Exactly how steamy is this story?
R
There's more than a few sex scenes in The Black Prince, and even though they're not always particularly sexy or pleasant (in fact, almost none of them are), they're explicit enough to warrant an R rating. Take this scene, for example, in which Bradley Pearson describes himself being seduced—or sort-of-but-not-really seduced—by Rachel Baffin, his best friend's wife:
To lie fully clothed, with one's shoes on, beside a panting naked woman is not perhaps very gentlemanly. I raised myself on one elbow so that I could see her face. I did not want to be submerged by this warm gale. […] I touched her breasts, moving my hand over them very lightly, scrutinizing them with my touch. I looked down and regarded her body, which was plump, fleshy. I drew my hand down over her stomach, which contracted under my fingers. I seemed to be outside, seeing myself as in a picture, a fully dressed elderly man in a dark suit and blue tie lying beside a pink naked pear-shaped lady. (1.19.50)
Yeah, that's not sexy, even if it is kind of explicit. We may be giving The Black Prince an R rating for its sex scenes, but we're giving its steaminess rating a big round 0.