Recent comments, from letters in the RWR to a respected agent’s description of erotica as porn, have me feeling sad. Sad that it’s so easy to dismiss sex as something shameful instead of something beautiful and worthy of celebration, not to mention something intrinsic to life. An author reported that a merchandiser for a well-known chain of stores didn’t think sexy romances belonged on the shelves of a family-oriented store. I hate to tell this man his business, but I have two beautiful children and the stork did not deliver them. Where does he think families come from? Without families, who does he think will buy the family-oriented goods this store provides?

It makes me sad that this attitude seems so prevalent, as if we should be ashamed of our humanity and the rich experience that entails. Calling anything sexual “pornography” is so belittling and dismissive. Pornography does not celebrate the human spirit. Pornography does not celebrate love or relationships or personal growth. Pornography has no room for the complex realm of human need and emotion, focusing only on the act and not the meaning or the value. In pornography, do you see the lovers holding hands, or caring for each other in non-sexual ways? To say that anything involving sex excludes anything but a sexual act makes it so small, so diminished.