Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

1. 

   Jodi said on 10.07.10 at 11:12 AM • [link]

   Word, word, WORD to everything SB Sarah has said. There is no excuse for anyone - anyone at all - to police what another person reads. Controlling behaviour is not okay. Not at all. Not ever. Not under circumstances.

   Now, onto the matter of romance vs porn.

   I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently, and I’ve got a bit of a half-baked theory about the origins of the two genres (which may, I would like to point out, be completely fallacious and I haven’t yet backed up with any proper research).

   Pornography has been around for as long as civilisation has, as far as I can tell. Some of earliest texts and artworks we have - from the classical period, for example - are pornographic. The romance genre, however, has slightly different origins. It’s noted in a few places that romance as a genre may have developed out of the notion of courtly love, which appeared in the Languedoc in roughly the eleventh century. I think it’s a bit unfair to say that this was the sole origin of the romance novel, but I think there is some merit to it as a partial contributor. However, I think there is another important contributor to the development of romance as a genre, and that’s the fairy tale - the omnipresent happy ending functions as a sort of proof of this.

   So my point is, I think, that the modern genres of pornography and romance novels have developed from different roots. And it would be pretty hard for them to become suddenly the same thing.

   And also, in case I didn’t say it loud enough the first time, no one has the right to police what another person enjoys. Controlling behaviour is completely, utterly, totally inappropriate.

2. 

   Bronte said on 10.07.10 at 11:48 AM • [link]

   For me the biggest issue in what Conflicted wrote is that her boyfriend chose to throw away the porn of his own volition.  She didn’t ask him to.  He recognised that it wasn’t healthy for him and got rid of it.  There is a huge difference between making a decision like that for yourself, and asking someone else to get rid of something out of their lives because you think its inappropriate.  The romance versus porn issue is just window dressing I think.

3. 

   Ann Somerville said on 10.07.10 at 11:50 AM • [link]

   no one has the right to police what another person enjoys

   But if the shoe was on the other foot - a woman complaining about her male partner’s porn magazine collection, I imagine your reaction and Sarah’s would be a little different, if only because porn for men is traditionally an exploitative and harmful thing.

   Which is where this becomes murky, because even women will refer to Romance as porn for women, and erotica writers will joke about writing porn etc - I do it myself, though I absolutely despise the way many gay men dismiss m/m as nothing but porn (which it assuredly is not.)

   Visual, photographic porn is a completely different issue from textual porn - even if you’re only talking about exploitation. Even if the ‘moral’ aspect of titillation is considered, it’s pretty obvious that textual porn or porn-like material, especially erotica, and erotic romance, is much more complex in its emotional and intellectual appeal than pictures and video. To be blunt, you don’t bother to remember the names of the women who are being fucked or licked or fingering themselves in visual porn. Readers become involved in the people behind the sex scenes in written erotica. It’s a different mental exercise, and not just about getting off. With visual porn, anything that gets in the way of climaxing - whether it’s plot, characterisation, dialogue - needs to be minimised or ditched. Erotica readers won’t tolerate that.

   I think a partner, male or female, has a right to raise concerns about their lover’s behaviour, whatever the basis of those concerns. And I think the lover/spouse should at least attempt to take them seriously, if they’re not patently ridiculous - which I don’t think this is. If explaining to the person, and showing them their fears are groundless, isn’t enough, then yes, you do have to decide which is more important to you - a relationship where your choices are restricted, or the choice they seek to restrict.

   I think this guy should be given credit for recognising that porn can be an unhealthy addiction and activity, particular for guys, and I’m inclined to be more charitable than Sarah is. Romance gets a bad rap, so it’s not surprising he’s bought into it, and it’s not surprising he’s worried. He sounds like he’s not a total thug, so I hope the writer of this email has success in talking. Communication is a *good* think in a relationship.

4. 

