Oh, you naughty girl...

So, a friend recently sent out a post about a new line that her erotica e-publisher is starting. As you know, I don't write erotica, though I have read a bit of the milder stuff to see what it was like, since the genre is so, pardon the pun, "hot" right now. (I'll read pretty much anything if I get the book for free, frankly, which a lot of what I read is. Research, you understand. Research.) Anyway, I found a particular part of this publisher's submission guidelines both telling and depressing. (BTW, this is not a riff on my friend, who is a wonderful person and writer, and also in an interracial marriage).

We are looking for distinctive, well-told and well-crafted stories, which appeal to our readers' naughtier side. Accepted submissions will include, but is not limited to BDSM, multiple partners, anal play, same-sex, **interracial**, etc.

**italics are mine

Hmmm. Little did I realize my marriage to my white husband is considered naughty. Imagine my surprise to be lumped in with BDSM and anal play (which I assume is somehow different than anal sex, but I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW).

Is people of different races falling in love and having relationships still considered "naughty," risky, racy, and against the norm? I suppose it must be in some places, for example in Indiana where this publisher is based, though I imagine the color line is occasionally crossed there, too, but to me it's just the day to day world I inhabit. My DH and I are about as naughty as having tea with the pastor on Sunday afternoons.

For the type of audience this publisher caters to, surely interracial romance is not nearly along the same level of riskyness as all that other stuff. I could be wrong, of course. Maybe for some, that's as daring as it gets. I just can't help wishing that they had found another way to say this.

Sigh...and we had made such progress since Rosa Parks...

TJB
African-American