I haven’t had much of an opportunity to read many answers for this question yet, but I imagine there probably is a wide spread.

I am not a big romance novel reader myself, tending to prefer action and suspense rather than romance, but occasionally I’ll pick up a book with a strong romance thread running through it. Like you, I don’t care for gratuitous sex at all, but I don’t mind it if it’s part of the story or the characters’ development. I’ve never read Erotica before, but I imagine someday I might just to get an idea of whether it’s something I’d enjoy or not. You never know.

For more explicit romance: after the initial startle, I keep reading along. It’s happened a couple of times; I’m reading some good historical fiction (I think), then in comes an explicit sex scene. Andre Norton’s The Shadow of Albion was one of the first that caught me. After I get over the initial “what’s this doing in here?” I continue enjoying the book.

I’m with you though. I don’t generally offend easily. Not by sex and profanity, anyway. Politics on the other hand, make me want to stand up and shout!! I don’t generally read “Romance” or “Erotica”. I don’t seek them out. Not really my thing, ya know?? But I can’t ever remember putting down a book because I was offended by something.

If the language is just awful, it may end up ruining the book for me though.

I see that as being a problem of writing quality and style, though, rather than the presence or absence of a sex scene. I think this is an issue that sticks out in our minds mostly because erotica is a fairly new genre, and so the definitions of a “good” sex scene are still being worked out.

I think anyone who wants to write erotic romance should read Alison Kent’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance—yes, it does come with help for writing decent sex scenes that won’t make people laugh! It also has some fascinating discussions on the different levels of explicitness and different audiences’ expectations and desires.