After reading hundreds of romance books and writing multiple bestsellers, Christina Lauren—AKA writing partners and BFFs Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings—are basically our romance queens. So it only makes sense that when it came to creating a brand new story featuring one of the biggest things that has been missing in romance, they would absolutely know the best way to add it in. Of course, we’re talking about lube!
“Writing these steps that some people think maybe slow down the pace, I actually think you can make it incredibly sexy by writing these things in. It's a challenge that we want to take on, and we want other authors to really fold into their stories. This is an incredibly sexy, sensual aspect of being intimate,” Lauren told Cosmopolitan in an exclusive interview. “It should just be normal.”
Partnering up with K-Y Yours & Mine, Christina Lauren created a brand new short story, The Homecoming, which features a friends-to-lovers romance that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day. And as things get steamy at this reunion, Christina Lauren note that using lube in the story doesn’t slow things down, it actually makes things even sexier thanks to all ways it can make the experience better.
“I was almost like, Why haven't we done this before?” said Christina. “It will be interesting to see if this kind of starts a trend of that kind of thing happening more.”
Cosmopolitan sat down with Christina Lauren after their big photoshoot with K-Y to chat more about finally bringing lube to the romance world, how romance continues to spark changes IRL, and their upcoming projects that we’ll no doubt be obsessed with soon enough.
This is an exciting collaboration with K-Y, especially since lube isn’t something we generally see in romance novels today. What was it like to be approached for this project?
Lauren: It's actually so awesome and it's such a natural collaboration. Romance is a genre that's about centering female experience, female pleasure, female advocacy. Having this collaboration with K-Y, especially around Valentine's Day, allows us to really talk about these details that people think, but they don't always say out loud. Lube is just another part of a healthy, satisfying sex life. The combination of us with K-Y to empower women, to talk about intimacy in a way that feels honest, fun and real, is just very cool.
It’s funny, cause it’s not necessarily a taboo thing, it’s just never brought up in our favorite stories.
Lauren: We had this same kind of conversation about consent and making consent sexy. Now it’s a completely baked in natural part of writing romance, but it wasn't like that 10 years ago. Authors felt like, Okay, I'm going to rise to the challenge of writing consent in a sexy way. And I think that's sort of where we are. Writing these steps that some people think maybe slow down the pace, I actually think you can make it incredibly sexy by writing these things in. It's a challenge that we want to take on, and we want other authors to really fold into their stories. This is an incredibly sexy, sensual aspect of being intimate. It should just be normal.
Christina: I agree 100%. It's funny because when we were first approached, I was like, What? And then I went, Oh my God, this actually makes so much sense.
My daughter is 25, so when I told her I was doing it, I didn't know what she would think. And she was like, That is so cool! That's not something that we ever talk about, but she just thought it was so awesome that we were even doing it!
Even at Cosmopolitan, we have our Lube Awards, but it’s still something we don’t all necessarily talk about openly.
Lauren: Absolutely! Every woman that I've talked to about doing this collaboration, every friend of mine or my mom, everyone is like, Oh, yeah, that's awesome. It sort of feels like, Okay, then let's just do it! Let's just put it in the books. Let's make sure that we reflect what we're actually doing in the bedroom. It doesn't have to just be on the pages of a romance novel.
Obviously, this means writing something slightly different than what you’re used to. Were there any challenges in that?
Christina: It was actually really fun because Lo and I started writing fan fiction and a lot of times it starts with a prompt. In this case, we were given a prompt, and it was just fun challenge to find a way to take our favorite trope, friends-to-lovers, and find a way to weave that in a natural, fun way, and have it not stand out. I think I was almost like, Why haven't we done this before? It will be interesting to see if this kind of starts a trend of that kind of thing happening more.
How do you turn something that some might view as slowing things down into something sexy?
Lauren: It feels like it slows it down if the only goal is penetration, right? You're sort of just like, Hurry up. Get there, get there. One, lube is going to make that a lot more pleasurable. But, also, I think there are ways to play around with lube, especially, the K-Y Yours & Mine because you have the warming and you have the tingling. There are things that you can do that sort of are more foreplay, right? You don't just have to think of lube as being something to make penetration easier.
