Yes, Virginia, Your Mother had Sex. (And last week's euphemism winners)

NOTE: Last week's groaningly bad EUPHEMISM award goes to: HANNAH! Hanna, please drop me an email at starmuse23@gmail.com to collect your winnings!



Danger, Will Robinsion!


This is one of those posts that flirts with too much information. Since I'm no big fan of flames, I'm going to tread with caution as I try my darndest to steer back to the real topic--the glaring paucity of erotic romance titles recognized by RWA with the announcement of this year's Golden Heart and RITA finalists.

In spite of the fact I was one of those teen moms whose plights politicians love to bandy about to politice personal choice issues such as sex education and family planning, my teen parenthood was written in the cards long before I had any reason to care what sex was.

I was raised under the influence of of the Southern Bible Belt--the snake handling, tongue speaking variety. While I will defend to the death any and all freedoms of religion, I don't come from a family I consider anyone would consider zealatous. But my parents were themselves the product of families and regions where physical displays of affection were carefully measured and straight talk about sex amounted to mortal sin.

While I have nobody to blame but myself for producing a (lovely) child with my teenage heart throb, I do often stop to wonder if I'd have made the same choices if I'd had a stronger understanding of what sex truly meant between two mature people who love each other. I'm not just talking about the mechanics. I'm also talking about the emotional reasons for entering into the act in the first place.

Where I came from, people just didn't talk about those things, much less write about them. Cripes, I had friends who weren't even allowed to go to movies or slow dance with their boyfriend at the prom. You see, that kind of thing was relegated to the status of sin, and it wasn't our place to question the reasons why.

I didn't have brothers or any accurate clues regarding the male anatomy save for the throbbing love shafts and purple helmeted soliders mentioned in the flowery romance novels my best friend and I lifted from beneath her mom's bed. Talk about lousy sexual role models! Many of those titles portrayed their heroine's acceptance of rape as more acceptable than to characterize a woman as sexually knowledgable enough to say what she means: "please, just fuck me already!"

As a result of my culturally induced naievte, making peace with myself as a sexual being didn't come easily or quickly. In fact, it didn't begin to happen until my first child was entering puberty herself. Sure, I experimented, but I did it more to close the sale on happily ever after than to share pleasure with the man I love.

Wrong reason. And not something I'm proud of admitting.

Time moves on. Minds change. So do sexual mores. Sex isn't a right of passage meant to only to pave the way to forever. But I didn't know that then. Nor did I know I was supposed to find pleasure in the physical act of loving. Scary, but true.

To say that my journey toward writing erotic romance freed me as a both a sexual being and an artist is the understatement of the millenium. Had I known then what I know now, I'd have entered into sex for the right reasons. While I can never regret my beautiful daughter, I'd have taken more care with my body and my responsibility to protect myself from responsibilities I was in no way prepared for. I'd have made love for the first time for the right reasons--the same ones I hope my daughters leans on when they enter into love relationships--with eyes wide open.

Now, back to the point of this post. People have sex. People will always have sex. These days, *gasp*, people even like having sex. :) So do the characters I write about--or at least they will like it by the time I'm through with 'em.

Perhaps I shouldn't feel surprised by the paucity of erotic romance titles amont RWA's recent RITA and Golden Heart finalists. I guess this year, I'd hoped for something better from the organization that professes to help advance romance author's careers.

Maybe RWA doesn't get it yet, but eroticism is here to stay. The stories that represent the best of this important market niche can hold their own against any of the traditional romances I've read.

By definition, many erotic romance stories fit the currently accepted industy definition of romance, right down to the HEA. (HEA for now is another post. :D) But once again, authors who write for the publishers that set the standard for erotic and sensual romance have been barred from participation via RWA's refusal to say what they really meant when they slipped the ill-defined term mass produced into RITA elgibility rules.

Discrimination is never pretty. Neither is censorship veiled beneath the language of eligibility requirements. Organizational behavior such as RWA has exhibited toward authors who push sexual boundaries in romance has served only to highlight the worst of what RWA offers to established and aspiring romance authors.

So who really wins? Are those authors who finalled (and major kudos to all of the finalists!) truly able to consider themselves the best of the best, or is RWA forcing them to settle for being the best of what's left?

It's time RWA and its board members put their money where their membership dues are to say what they really mean, because a lot of talented authors are pretty damn tired of paying for the right to be disrespected, ignored and insulted.