It's Too Darn Hot

I got ssssssssssssssssteam heat. We're having a heatwave, a tropical heat wave. The temperatures rising, it isn't suprising, it certainly can. Can can.

Thank you. Thank you, very much. Hold your applause.

By the time this blog posts, the heat will have broken. I hope. I pray. It doesn't change the reality of the sweaty, don't-touch-me, never comfortable, can't sleep kind of heat. The heat that I hate. Seriously, my genetic design is way too Northern European to survive in the California desert. Yes, occasionally I get fooled into content subservience by air conditioning and the fake suburban biome that I'm in, but then nature reminds me that people like me thrive best in places like Ireland and my particular location was never intended to host mammalian life forms.

So what's my point?

Well, as usual, it has to do with romance. Heat is almost synonymous with sex. The hotter it is, the sexier things get. It most likely has to do with the lack of clothing that goes along with hot weather. The sultry climates seem to ooze sensuality. Even sweat can be sexy -- the golden glow from the sun glittering on someones glistening skin. When it's so hot, people drop inhibitions in order to cool down.

Not me. Seriously.

If it's that hot, the last thing I want is to be touched by an equally hot, sweaty person. I don't appreciate the natural pheromones from sweat -- I see sweat as sticky and smelly. Hot is not sexy.

Thank goodness my setting is Elizabethan England. They wore layer upon layer of clothing because Europe was in the midst of a mini-Ice Age. Not only was the clothing opulent, it was practical. It kept them warm. And there's a lot to be said about the implied sensuality of what clothing conceals as much as it reveals. That, and undressing can be fun. Where's the anticipation and the mystery when the leads are already mostly naked?

Personally, I find the need to stay warm much more sexy than cloying heat. One time a stranger mentioned that he had eight children. In response to my look of shock, he told me it would have been cheaper to get the heater fixed. It took me a moment to get the joke.

My w.i.p. is set during Christmas. In the midst of the heat, it's been a definite escape to write about frost. It never gets cold enough here for me to long for warmth, so it's a good thing it was rarely truly warm in my historical world. My next book will be set in early spring, so there will be plenty of cold rain and gloomy days to satisfy the most sun-disgruntled desert dweller.

What do you find more enticing? Hot or cold? Which environment lends itself best to the fantasy of romance?