The 1632verse isn’t spicy, but there are a few sex scenes and there is no prohibition on them. Sex just isn’t written about much or graphically. “The Golden Age of science fiction is a 13 year old boy.” (Jim Baen among others.) This was a comment within the thread and above where Eric replied. The comment continued to say that while a 13 year old boy wouldn’t mind what we now call spicy content, his mother probably would. And that’s the crux of it. Graphic sex scenes can hurt sales. But at the same time, sometimes they are needed to move the narrative along, force character development, or for another reason central to the story being told. These are Eric’s thoughts about writing sex scenes. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baen’s Bar 07 May 2015 07:11 I think the scene in any 1632 novel that comes the closest to being graphic sex is the one in GALILEO AFFAIR when Frank Stone and Giovanna Marcoli consummate their romance. 07 May 2015 07:24 Contrary to some suggestions made in this discussion, neither I nor Baen Books has any formal policy concerning sex scenes. My decisions are not based on whether or not including Sex Scene A in a novel would result in a loss of sales to libraries. (Or gain, for that matter.) My decision is based on purely literary criteria — would including Sex Scene A in a novel improve the story? The answer is almost always “no.” Sex, as such, is fascinating for the people (usually two, but…) who are directly engaged in the activity. For everyone else, it’s either pornography or plumbing — neither of which do anything to enhance a novel that isn’t either a porn novel or a sex manual. The key is the emotional content of the scene, not the sex itself. In those few instances were I have included fairly explicit…