Women write books with lots of sex in them, and they're not. Men write books that have lots of sex in them, and they're literary. You see the double standards of romance and sex in the publishing industry all the time. When I got my first book deal, I knew that people would have strong opinions when I told them I wrote a romance novel. I always knew I was supposed to be ashamed of my body, but writing my books and creating characters who are less ashamed of their bodies has certainly helped me feel that way.įor so long, people have acted like there's something wrong with women for wanting sex and liking it.

Growing up in America, where you're almost trained to think of something like sexuality as embarrassing, it still tends to take a while to get rid of that mentality. But when you start to see women in so many different bodies, you realize, 'Oh, there's nothing wrong with me.' Because why are you embarrassed to ask about your period or why your body looks a certain way? So often, we're trained to think your body is supposed to look like these people in magazines or on TV. You didn't have to feel ashamed to ask questions. Even things like women's bodies and sexuality were open and discussed in ways that I'd never experienced before and, in some cases, since then.

So many conversations that had been secret were just things that people talked about. Going to a women's college was really revolutionary in helping me embrace my sexuality.

Books by jasmine guillory