   Vixenbib said on 10.07.10 at 12:37 PM • [link]

   I think there’s an enormous gulf between romance (with or without sex) and Porn.  Personally, when I think of a really great romance novel - e.g. “Persuasion” (is there even a kiss?), “Venetia” (a few passionate kisses right at the end), or “The Shadow and The Star” (a restrained handful of plot-driven descriptions of sexual encounters between the protagonists) - I think about the individuals (major and minor) who people the book and I’m able to re-live some of the myriad emotions and physical sensations I experienced as I ‘watched’ their stories unfold: irritation, compassion, excitement, anger, frustration, a falling sensation in my stomach, delight, disgust, sadness, envy, and - “ta-da” - a very lovely, warm feeling in my ladybits. The writer’s - and therefore, my - focus has been primarily on the unfolding of the emotional relationship between the protagonists (and the unfolding of their satellite relationships).  My connection to the novel is an emotional one.

   However, when I’ve read erotic novels, the writer always seems very intent on ‘getting down to business’, and the sooner the better. The protagonists are hard or horny on page 2 and regardless of the padding of the story, it is obvious (to me at least) that sexual titillation is the main purpose of the writing.  Does that sound pejorative?  I’m not against sexual titillation, per se. I just get bored very quickly, if that’s all there is.  (I do reserve a separate category for literate and thought-provoking erotica; which, in order to be acceptable to me, must be lyrical and intelligently challenging of my prejudices!)

   In my opininon, Porn is something else again.  I try to avoid it because it just makes me feel dirty.  You know what it is.

5. 

   Leslie H. said on 10.07.10 at 12:48 PM • [link]

   When I read a novel, regardless of genre, I am no longer me. I am inside the mind, spirit, and relationships of the character. This is how reading promotes empathy.

   I am not having sex with Roarke, his wife Eve is. It is the fourth wall of literature. This is probably why I find stories written in 2nd person so annoying.

   I do not read the novel to enjoy specifically the sexual content. That would in fact be pornography no matter what genre it is written in.

   Like SB Sarah, I am concerned about the thin end of the wedge.

   When I wake up in the morning, I am my own self and God is my only master. Everybody else can make suggestions.

6. 

   meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 01:05 PM • [link]

   “my otherwise amazing and wonderful boyfriend “

   Dump him just because you used those words. Seriously, I’ve never known anyone to use those words where the guy didn’t turn out to be (at the very best) a total waste of her time.

   (Captcha - theres68, because obviously they are short of mutual gratification here)

7. 

   Ann Somerville said on 10.07.10 at 01:07 PM • [link]

   Dump him just because you used those words.

   What an insensitive, unkind thing to say.

8. 

   meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 01:18 PM • [link]

   While I’m sorry you feel that way, I stand by my words.

   I have found that a woman using those words is generally in a negative relationship, one where any critical statement must be modified by an assurance that no, he is the most best thing ever, really, really, really.

   Couple that with him demanding that she change an important part of her life because he’s got an issue, and I don’t see this being the exception.

   It’s a red flag to me, those words.

   (captcha trouble99 - explains itself)

9. 

   Vixenbib said on 10.07.10 at 01:26 PM • [link]

   Pornography is any writing or pictures “designed to stimulate sexual excitement” [Collins English Dictionary]. 

   Conflicted’s boyfriend became addicted to the stimulus.  He took action to regain control over his life. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he turned out to be terrified (and excited) at the knowledge that Conflicted’s books are sitting waiting on the bookshelf - even though these books mean much more to C than just a stimulus for sexual excitement. It is not Conflicted’s problem - but if they are to have a healthy relationship, it is definitely something that needs to be discussed between them.

   However, he has no right to dictate her behaviour to her. He does seem to have some real anxieties and issues with control - and self-control.

10. 

    Isabel C. said on 10.07.10 at 01:31 PM • [link]

    I like romance. I read it; I write it. I also like porn. (I also don’t agree that it’s harmful as a general rule, but that’s a different thing.)

    And I have to say, any boyfriend of mine who persistently objected to either wouldn’t remain my boyfriend very long.  I can deal with a short, reasonably-phrased “Honey, do you expect that kind of thing from me?” question: I say no, we move on. If he kept making a fuss about it…the door is that way.  And I’d say the same thing about a girl who objected to her boyfriend’s Penthouse subscription.

