And now it’s time for Sarah to open up on her blog. Here goes. No sugar coating, I’m going to jump on in–you with me?

Okay.

I’ve written three books now that fall into the “romance” genre because they’re stories of people falling in love. There’s a difference between love and romance. Love is something lasting. Romance is overpriced flowers and candy bought to fit appearances. And, appearances are what I am going to delve into here.

I’m starting with books, because that’s what I know and love. I have to say–I’m not a prude and I don’t have a problem with sex in books. I write sex in my books. It happens in them, just as it happens in life. But… and this is a BIG but, sex should not be the end all be all in life or books. Sex is not what makes a relationship. Sex is not what makes us human beings. Yes, sex is a lovely part of it, because we can understand ourselves more through it and feel more through it. But, that passing feeling is not what makes life worth living. That is not what makes our story complete.

I like to measure things by the “end of my life” moment. I ask myself this, “At the end of my life, when I’m lying on my death bed, are my last thoughts going to be occupied by this?” I have that thought, then I measure how much I should place on that in my life now. (For instance, writing this post in the first place was something I struggled with–then I thought about my end of life moment… would I feel better not having written it or having written it?)

Back to sex. When it comes to sex, I don’t think it will be part of my last thought. When I think back on my sexual moments. I don’t think about the orgasm, how tight his/her ass was or how rock solid or not rock solid the abs were–no I think about the connection I had with that person. Not the appearances.  That is what matters to me and that is what I love in life and stories. I don’t want to hear about how sexy or see how sexy someone’s body is, I want to see the love and connection those two people share with one another.  In a book–that’s what happens anyway, right? The saying goes–we fall in love with the mind of the character, not the appearance.

But, do we really?

I grow frustrated with books, television shows, and movies that glorify the mediocre as being erotic. So what if they have rock hard abs. So fucking what if they have huge boobs and a nice round ass. I want to know that there is something human going on inside that mind. Something creative. Something beautiful. That’s erotic to me because that’s where we connect with the character. If we only see the beauty on the outside of the character we will always compare ourselves to them. It is designed to make us feel poorly about ourselves. Yes, I get stories are a fantasy. I get it, but how much of that fantasy do we expect to find in our real life?

I hear a lot of talk about how the topic of sex in books is liberating for women. Women are free to be sexual now. But, what I am wanting to speak on now is this… WOMEN–Just because a MAN is wanting you and wanting to make you HIS, does that make you beautiful or make you more of a person? My problem with this mentality is this: the measure of worth is founded on another person’s opinion. How is that liberating? It’s not. It puts it into a fragile state, because a woman then becomes only as valuable as the level of want she creates in her male partner.

Now, for those of you still reading…I used to feel that way. I believed that if I wasn’t wanted, that meant I lacked something–I wasn’t whole. Not true. THE ONLY PERSON THAT CAN MEASURE YOUR WORTH IS YOU. So, please do not sell yourself on the idea that to be whole and valuable falls onto a man’s want or possession of you.

Focus on the truth you hold inside. That beautiful, lasting truth that only YOU can share with the world. It reaches far beyond sexual desire.

You will never feel satisfied and liberated as a human being if you expect your value to come from another person’s opinion.  But, more on that in another blog post.