Writers and Sluts

January 2, 2013

Woman WritingI know several romance writers who are compulsive about keeping their pen names secret. They work in sensitive jobs or they go to conservative churches or they have snobby friends or they have uptight relatives. Whatever the reason, they figure it’s best if nobody knows exactly what they write.

I can sympathize with this feeling—back when I was still teaching, I was pretty careful who I told about my books. I actually didn’t want the people I worked with to read my stuff since I figured they wouldn’t like it and might make disparaging comments. That fear turned out to be groundless, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Still, I think a lot of the angst that romance writers go through comes because of a popular misconception: some people are convinced that romance writers write from life. Therefore it follows that romance writers must be sluts. One erotic romance writer who taught high school English was outed by one of her students a couple of years ago and almost lost her job as a result. She never talked about her writing in class, she never suggested that her students read her books, she never even told them what name she was published under. But teenagers being teenagers, some of them found out and gleefully shared that information with the rest of the class. And some of the more prudish parents immediately assumed that the teacher was morally unfit to teach their children. After all, if she wrote about this stuff, she must practice it herself, right?

Wrong, of course, but romance writers get this kind of reaction all the time. Rose’s Colored Glasses even sells a T-shirt that reads “Yes, I’m a romance writer. No, you cannot help me with my research.” Pause for a moment, however, and consider the fact that nobody thinks mystery writers spend time committing murder so they know what it feels like. While many science fiction writers do a great deal of research on scientific theory, no writer that I know of has actually been in space or traveled in time. It’s taken as a given that these writers use their imagination to experience what they haven’t actually experienced in real life. So why don’t romance writers get the same break?

I’ll go out on a limb here and say I think it’s at least partly because most romance writers are women. And our culture still has some problems with women and sex. Women who write about sex are particularly suspect. Although few people would be willing to state that they think women shouldn’t know about things like that, they may actually believe that to be true on some unconscious level.

So let’s get this clear, once and for all. Just because we write about sex, that doesn’t mean we’re sluts. Nor is there anything particularly disgraceful about what we do. And for people who feel that there is, I recommend you steer clear of our section of the bookstore. I’m sure the staff can send you somewhere you’ll feel more comfortable—power tools, say, or possibly bass fishing. For those who still feel uncomfortable about women writing sex scenes, I propose that they picture a chorus of several hundred romance writers, all yelling “Just get over it, already!”

Because, trust me, we’re not going to stop doing it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel.



Posted in Blog • Tags: , |  5 Comments

 

5 thoughts on “Writers and Sluts

  1. Oh Meg, your blog post is timely for me. My debut released last week under a pen name. Why did I choose a pen name? At the time, I was working a full time job and I thought it would be easier on me then to explain what kind of book I had written. In retrospect, I wish I had just used my real name.

    My family is extremely supportive and proud. Only problem is I found out that one of my SIL only wants to read my book to see what my sex life is about. Hate to disappoint people but according to my husband our sex life is better. 🙂
    And yes, he has read my book. 😉

    Harlie/Marika

  2. My brother has plugged my books in the newsletter he writes for his former high school classmates, but he cautioned them that the books included sex scenes. Sigh.

  3. Excellent post!
    I live in the most liberal-thinking city of a pretty liberal-thinking country (Australia), and know a number of romance writers who write under their real names.
    And yet, there’s still a stigma attached to fiction for women. Along with misconceptions about authors’ sex lives, there’s also the very real discrimination that happens in bookshops.
    If you look at Nicholas Sparks, for example, he can the write the sappiest romantic story in history, and every bookshop in Australia will shelve him in the ‘prestigious’ Literary Fiction section.
    A woman writes a similar (but much better!) book? She finds herself hidden away in the special pink girly section further back in the shop. The section for those silly women who can’t read or write real books.
    The irony is, romance is by far the best-selling genre. It’s the one that most often gets people together in real life and online to talk books!

  4. Exactly! This is, of course, a double-edged phenomenon. While it irritates me to see romance segregated in the back of the store, I also appreciate having all the romance novels together since it makes it easier for me to browse through similar books.

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