Thinking about escapism and romance

(This post has no central thesis, I'm just rambling)

I read one of Loretta Chase's older romance novels the other day ("Viscount Vagabond") and realised I was really enjoying the fact it didn't have any sex in. Which struck me as odd since I've pretty much gotten used to sex scenes thanks to lots of fanfic and mostly enjoy them well enough, but then I realised what I was actually enjoying the lack of was stuff from the heroes POV about his Uncontrollable Animal Lusts(*).
( cut because wow that got long )