Are Romance and Graphic sex two types of pandering?

[Cambra]

I really can't conceive romance without sex... By that I don't mean that it in every romance the protagonists actually have sex, but there is a sexual aspect to every romance... And we are currently living in the 21st century so why not show it?

It is also bollocks excuse my Anglosaxon that women only want romance and love having the bedroom door slammed in their faces whereas men only want what goes on behind that door...

But then I started writing as a fan fictioner, my father was a graphic artist and I am old and jaded.

PS I write for myself, why else would I go to so much effort?

 

[skip.knox]

It troubles me to have romance considered pandering to females. Just feels too much like a stereotype.

That aside, I have major characters who are thrown together in a terrible crisis over a period of months. They are each of them alone in various ways. Just as it seems likely two or more of them would form friendships in the crucible of war, it seems likely there would be romance. Or, rather, it seems very unlikely no sort of relationships would form.

So, it's natural.

I have another story that takes place over the course of a single night, at the end of which one of the characters dies. A romance there would feel arbitrary and forced.

IOW, bow first to the story. The audience can take care of themselves.