empty paragraphs being removed in posts upons submission

How can I keep empty paragraphs for spacing when writing posts?

When I submit a post, empty paragraphs are automatically stripped out, but I’d like to keep them for extra spacing.

Is there a simple way or a plugin available that will allow this?

What I *don’t* want to have to do is editing the post on the HTML tab. That kind of defeats the purpose of making things simple.