    Writer’s boyfriend got rid of his collection for his own reasons, and that’s fine. Porn—like alcohol, World of Warcraft, etc—can be addictive, sure. But the letter-writer doesn’t seem to be addicted, she’s not making her boyfriend read romance novels, and it’s obnoxious for him to assume that his problem is her problem. Just because you’re an alcoholic doesn’t mean I don’t get to have a beer on Friday night.

    Life’s too short to spend with insecure, controlling partners. 

    (sure55: I’m pretty sure of this. Might still be when I’m 55.)

11. 

    Lynne Connolly said on 10.07.10 at 01:39 PM • [link]

    This letter really made me think. Because I write that stuff, and I write for the company that is almost synonymous with hot sex for women, Ellora’s Cave. We’ve been called a lot of things, from pornographers to trashy writers, and for the most part, we take it with a spot of humour and a lot of private angst. Is what we are doing wrong?
    I’m a feminist, and any idea of me writing something that enables men to treat women like trash, or vice versa, is anathema to me. When I considered what I was doing and why, that was really important to me. The characters in my books always treat each other with respect, at least the heroes and heroines do. That, for me, is the big difference. They accept each other as human beings and respect their rights to do as they please. I don’t write BDSM, but I know the editors of the genre are very careful to ensure that consent and the accepted norms of that community are adhered to.
    In one of my books (“Beauty of Sunset”) the hero is a doctor and when the heroine meets him, she’s his patient. The first draft of the story had them making personal contact in his surgery before he’d formally released her from the patient/doctor relationship, although he did state that he wouldn’t treat her as his patient. My editor said that some readers might have issues with that, that it verged on an abusive relationship, so I had to rewrite it so that he signed off on her and sent her home. Their personal relationship didn’t start until they met in a social situation.
    That’s the difference between porn and what I write, I think. Imagine in a porn mag, he’d have had that surgical gown off her and her lying on the examination table in five seconds.
    I did have to face this when I decided to write erotic and that was the conclusion I came to. It’s about treating people like people, not things.
    The writer of the letter has to decide how she wants to deal with it, but if her boyfriend is uncomfortable with having the books around, she could think about electronic readers. Unless she loves having the paper objects. She still needs to talk to him about it, but if the books aren’t being shoved at him all the while, it might make things easier. I’m not for a minute suggesting that she isn’t open with him about what she’s reading, but he wouldn’t be surrounded by constant reminders. If he really was addicted to porn, the images on the covers might make him uncomfortable.

12. 

    Mary Anne Graham said on 10.07.10 at 02:00 PM • [link]

    First, I surely agree with SB Sarah about control.  In a relationship neither party has the right to “run” things.  It’s a joint enterprise

    I’m wondering if he thinks he has a problem with porn because Conflicted has expressed a problem with it. She shouldn’t care if he’s trolling porn sites or becoming aroused by them as long as he’s only expressing that arousal with her.  Similarly, I don’t think he should care how she’s reacting to what she’s reading as long as she only acts on any romantic urges with him.

    Here’s one suggestion.  Pick a night and time each week - say Friday night at 10 p.m.  Then go into the same room (the bedroom would be good).  She spends an hour on the computer trolling porn sites.  He spends an hour reading one of her romance novels.  Afterwards, they discuss how what they’ve seen and read makes them feel.  I’m betting the conversation might end up in bed!

    As an aside, I’d also suggest that Conflicted might show her partner some of the erotica books at Amazon’s Kindle site.  I believe they’re much closer to “porn” than romance novels. 

    I hope that Conflicted works it all out in whatever way works best for her and her partner.

13. 

    Shiloh Walker said on 10.07.10 at 02:37 PM • [link]

    I’m reading this on the fly and heading out the door soon, so I’m skimming-sorry if this has been addressed.

    But I’m not automatically going to assume the guy is a jackass-mainly because of the background here.  He had a problem, one he confronted, and addressed-that took strength and it took character, a lot of people wouldn’t have bothered. 

    No, I don’t think it’s right that he demand she get rid of her romances, but it’s possible he’s acting out of fear-NOT because he wants to control her, but lets look think about some of the covers on romances, and lets think about what he has to deal with, if he is truly addicted to pornography.

    An addict, regardless of what his ‘drug of choice is’, is always going to fight those urges.

    Would it be easy for alcoholic to walk into a party where everybody is tossing them back?

