pretty wild and hilarious. I think love and sex scenes are connected in romances so I read both.
ReplyDeletelilazncutie1215[at]yahoo[dot]com
My parents and I were always very open, so I never asked anything that shocked them!
ReplyDeleteI'm in it for the love and sex scenes, haha ;-)
justforswag(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
I can't think of one I asked, but when my younder brother was about 9, he asked what a tampon was and my dad proceeded with a very scientific explanation, yet managed not to say too much beyond what it actually was. I, at 16, was horrified when the question popped out.
ReplyDeleteWhile I like reading smut, for smut sake, in the long run I prefer story where love is involved with the sex scenes.
acm05atjuno.com
I would never ask my mom any sex questions. Even though she is pretty open I would just die over her answers. I read romance for the sex and the love! Can't have a good book without them both in my opinion. Thanks for sharing with us!
ReplyDeleteevjochum[AT]aol[DOT]com
I never asked my parents anything embarrassing. In our house, if you even HAD "private parts" you certainly never TALKED about them!! My older sister got the "talk", which consisted of my mom blurting out some advice like don't sit down in a public restroom because you can get crabs from a toilet seat. O.o
ReplyDeleteOh, I guess I did ask a question one time - I was 9, my mom and I were watching a movie, and someone said something about "testicles". So I turned to my mom and asked her what that meant. She turned 10 shades of red and said "ask your dad". So I did. He told my it was a Spanish word. And sadly, I was SO naive that I actually believed that until I was a teenager. No kidding.
Like you Karin, sometimes I'm blown away by the stuff that gets discussed over the dinner table - our kids have NO problem talking about anything and EVERYTHING *sigh*
I prefer that, so its all good. And I like both in my stories, the smut and the love :0)
Questions, from me, weren't really allowed in my house, much less embarrassing questions about sex. That was one of those things you vow to change if you ever have kids. And I did.
ReplyDeleteI love both the love scenes and the sex scenes - depending on the story, there's usually room for both. I will read books that just have one or the other, too.
I can't think of a question I asked that shocked my parents. I do, however, remember telling my mother about something I had seen and heard and the local movie house. I repeated the story word for word. It included the F*** word. A MAJOR NO NO! Later my mother made me repeat it to my father. He then picked me up by my chin and sat me on the table then got in my face and said....Never Again! He might not have been shocked but I cetainly was! Thanks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeletejepebATverizonDOTnet
I asked my Mother, at the dinner table: "What's a prostitute?" She politely said I'll tell you later. Everyone's reaction told me the answer already.
ReplyDeleteI'm in it for both the love & sex scenes.
marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
I didn't grow up in the seventies, but I too had a very sheltered childhood and "was shocked and appalled, but secretly fascinated" too when I found about alot of naughty things:) My parents are very culturally old fashioned and there was just no way to ask them about sex, so when I did learn about it it was mostly from friends, but then I did my own kind of "research"... well not THAT kind of research, but the kind that involved lots of reading and yes even computer searches.
ReplyDeleteI came for the love scenes when I really got into reading, but I now stay for both the love scenes and sex scenes.
Thanks for the giveaway!
yadkny@hotmail.com
My folks didn;t talk about sex with me or my 2 sisters - not the brightest idea and I questioned their surprise that at a rather young age, they found out I had sex. I mean, a little education, warning?? I think they thought that since they sent us girls to a progresssive school, that "kind of thing" would have been discussed by the nurse, or something!
ReplyDeleteOn the second question, I have been in a long, long sexual drought, so I love to read a good sex scene and to have that really work, you need the feelings that go with it, right?
Please toss my name into the virtual hat and thanks for the giveaway!
MJB
msmjb65 AT gmail DOT com
We never spoke of anything like that in our house. I'd be toothless!
ReplyDeleteI wish it were different..but oh well.
I am in it for both the love and the hot sex scenes.
musicalfrog@ comcast.net
LOL..great post.I have 3 older siblings.So everything I had a question for they gave me the answers.I never asked my parents the embarrassing questions.
ReplyDeleteI like both the sex scenes and the love scenes.
elaing8(at)netscape(dot)net
I'm sitting here grinning and nodding, and my husband keeps asking me, "What? What?"
ReplyDeleteI appreciate everyones' candor!
FYI, I'm in it for the sex and love scenes too!
For my parents, questions were only embarrassing if asked in public and in a loud voice. On the other hand, on the family trip to Washington DC when I was about 11, we stopped to eat at a McDonald's where my parents explained what hookers were (there were many of them there, buying their dinners, too). So when my friends mentioned "prostitute" at recess soon afterward, I didn't know what meant but I knew what a "hooker" was.
ReplyDeleteironss [at] gmail [dot] com
I don't recall ever asking anything embarrassing of my parents. As for my Dad I'd have been embarrassed but my Mom pretty much informed us as we got older about the birds and bees. :)We're pretty open about things depending on the ages of the kids. I'm in it for both the love and sex scenes.Your covers are gorgeous Karin.
ReplyDeleteCarol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com
I don't think I asked my parents anything that shocked them. But, I have told them a few things that shocked them. They weren't very open to us as kids. I don't really think they cared to know a lot of what was going on in our lives. As we got older that changed.
ReplyDeleteMary
mary_reiss @ hotmail.com
Oh sorry I am in it for both the sex and love scenes I like them both. Sorry for the extra comment.
ReplyDeleteMary
LOL!!! My parents were veeeeera religious. So when it came to Sex ed, they handed me a book from Focus on the Family and told me that if I had any questions, I was suppose to write to the author. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was close! No questions, I turned to secretly reading romance novels to get the deets.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely depends on the plot/storyline. Whatever fits appropriately, sex or love. As long as it's not a jarring transition or there's no story, just sex, I'm all for anything ;)
efender1(at)gmail(dot)com
I never asked my parents anything embarrassing... that I am aware of. I really just do not want to know ANYthing about them like that and unfortunately, they were not the source of my education about sex and other such things (classes in school did that job). And since my parents were divorced when I was young, there was not much opportunity to get either alone to ask such questions as they were both busy.
ReplyDeleteAnd embarrassingly enough, reading romance books in high school and beyond have also added to my "knowledge" about sex and relationships. :)
west.danielle.r(at)gmail(dot)com
I can't think of anything that I asked my parents that floored them. I read for the love scenes but enjoy hot sex scenes, too. Thanks for the giveaway.
ReplyDeletemarlenebreakfield(at)yahoo(dot)com
No embarrassing questions for my parents, thank goodness. I'm usually in it for the love scenes. Thanks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeletejcross719(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
My parents are very old fashioned so we never discussed any topics that might be considered embarassing. I am in it for both the love scenes and sex scenes. Love the covers to your books.
ReplyDeleteCrystal816[at]hotmail[dot]com
Great post, thanks for sharing! As for asking questions, no I was never one to really ask my parents any embarrassing questions because it may get too awkward and besides I had peers t sort of talk about that stuff. I also like both love and sex scenes but as a romantic at heart, I have to say that I favour love scenes more.
ReplyDeletechibipooh(at)gmail(dot)com