Did I get your attention?
I’m an author of erotic romance, so naturally I like sex: reading about it, writing about it, watching it (there was some great discussion this past week on adult films for women at The Examiner) and of course having some for myself.
But November was a strange month and it’s made me sit back and re-focus on what I stand for.
Sexual Freedom, for starters: the freedom to read, write, watch and engage in hot sexy activity – with the partner of my choice, without any government intrusion into my bedroom or wherever else I choose to be sexy.
Equal Rights and equal protection under the law for all of us. That means I support marriage equality, the repeal of DADT, strong anti-bullying legislation for all our schools, and the Trevor Project and It Gets Better. And NOH8. Most of our books focus on LGBT characters, especially bisexual heroines. I want both the real world and the fictional world to be safe for them.
Great Sex – goes without saying. Tips, toys, information, resources, anything out there that increases sexual enjoyment, especially in romantic relationships, of whatever genders and combinations.
Health. The man I’m married to – half of the pen name Adriana Kraft – is a cardiac patient. Probably that’s a major reason we write erotic romance together. We live our lives by the “if not now, when” mantra because there’s no telling what’s promised. We also devote countless hours each week to staying healthy – by how we eat, how much we exercise, how we practice stress reduction and how we enjoy our time off.
Some of these things are political and some are more individual, but for me they’re all intensely personal and hard to separate. I went off line for the last ten days leading up to November’s elections to work for local candidates who share my values. On November 2nd, my causes took a huge hit both here in Iowa and across the nation, even though both my candidates won.
So the last item on today’s “what I stand for” list is Happy Endings. Our characters deserve them and so do we. We’ll keep writing them in our fiction and working for them in our real life – to #MakeItBetter for all of us.