{"id":7,"date":"2008-04-17T18:56:24","date_gmt":"2008-04-17T23:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mjblog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2025-07-31T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:15:06","slug":"what-the-hell-is-mormon-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/what-the-hell-is-mormon-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"What the hell is Mormon romance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I went a-seekin\u2019 keywords for my website header information and, naturally, plugged \u201cMormon romance\u201d into Google and what did I get? This:<\/p>\n

Mormon romance novels seduce book buyers<\/a><\/p>\n

Germane point:<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that there was a big hole in the LDS market for women\u2019s fiction and I felt like I could do better,\u201d [author Anita] Stansfield said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t find anything to read that satisfied me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Several years ago Stansfield wrote about a woman recovering from breast cancer. An important part of the book was the woman\u2019s relationship with her husband, which included their relations in the bedroom, Stansfield said.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s bedroom scene dealt sensitively and obscurely with the topic of sex, referring more to the woman\u2019s feelings than the couple\u2019s activities. And yet Stansfield doesn\u2019t believe those scenes would make it through the editing process today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I couldn\u2019t write that now. They have cracked down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

WTF?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t read Anita Stansfield because I never heard of her. This is easily explained: I\u2019m east of the Rockies and there is a great divide amongst the cultural habitus of Mormons west and east of the Rocky Mountains. But you know, I feel for her.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know when the idea of sex became anathema to Mormons, but it drives me up a wall. We\u2019re fairly notorious for having large families and yet \u2026 all those kids musta been brung by the stork, cause you know, nobody had sex once that bedroom door closed. We won\u2019t even go into polygamy (apparently they<\/em><\/strong> didn\u2019t have sex, either).<\/p>\n

I just \u2026 don\u2019t get it. Mormons are human, too. We a) make mistakes, b) have pain and temptation, and c) develop coping mechanisms for said pain and temptation. Culturally, we dance around the subject of sex, and I think that it\u2019s neither appropriate nor helpful.<\/p>\n

So, like Stansfield, I couldn\u2019t find anything to read that satisfied me, either, so I wrote it. Oh, I expect it\u2019ll piss a few people off, namely members for daring to juxtapose the church against sex, and nonmembers disappointed I didn\u2019t trash the church.<\/p>\n

The Proviso<\/em><\/a> isn\u2019t about Mormons having sex or turning the air blue. It\u2019s about people who live their lives and happen to be Mormons or ex-Mormons steeped in its culture. It is<\/em><\/strong> graphic, though. I wish that, as a culture, we could find some happy medium between the two ends of the spectrum of sacred to profane.<\/p>\n

I wrote people with a unique set of problems informed by their unique culture. I believe there are more people like me out there who want something more, something different, something less sanitized lest some poor soul be led astray (too late for me, I\u2019m afraid).<\/p>\n

Do I think there\u2019s a market for this? Yes, I do.<\/p>\n

Where is it? Don\u2019t have a clue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I went a-seekin\u2019 keywords for my website header information and, naturally, plugged \u201cMormon romance\u201d into Google and what did I get? This: Mormon romance novels seduce book buyers Germane point: \u201cI realized that there was a big hole in the LDS market for women\u2019s fiction and I felt like I could do better,\u201d [author […]<\/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":[543,94,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-molit","category-religion","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7"}],"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=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17010,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/17010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}