{"id":11321,"date":"2025-05-28T17:32:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T22:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?p=11321"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:20:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:20:55","slug":"the-proviso-3rd-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/the-proviso-3rd-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Proviso, 3rd edition: A confession"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a><\/div>\n

It\u2019s been seventeen years since I first published The Proviso<\/em>, and a very hard ten since I put out the second edition. I can\u2019t stop fiddling with these characters and I can\u2019t stop feeling like I\u2019ve missed something that will make the story richer.<\/p>\n

My kids are grown and gone now, but not without a rough few years. Menopause has changed me in ways that have made me a stranger to myself\u2014one I don\u2019t like. My mother went through a medical scare that introduced a great deal of drama into my very large, previously drama-free family, which I never thought could happen. It\u2019s not as intriguing in real life. I\u2019m long past the pack\u2019s age, and they are forever frozen in time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll write any more books. Menopause took my creativity, real life took my willingness to create trauma and drama for people who don\u2019t exist, thereby reliving it, and my mother\u2019s sisters took any security I had in my Dunham-like family structure and cohesion.<\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

The current prophet\/president of the church has decreed that we not refer to ourselves as \u201cMormons\u201d or the church as the \u201cMormon church.\u201d We are to refer to ourselves as \u201ca member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not playing that game. It\u2019s deceptive and I\u2019m not going to hide behind the name of a church no one knows. \u201cMormon\u201d is shorthand for a cultural touchstone, and is my identity as much as \u201cAmerican\u201d is. Also, you can\u2019t tell a good \u201ca Mormon, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar\u201d joke with such a cumbersome mouthful nobody will grasp immediately.<\/p>\n

Centering my characters\u2019 motives around Mormonism allowed me to accomplish two goals: explain a thirty-six-year-old virgin (they exist\u2014well, okay, they did<\/em>) and put our culture out there accurately and hopefully somewhat objectively. I\u2019ve been accused of making the church look bad, but it has its warts and I\u2019m not afraid of it.<\/p>\n

I have a blog post on this cooking.<\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also been accused of writing porn and I\u2019ve endured all the usual derision that genre romance usually engenders. A family member called it \u201cyour lady porn,\u201d even though they did immediately apologize for minimizing my work. I\u2019m largely immune to this, but sometimes I get my back up and try to defend it. I can\u2019t. I can\u2019t articulate why genre romance is so different from Penthouse<\/em> Letters.<\/p>\n

So, on to something I saw the other day on \ud835\udd4f.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

sex is nervous system coregulation and if you think about that a little bit you\u2019ll be a hell of a lot better at it thank me later<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That statement \u2014 *\u201csex is nervous system coregulation and if you think about that a little bit you\u2019ll be a hell of a lot better at it\u201d* \u2014 is actually quite profound, both biologically and emotionally.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a breakdown in simple terms:<\/p>\n

### What it means:<\/p>\n

* **Nervous system coregulation** happens when two people *subconsciously help each other\u2019s nervous systems feel safe, calm, and connected*.
\n* In sex, it\u2019s not just about physical actions \u2014 it\u2019s about *emotional attunement, presence, and mutual regulation*.
\n* When both partners feel **safe, seen, and synchronized**, the experience becomes much more fulfilling.<\/p>\n

### Simple analogy:<\/p>\n

Think of two musicians playing jazz together. If they\u2019re not in sync, it\u2019s noise. But if they listen, adjust, and feel each other\u2019s rhythm \u2014 *they create magic*. Sex is like that: attunement creates harmony.<\/p>\n

### So, how does this insight make someone better at it?<\/p>\n

Because it shifts the focus from **performance** to **connection**. When you tune into your partner\u2019s breath, body, tension, or comfort level \u2014 and respond with care \u2014 you regulate each other\u2019s nervous systems. That deepens intimacy, trust, and pleasure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Genre romance in 200 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been seventeen years since I first published The Proviso, and a very hard ten since I put out the second edition. I can\u2019t stop fiddling with these characters and I can\u2019t stop feeling like I\u2019ve missed something that will make the story richer. My kids are grown and gone now, but not without a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,476,94,81,424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-musings","category-religion","category-the-proviso","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11321"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23886,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions\/23886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}