I 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.