Okay, so romance readers don't like it when other people equate romance novels to pornography. It's an understandable reaction because when we talk about pornography, we think about skanky things, like the exploitation of women whose body parts are ninety-nine percent synthetic, drug habits, obnoxious teenaged boys hiding these tapes under their mattresses, and dirty perverts in raincoat.
Here is Merriam-Webster's definition of "pornography":
Main Entry: por·nog·ra·phy
Pronunciation: -fE
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornE prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey ,
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction pornography of violence>
- por·no·graph·ic
- por·no·graph·i·cal·ly 
Romance novels aren't completely defined by (1) and (2), although I'm not sure about the works of some authors (*cough*NicoleJordan*cough*), but I'm far more interested by (3). A good romance novel does arouse quick and intense emotional reactions in the reader, right? We sigh at the love affair of the main characters. For an ephemeral moment, love is something so beautiful, life feels great. No one gets old. No one cheats on other people. No one faces marital problems, or if people do, everything is solved just in time for a happy family reunion by the last page. For many readers, reading romance novels is a form of escape from the job or the mundane routine of everyday life. This may or may not be defined by (3).
Maybe not, I think, especially if we are talking about "pornography" in the context of giving readers a cheap thrill. Or is it? Let's take a look at the whole romantic erotica genre. All that sex isn't in there for esoteric reasons. Readers of the romantic erotica genre love reading the sex. It puts them in the mood. Surveys have shown that romance readers are a sexually active lot. Can we honestly say that the sex in romance novels are merely inserted for wholesome artistic reason?
Now, let me make this clear, I am not slamming the romance genre. I am just wondering about why people (non-romance readers) often consider romance novels the ultimate in women's pornography, not all of these people saying such in a mocking context. Much has been said about men being the wham-bang type while women like their sexual fantasies to come with strong emotional elements. That's why Playgirl is bought by more gay men than straight women while there is hardly any good lesbian porn out there, I think. Women don't find naked men just standing there being as sexy as the idea of forming an emotional attachment to a handsome hunk. I don't know if this is the result of evolution, genetics, or what-not - I'll leave that to the anthropologists and psychologists to figure out. But there has to be some reason why many romance readers, most of them women, find romance novels more fulfilling and satisfying in terms of fantasy than a mere magazine filled with naked men, right?
While some purists would like to think otherwise, sex plays an integral part in the appeal of romance novels to the readers. Otherwise, Stephanie Laurens won't be selling so many books and Brava won't be churning out yet another of its neverending Bad Boys anthologies. But are these books pornographic?
What is pornography anyway? The only reason, I suspect, that the word "pornography" is offensive is because the word is associated with mechanical and emotionless movies about sex targetted predominantly to straight or gay men. To have romance novels reduced to such a base level can be insulting to authors and readers who have been subjected to much other derision already.
But instead of arguing about semantics, is it possible for us to accept that romance novels are also designed to arouse the reader sexually? Therefore, a romance novel does have pornographic elements in it, if we are to go by Merriam-Webster's definition of the word.
Why am I saying all this? It's because of the recent RITA/RWA minor fuss where authors like Alison Kent were rightfully annoyed when some romance authors take holier-than-thou attitude about what they feel should and shouldn't be accepted in romance (read: "no sex please, or at least none that isn't dripped in insipid lavender euphemisms, we're Christians and/or traditional Regency folks"). While equating romance novels as a different kind of pornography, one that appeals to the female psyche, may be too extreme of a position given that pornography has so many unsavory and seedy elements associated to it, maybe it's time we readers acknowledge that a part of us love to read romance novels because of the idealized depiction of love as well as sex.
Some readers don't want to read about sex, which is true and really, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I skim love scenes often because they bore me - there is only so many ways of writing about throbbing shafts and liquid explosions before I feel like I'm stuck in a bad amateur poetry night - although a well-written love scene can captivate me. But we shouldn't pretend that sex doesn't play a part in the success of the genre as a whole. Because it does. Many of us like to read about perfect love AND perfect sex. Look at the discussions on message boards on the whole virginity thing, for example. Look at the kind of books that sell. Sex sells. Romance novels sell. Romance novels with sex? Sell, sell, sell.
I don't know why some readers and authors keep trying to deny that, or assume that sex will only "taint" the esoteric "purity" of the genre. There is a big difference between complaining that sex overwhelms the romance (a completely legitimate grouse) and saying that romantic erotica is nothing more than smut because the characters in that genre have sex two chapters into the story and scream "Pump that big c
k in me!" instead of just lying there and seeing sparks and fireworks when the rake deflowers the bluestocking. It seems to me that some readers and authors are uncomfortable with the idea of explicit love scenes, which is fine because we all have different levels of tolerance of these things, and they want to make sure that EVERYBODY will never be tainted by the same things that discomfit them, which is not fine because that is absurd Big Sister behavior.
Maybe all this nonsense about what should or shouldn't be included in a love scene will die down if we all admit to ourselves that sex is an integral appeal of the romance genre in the first place. And more importantly, there is nothing wrong at all with that.
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