a validating thought

A message from our hero, Janine Ashbless, that I found in her interview with Nikki Magennis, that cheered me, and made me feel like cheering:

“Sex is important. ” I think that’s what pretty much all of my stories express. The establishment would have us believe that sex is trivial and a bit silly, a footnote to anyone’s life story. This is bollocks. People pour time and money into sex, they destroy their relationships and their careers for sex. And – on the positive side – in the loneliest and bleakest times of our lives sex is a gift of solace and pleasure. Fictional sex might be as important as the real thing, because let’s face it the stuff that really matters is what goes on in your head, not the bumping together of hairy bits. It’s what’s going on in your head that makes sex not just a trivial genital spasm but a place in which to find something more: escape from the self or connection to the human race, punishment or redemption, love, responsibility, surrender, empowerment, validation, intimacy, even transformation. So I write about those things. Sex in my stories isn’t always happy but it always matters. And I try and make it hot as hell too, of course!

Nikki's got an interesting question going on her blog today as well. Worth a click*