When it comes to erotic romance, are you a city mouse or a country mouse? That is, what turns you on more, an urban setting or the charms of nature?

It’s an interesting question, and your preferences in fiction probably hinge more upon the matter than you realize. Personally, I can see certain advantages to both types of locales. And it’s fun to consider what each has to offer, seduction-wise.

City settings provide luxury, sophistication, and excitement: the sparkle of night lights, the streets teeming with possibilities, color and music and stimulations of all kinds. Elegant restaurants offer fine wines and delicious food and romantic atmosphere. Cozy bars are dark for private conversation (and fun under the table); trendy clubs feature sexy music for dancing and attractive strangers across a crowded room. Anything can happen with a mix of interesting strangers around, and people are dressed up for allure.

I live ten minutes from downtown and am not happy without access to the city. (I know that from experience from my days as a pastor’s wife in rural Iowa!) I love nice bars, good restaurants, and walking around the city at night when everything seems exciting and fun. Music, margaritas or martinis or mojitos, a handsome gentleman (or several) in the vicinity, and my dancing shoes...I’m ready for romance and for ideas for my next erotic tale.

That said, I also need a regular fix of the country! Even in our urban neighborhood I have to be among flowers and mature trees to be happy. And regular visits to the forest and the beach, hikes along rivers or in the sand, are also essential.

The country offers erotic charms all its own. For one thing, certain activities much better suited to solitude than to a crowd. A realm of natural beauty inspires romance like nothing else, whether majestic mountain, stark desert, sparkling lake, or deep and lovely forest. Being out in nature puts us in touch with our most primitive and essential human feelings, among them, the erotic.

I confess that in my writing, the most significantly erotic settings have been in the country. For example, in Soulful Sex Volume I’s “Between Earth and Sky,” a young woman lost in the Appalachians falls for her rescuer as he nurses her in his remote cabin. The two feel the force of nature compelling them to give in to primordial urges, regardless of the prudence of doing so. In Soulful Sex: The Science Fiction Collection’s “Spacewrecked with Joel Fennimore,” the alien wilderness gives the title character many opportunities to demonstrate his very attractive resourcefulness, and the protagonists make love in some exotic spots, like overlooking a gorge.

In Soulful Sex Volume III’s “The Frontier,” there are wonderful love scenes in a cozy skin tent and a luxurious hot spring, demonstrating how sensual natural environments can be. In my novella Gift of Flesh, an envoy and his charge, a concubine, can only survive camping in a snowy cold forest by getting nice and close--and tempting disaster. (Of course they give in!) In Soulful Sex: The Paranormal Collection’s “Dead Man’s Chest,” the piratical hero and his "victim" do the deed at night on a sandy beach, something I’m guessing is more romantic on the printed page than in actuality!

And that may be the key: in fantasy, nature is a wonderful environment for love. Unfortunately, in real life a civilized setting (like a big clean bed) is more likely to facilitate romance. I’d venture that a lot of us, when it comes to the erotic, are city mice who like to play at being country mice in our imaginations.

The exception to that rule is my great inspiration, Survivorman Les Stroud, and his wife Sue. These two got married on a frozen beaver pond in Canada and their honeymoon was a year in complete isolation in the Great White North, living like the bush people did 500 years ago. There’s no doubt that this sounds romantic, but it was also more difficult than most people could handle. Nevertheless, Les and Sue say they would do it again in a heartbeat. As for me, well, what’s romantic and sexy to me is watching the movie about their year from the comfort of my living room couch, and then being inspired to write about sex in the wilderness.

I guess it’s just as well I do the “nature sex” in my imagination though...seeing as my husband doesn’t even like to go camping!

So, city mice and country mice, let us happily indulge our erotic dreams in all kinds of locales...with the help of imagination.

Diana Laurence is the author of the Soulful Sex anthologies of erotic romance fiction, and released her newest book Bloodchained in September 2007 (www.bloodchained.com). Diana's works are published by Living Beyond Reality Press (www.livingbeyondreality.com.)
Visit her at www.dianalaurence.com or enjoy her blog at www.eroticawithsoul.blogspot.com.