Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

Here’s a bit of good news for those of us who like to read the steamy stuff.

Did you know that Indiana passed a law (which was to take effect July 1, 2008) requiring sellers of “sexually explicit materials” to register with the secretary of state, pay a $250 fee, and provide details about the material they were selling? Hmm, can anyone say “censorship”?

Yes! On July 1 a U.S. District Judge (Sarah Evans Barker, bless her heart) struck down the law. Several bookstores, the Museum of Art, and the Indiana ACLU challenged the law in court, and they won.

The now-defunct law was supposedly targeted toward businesses that specialized in pornography (you know, that’s the stuff that no-one can define but you’ll supposedly recognize when you see it). However, the wording of the law was so general that it would arguably have included countless works of art as well as many romance novels – and no doubt every single title published in our Aphrodisia line.

For more information, check out stories in IndyStar.com (http://tinyurl.com/4nvage) and Publishers Weekly (http://tinyurl.com/5747tu).

The State is reportedly still trying to find a way to deal with “pornographic businesses.”

In this day and age, when so many romance novels (even ones in traditional lines) are sizzling hot, where heroines and heroes are having sex with vampires and werewolves, where ménages have expanded from trois to quatre and show no signs of stopping, where masturbation, sex toys, anal sex, nipple clamps, and bondage are increasingly the norm, where women are writing and reading male-male sex, I have to ask, What on earth is pornography, and what’s a pornographic business? Does the concept of “porn” have meaning any more?

Is there some kind of line that should be drawn somewhere? And if so, how?

I do notice that most publishers of erotica and erotic romance have drawn their own lines. Such as, no sex with a minor – even if it would be historically correct (like in the days when most girls were married by the time they reached the age of majority), and even if it’s perfectly acceptable in young adult fiction. Then there’s the issue of sex with shapeshifters. I’ve heard some people say, it’s fine as long as the shifter is in human form. Others say, a shapeshifter romance is kind of like Beauty and the Beast: the human has to accept “the beast” in beast form, which means making love with him/her in that form.

Is this complicated or what? Quite honestly, I don’t know what to think. The idea of kiddie porn appals me. But so does the slippery slope of censorship. What’s the solution? How do we protect the innocent but still honor freedom of expression?

It’s Independence Day, the perfect time to think about this amazing country we Americans call home. I’m still digging out after taking a most amazing trip around a lot of it last month–my husband and I loaded up the dog and way too much stuff in our little motorhome and took off for Lori Foster and Dianne Castell’s fantastic conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’d scheduled stops at book stores along the way in order to meet a few of my readers, and we also visited a small museum in Central City, Nebraska, where some artifacts out of my husband’s family’s past are on display, which was a really cool part of our trip. The map at the top has the entire 6300 mile route drawn out–we were gone exactly three weeks and I still haven’t assimilated everything we saw. This country is huge, it’s beautiful, and it’s got everything.

We headed out with plans to see as much of the West and Midwest as we possibly could, and believe me, we saw a LOT! We also dodged a few thunderstorms, missed most of the floods and tried to sleep through more than one night of tornado warnings. (Those nights were generally in hotels, not the RV. We figured it wouldn’t offer much protection, and I didn’t want to end up like Dorothy headed to Oz in a whirl of wind and dust!)

The best part of the trip–beyond the trip itself–was meeting readers, both at my stops along the way as well as the conference. Once again I’m reminded just how terrific my readers are. Every single person I met on this trip was someone I’d love to just hang out with if life weren’t so hectic or they didn’t live a thousand miles away! I’m still on a high from all the neat things we saw and the people we met–I think one of the things that surprised me the most was the common ground we seemed to find the minute we got together. I’d go into the bookstore, we’d meet up and find a table in the coffee shop and IMMEDIATELY start gabbing like we’d known each other for years. It’s got to be the fact we’re all readers of romance. Is it like that for you? You meet someone at a book signing or a conference, or maybe just standing beside them in a book store perusing the titles, and suddenly you’re chatting away like old friends. Is it just romance readers? What is it that gives us that instant connection? I’d love to know what you think.

And, if you’re at all interested in some of the pictures of people and stuff, I’ve got quite a few photos up on our trip “diary” at www.katedouglas.com/june2008

Well, to begin, I’m posting from the island of Oahu in Hawaii, specifically my son’s home in Kaneohe where I’ve been watching my adorable almost two year old granddaughter, Ella. Mommy is away for a week, which means Dabba (me!) has both her thirty year old son and Ella to feed and spoil and play with. I’d planned to write when Ella went down for a nap, but I quickly discovered that chasing a toddler is exhausting work (proof that motherhood is truly for the young!) and I’ve been napping along with Ella.

Today, though, I “worked.” Well, sort of…there is a wonderful romance expert at the local Borders book store, here in Kaneohe. Kellie Chang is absolutely amazing, and she’s gone above and beyond the call of duty! It’s obvious she loves the romance genre and she is a font of information about the various authors and titles. I’m convinced that if every bookstore had a Kellie clone, we’d all enjoy our shopping experience a whole lot more. For the second time, now when I’ve been to the island, Kellie has organized a little gathering with many of the romance readers she’s gotten to know at her store. Today there were thirteen of us at the local IHOP, munching away and gabbing about books and having a wonderful time.

That’s us in the photo–Kellie is third from the left, back row, standing beside her parents. That’s me on the far right, back row. Work? I guess so, if you can call spending over two hours with a fascinating group of women who love the same books and authors I do, work. Yes, it was a great chance to promote my books, but it was even more fun just being surrounded by readers who love the same stories. We ended up with a quick trip to the bookstore where I managed to add to my TBR pile, and it was really hard to leave, knowing it will be months before I see them again.

This is one of the things I love most about a career as an author–the interaction with readers. I feel so lucky to have these opportunities to sit and visit and get to know people who read my books and those who don’t, but who love to read romance just the same. My thanks to Kellie for organizing such a special time for all of us today.

And totally off topic–I just read Vonna Harper’s blog–what a thrill, to finally be sharing an anthology with a talented author who has been a friend of mine for so many years. Ain’t it great, kiddo?

Damn but I love my job!!!