As an ace/arospec, I approach writing romance very differently than many authors and this is kind of my wish-fulfillment list more than anything.
Biggest detractor of implying anything in scenes you didn’t write: You don’t have those scenes to explore character development. I touched on this in What No One Tells You About Writing #6 and the problem I ran into a few times when writing ENNS and other works is that if you fade to black, you can’t continue important conversation or an exploration of boundaries, or fluffy new emotions, if they’d otherwise be in those missing scenes. Sex scenes are, unfortunately, prime real estate for some rich character development.
So you have to work all that rich character development around it. It’s up to you where you want to draw the line of “use your imagination” but everything up to the missing smut, and after, remains more prime real estate. You have loads of other options to explore clean intimacy.
There’s more to a relationship to explore between your characters than just how good each other is in the bedroom. Here’s a few suggestions:
Tragic Backstory stuff and emotional boundaries
One teaching the other a niche or important skill to succeed/survive
A common physical threat, like monetary problems, job insecurity, sickness, or an actual challenge/quest/adventure/mission
A common emotional threat, like a lack of communication, or exercising an anxiety or phobia, or issues over speaking their minds
A common goal: Marriage, children, a new car or home, competing for joint acceptance into a team/group/club/prize competition
There’s also plenty for your love interests to think about their significant others aside from how sexy they are and how badly they want to get in their pants.
Introvert A can love how much B is an extrovert, or vice versa
A loves that B is good with animals, or children, the elderly, etc
A can love B’s skill and passion for their hobbies or a movement they believe in, or their stances on morality and the actions they take to back it up
A can love B’s skill as a teacher, their patience, kindness, and understanding
A can love B’s relationships with their friends and family, their maturity (or lack thereof), their work ethic
A can love B’s quirks and tics, like how they organize things or if they sing in the shower or how they dance when they’re listening to headphones
Point being: And take this with a grain of biased salt because I’m ace and think sex is superfluous anyway: If you can’t write your characters in love with each other without sex, I won’t believe they’re in love with sex. Fiction, for me, that takes the narrative shortcut of “these two are the main couple of course they’re going to get together, I don’t have to do any work on writing why they’re in love you just came here for sex” annoy me, and quite a lot of other people, too, if the amount of gay ships that ignore the canon hetero couple are anything to go by.
The arc of their relationship doesn’t have to culminate in sex. Their arc should be specific to what these two characters want to achieve out of a romantic relationship. For a lot of people, that’s sex, but for others, maybe it’s just someone to cuddle on the couch with and watch movies, or someone they can finally trust and let in and be emotionally vulnerable with. Someone they can explore the town with, or travel, or take to dinner. Someone who doesn’t belittle them or laugh at them or disregard their interests.
Substitute relationship climaxes other than sex:
A finally trusts B with a secret they’ve been hiding for fear of ridicule, and B accepts them wholeheartedly (not Liar Revealed)
A and B finally perfect some routine they’ve been slaving over for months (like a dance or if they’re combat partners, a difficult maneuver)
A has been in love, but in doubt, and finally understands that B is The One when B is the only one to show up for A’s big speech/recital/presentation/gallery that no one else cares about
A has never let themselves be in love and it’s something wholly unspectacular that completely bowls them over with an epiphany
A is touch-averse and their biggest leap into physical intimacy is a huge hug, and B can’t be prouder of them
A and B narrowly survive some dangerous situation and have a serious realignment of priorities and newfound mad respect for each other
Actually, circling back to the whole “gay ships that ignore the canon hetero couple” thing:
This has been said before but if you’re looking for how to write a romantic relationship without sex, look no further than the male leads of many mainstream pieces of pop culture. Here, the presumption of romance isn’t built in, thus the writer has to actually put in effort to make these two characters like and respect each other, and give them things to talk about that isn’t just flirting. That’s what makes them feel more believable than the main man’s relationship with the cardboard lady lead.
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