Authors of Erotic Romance

In May, Amanda blogged about “Unrealistic Expectations” ( here ). At the heart of her post was a provocative letter to the editor printed in the UK Times. The letter was short, and had two premises: 1) romance novels = pornography, and 2) reading romances leads to unrealistic expectations for women.

Those sorts of accusations get thrown around from time to time — I took a class called “The Romance Novel” in college in which the professor spent the whole semester lecturing about the evils of the genre — so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when someone pointed me toward the most recent blog “debate” on the topic.

The blog, Woman To Woman , pits a “right-leaning columnist” against a “left-leaning columnist” on this topic: “Harm in Reading Romance Novels?” .

A bit of the disturbing commentary from the “right”:

“…some marriage therapists caution that women can become as dangerously unbalanced by these books’ entrancing but distorted messages as men can by distorted messages of pornography.”

“Erotica [sic] romances provide the porn-laced story with no worry about a spouse catching you online.”

A bit of the more than slightly offensive rebuttal from the “left”:

“…at least women are reading.”

Hmmm. Let me remind you that these columnists are both women. This debate has attracted a lot of attention (maybe that was the point in the first place??) with even romance novel heavyweight, Nora Roberts, weighing in:

“…Millions of women — who are, of course, irrational, weak-minded and unhappy — have become dangerously unbalanced. Marriages destroyed as they toss aside their husbands in search of fictional characters.

What utter crap.

Neither am I writing female porn. Since when is a novel highlighting two people falling in love, and enjoying each other sexually, pornography?

Oddly I expect my readers to know the difference between reality and fiction, between pornography and sexuality — whatever their gender.”

Exactly.

I guess what really bugs me is the insinuation that women are too stupid to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Most romance novels are escapist reading, compelling fantasies of romantic ideals. In the tradition of storytelling as it has existed for thousands of years, these stories are larger than life. They influence and inspire, but they are not reality — and readers know that.

And let’s, for arguments sake, say that romances are fantasies for women and that pornography is fantasy for men. (Although we know that plenty of men read romances and that many women enjoy porn.) I have never heard it suggested that men were too naïve/stupid to tell the difference between what happens in porn and what happens in real life. Are people worried that readers of speculative fiction will confuse those fantasy worlds with our reality?

The whole thing is as ridiculous as it is insulting.

If you are interested in an intelligent, academic discussion of the romance genre, skip “Woman to Woman”, and read “Love For Sale” posted on The Cultural Gutter, or any of the articles on Teach Me Tonight .

As for this “debate”, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it. Personally, I can think of better ways to spend my time — like reading a book.

Jeanne
www.jeannelaws.com
www.jeannelaws.blogspot.com

Images Used: Top: Don’t Tell Her It’s Me (a.k.a. Boyfriend School) is a movie from 1990 about a man who pretends to be a hero from a romance novel to win the girl. Bottom: “she liked imaginary men best of all” by Anne Taintor . I LOVE her!