I think there are things that you can do and you can write to make it a lot more playful, a lot more sensual. And that is what is fun for us as romance authors. How can you create an experience for your female character where it isn't just about getting to insert this into this. It's about the entire intimacy of the experience? It's about communicating what you want, what feels good, what you want more of and that is really fun. If you want to write a really sensual scene, this the perfect way to do it.
Christina: There's a moment in the story where they talk about it, and sometimes people talking super openly and being vulnerable is so sexy.
It’s fun to see the impact romance has had on women’s sex lives continue to grow. This partnership definitely proves that things are changing.
Lauren: People aren't hiding what they're reading anymore. One thing that people haven't always talked about, but we're talking a lot more now, is that romance really is the highest earning genre in all of fiction. We're at a moment right now where the media is really helping the rest of the world see that. We're seeing it on Tiktok, we're seeing it on Instagram. By weaving in K-Y, which is this huge brand, into this playful, romantic storyline that we've written, we are really hoping to help normalize the use of lube. It is such an honor for K-Y to reach out to us and trust us.
Christina: Romance readers read so voraciously so you can have change happen through these books. Pretty soon you're going to be having conversations about it. You know, my mom was like, Wait, you're doing what? It was so different to see her reaction versus my daughter's reaction. It made me really excited that this younger generation is so much more open to talking about these things.
Since this is a real-life product, what kind of research did you do in what it does and how it helps?
Lauren: In general, we don't necessarily talk about our personal experience with stuff, but in this case, I don't think that I, as a woman and a romance writer, could go out in the world and tell other women to do this and try something if I also hadn't tried it. It's amazing and it's a very natural part of any sex life.
Being a part of the industry for so long, how are you feeling about the recent peak of romance?
Christina: When we used to go into a Barnes and Noble in 2013, romance was in the back of the store. You had to ask somebody where where it was. And now you walk in and there are just tables of it sitting there. I actually had a bookseller say to me once, Oh, my God, it's so crazy. If you stock these books, they'll buy them. There’s also this feeling of booksellers not making readers feel ashamed about reading romance, about people very proudly reading it in person. We don't like the phrase guilty pleasure. There's no guilty pleasures. There's just pleasure.
We always say that the world tends to give more weight to things that are about pain and struggle, as opposed to like joy and happiness, especially when it’s female happiness and joy. So I really hope that people really start to embrace romance as a market. I mean, look at Netflix and all of the romance movies and stuff. This group is really turning into a powerhouse. It always has been, but it's really being recognized more now.
Speaking of Netflix, you have an new adaptation coming out for In a Holidaze. Anything you can share with us?
Lauren: It started filming January 29 and it's really exciting. They're up in Canada. The cast is really great. The Netflix team has been amazing. The writer and director is Tiffany Paulson, and she's just the best! She's been sending us videos and pictures from the pre-production set building. We've had a lot of things get to a certain point, and we have a lot of things in the works, but this is the first one to go. We could not have asked for better experience with this team.
Christina: She sent us a picture of the back of her director's chair and it had the logo on it. It was such a surreal moment to be like, Oh my God, this thing that we made up is going to be on a screen for people. And it was just so exciting.
Has doing this project taught you anything different that you may want to keep in mind in future projects?
Lauren: Christina and I do write intimacy scenes in a way that should feel real and true to the characters and accessible to many readers. It has sort of reminded us that this is a piece that we need to include. It's not necessarily going to be every single scene we write, but I do think that we need to talk about it.
Anything you want readers to know as they dive into The Homecoming?
Lauren: We were really able to pack a lot of character development and fun and community into this short story. It's a great little story to get lost in this time of year. It's perfect for Valentine's Day. I mean, the hero is Hugo Valentine. Come on, like you can't get any better than that!
The Homecoming, by Christina Lauren is now available to read on ChristinaLaurenBooks.com.
This interview has been edited and condenced for clarity.