    Maybe the guy is seeing these superhot covers and it’s affecting HIS problem, his decision to stay away from what was controlling him.  And he’s reacting out of fear, maybe without even truly understanding that.

    Now not ALL covers are going to be an issue there… but ya know, there are plenty that are so damn hot, yeah, I can see this very well being an issue.

    His actions do NOT automatically mean he’s an ass.  People react and do things they shouldn’t out of fear, confusion all the time-we all do it.  It doesn’t mean we’re bad people. 

    Maybe what Conflicted, assuming they are still together, first needs to do is decide… does she love this guy enough to work this through with him, because if he IS an addict, this is a lifelong fight.

    Then, if she does love him enough,  they need to figure out why he’s so bothered by the romances.  If it’s because he really does think they are porn-they need address that and he needs to understand romance isn’t porn. 

    If they are setting off something that is getting to him and affecting his decisions, then they’ll have to both make some compromises if they want this work-that’s what a relationship is about-making compromises. 

    Maybe she could consider going to digital-he wouldn’t need to see the covers, she could have her books and he wouldn’t see anything that would push buttons he’s already fighting with.

14. 

    kimsmith said on 10.07.10 at 02:45 PM • [link]

    The question isn’t porn versus romance; it’s a question of addiction.

    Does the reader have more of a relationship with her books than with her boyfriend?  Is she forgoing grooming?  Skimping on her share of the housework?  Calling in sick to spend the day with a new book?  Sacrificing time she could be reading to engage in activities with her boyfriend?  Spending every last dime on paperbacks instead of establishing a healthy savings account?

    Was her boyfriend spending more time with his porn than with real people?  Did he groom when he lived by himself?  Let his housework pile up until it required an intervention?  Call in sick because he spent too much time with his videos?  Did he consider it a sacrifice to have conversation with his girlfriend?

    In determining addiction, the question becomes whether either of them has a healthy relationship with actually living their lives and functioning in society.  And yes, reading can be addictive, too.  Or an escape that let’s us escape too much, becoming a complete avoidance of responsibilities.

    There’s too much we don’t know about the situation to determine whether his act of disposing of his porn collection was a healthy act.  I’m not saying the writer of the letter is dishonest; just that we’re only getting one perspective here.

    For instance, did he get rid of it:

    * because she saw it as an ugly thing?

    * because he thought he wouldn’t need to look at naked pictures of strange women since he had a real live one he “could look at any time he wants” (a delusion that gets dispelled pretty quickly in real relationships)?

    * he had a fetish he is afraid to share (one that would be painfully obvious once she saw the breadth of his shoe-licking videos)?

    *  he thinks he’s never going to masturbate again?

    * he wasn’t really comfortable with them to begin with, so can’t share with his spouse?

    * he was making a sacrifice to the relationship?

    * he think his girlfriend was insecure, and that getting rid of them sent a message that she was more important?

    * he considers them part of his childhood, a childish thing to be left behind when he enters a mature relationship?

    There are a lot of reasons people clean out their lives when entering a new relationship, and not all of them are healthy, or even based on realistic expectations.

    Repressing a fetish, for example, will eventually put pressure on the relationship; if he didn’t tell her about it to begin with, when he finally has to admit he needs it (despite thinking he could live without it), she may find out she can’t do that for him, that wasn’t what she signed on for, and that’s the end of the relationship.

    So I worry.  The whole debate about porn versus romance is a distraction.

    And if the answer is, no, he wasn’t addicted to porn, then who cares what he did with it?  And if the other part of the answer is, no, she isn’t addicted to books, then who cares if she has a big pile of them, so long as they have storage for it, and always plan on storage for it?

15. 

    Faellie said on 10.07.10 at 02:50 PM • [link]

    Pron which consists of pictures (moving or still) of real people is exploitative of the persons depicted and degrading of both the persons depicted and the persons seeing it.  It should be avoided at all costs.  Looking at it cannot be justified for any reason bar urgent necessity by the professionals controlling it (such as police working on prosecutions of the sort of stuff that involves children or unconsented violence).

