“I think it’s great how you just put it out there,” a former colleague said after I landed a book deal.
“Put what out there?” I asked.
“You know, that you write”–hands up for air quotes–“women’s fiction.”
It took me a second to piece together the erroneous leap he’d taken. “Oh, no,” I said. “No air quotes necessary. They’re just novels that appeal more to women and book clubs.” He winked. I never did like working with him.
The truth is, even if I did write erotica, I hope I wouldn’t be ashamed. I went through a short phase of worry about the assumptions people might make after reading I LIKED MY LIFE, and then decided to get over it. (Did you know you can do that? Just make a declaration to your head and your heart not to fret about something. It works great. Except for the times it doesn’t.)
Still, there are scenes that will likely spark readers’ curiosity (that’s punctuated with the hope there will be more than one of you when this book finally comes out). My favorite is when Madeline goes to book club and a character discussion spirals into everyone revealing how often they sleep with their husbands. The answers range from twice a week to once a quarter, and I had a ball writing it. When my husband got to the scene, his eyes widened. 
“Where do you think people will assume we fall on this spectrum?” he asked.
I smiled. “As long as we’re happy and having sex, do you really care?”
He shrugged. “No, I guess I don’t.”
So that’s where I’m at with it: y’all can read into things if you want since it means you read my book.
*For as long as I’ve been an aspiring writer, perhaps this is happening at the exact right time. Ten years ago this post would have been filled with drama, denoted by loads of exclamation marks, obsessing over certain people reading certain scenes. Now I’m old enough to stand behind my work without feeling the need to explain it’s fiction every time someone raises an eyebrow. Partly this is because I’ve matured and partly it’s because I’ve worked tirelessly to remove judgmental people from my life.
