Writing sex often brings you under the fire of everyone. Like this tight assed person/s who complained to Ebay to have EC books removed. But also, sometimes people I considered allies before have been upset with me for writing sex and romance. I’ve been accused of selling out for writing romance and I’ve been accused of ruining romance for writing sex into it.

Here’s the thing – I write what I write. I don’t have some grand plan (although I wish I did! How cool would it be to have some sort of evil plan hatched? I wish I had time to hatch evil plans but I have to fold laundry instead. Perhaps instead of plotting books in my head, I should plot evil plans. I have to work on the hand rubbing and maniacal laughter). I just have these people in my head and they demand to be written about and they all like to have sex.

Moreover, I am at a loss to understand how writing women who enjoy sex and own their sexuality is bad from any perspective. Sexually empowered women are strong women. Our sexuality is just another part of our personalities but for so long, women have been taught and expected to hold that back, to pretend that we don’t think about sex as often as men. Okay, so we don’t, who can? Men think about sex every three seconds. I don’t even think about chocolate every three seconds. But the point is, owning your sexuality is exciting and freeing and important.

The way I see it, what I write is important and empowering not because it’s earth shattering and of nobel prize winning weight, but because it takes the personal and makes it political (ooh, I still have those chops!). It’s subversive to a certain extent to write as normal, something which has been treated as abnormal. Women aren’t supposed to like sex for any reason other than to please their partners. Women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex for sex sake! Those women are the other, culturally, those women who enjoy sex and treat it like a delicious part of their lives that they are worthy of have been labeled “slut” or “whore.” And it’s a supreme act of self loathing on the part of women to bandy about those terms as casually as we do.

So, despite those who label what I write porn and those on the other side who sneer at any romance in their erotica I have to shrug and tell you quite kindly, to mind your own business and worry about what you do and say instead of being so all fired obsessed with what everyone else does and says.