    Stories involving plot and character are an entirely different matter.  The romance genre is, essentially, the emotional equivalent of the action-based and plot-based thriller.  Romances and thrillers, and all other forms of fiction, are a part of the story-telling imperative that has been an essential part of human culture as far back as anyone can tell.  Human beings, and human societies, can live without pron, and are better for it, but they cannot live without stories.

16. 

    Jill Sorenson said on 10.07.10 at 03:02 PM • [link]

    I think this boyfriend displays typical addict behavior.  Recovering from addiction is hard.  The brain wants whatever makes it feel good, even months or years after cessation.  It’s natural for an addict to feel resentful of people who can enjoy the things they can’t.

    I agree with Sarah that it’s HIS problem, and probably a cry for help.  Men often don’t want to admit they’re struggling.  So they look around and find another outlet for their frustration.  Is this fun to deal with?  No.  But I think it can get better with time and open communication and understanding.

    If he was an alcoholic, and she was drinking in front of him or leaving bottles around, I would find that insensitive.  This is not the same thing, but it’s still a trigger for him.  Maybe she can keep the really explicit books/sexy covers out of sight.  Get an ereader.

    I also read somewhere that addicts who engage in vigorous exercise are more likely to stay clean.  Educating him about romance vs. porn is great, but getting away from the trigger, going for a walk/jog etc, or trying to talk it out might work too.

17. 

    Mireya said on 10.07.10 at 03:06 PM • [link]

    My first reactions after reading the post were “did she ask him or express to him that she wanted him to get rid of the porn that he is now pretty much telling her he wants tis for tat?” followed by “another one that doesn’t have a clue as to what romance is”.  Either way, I have to agree that this is an incomplete picture.  Though the first reaction among many is bound to be “how dare he ask her to stop reading whatever she wants to read” or “how dare he call romance, porn” fact remains that there are bits and pieces of information missing from this picture.  On a side note, it is rather obvious that the person that sent the question does not know herself how to define romance.  If she did, she would have been able to explain to him and even illustrate the difference and throw the ball back to his side of the court.  Since I started reading romance (via erotic romance at first), to this day I continue to see people interchangeably using the terms “erotica” and “porn/smut” to refer to erotic romance.  And of course, there are those that refer to all romance as “porn for women”.  I think that the first line of defense is for the fan of romance to be able to say “you are wrong, this is why and you should read this and this to see what I am talking about”.  That way the argument that romance is porn can’t be used as any sort of excuse to manipulate someone or to distract attention to the real issues behind whatever is being argued about.  I am no expert, but I’d like to see a bit more clarification on the part of the person who sent the question to get a more complete scenario.

18. 

    Isabel C. said on 10.07.10 at 03:17 PM • [link]

    What it comes down to, for me, is that girlfriend != therapist. If the guy had come out and said “Hey, these covers are triggering for me—can you go for something less explicit, or get e-book versions?”, that would be fine. But I don’t think his girlfriend should have to do the heavy lifting and put up with oh-my-God-stop-reading-porn discussions in order to get him there. If the guy can’t verbalize his issues in an adult manner, he shouldn’t be in an adult relationship.

    The porn v. romance thing is pretty peripheral as far as I’m concerned.

    Also what kimsmith said.

    Faellie, we obviously have very different views of porn, and that’s fine, and also pretty tangential to the main discussion. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that I have friends who did work in adult modeling, and who don’t feel either exploited or degraded by the experience as a whole; I also, on behalf of myself and other friends, do bristle a little at the implication that enjoying certain forms of media degrades us.

19. 

    Heather said on 10.07.10 at 03:24 PM • [link]

    So if romance books are off limits, would that mean any books with sex scenes are off limits? Horror, thrillers, mysteries, “literary fiction” - all of those genres have books where two (or more) people get it on. Does that mean those books would be off limits as well? If he truly had an addiction to porn (and I’m one of those who don’t equate watching porn to an automatic addiction), then good on him for taking steps, but that doesn’t mean that you have to eliminate all references to sex in your book. That’s like if he were a recovering gambler and wanted you to stop playing solitaire on the computer because it has cards in it so it’s “like gambling”.

    I think you should really reconsider this relationship with him, but not that he is necessarily an abuser (although abusers do like to control others, so watch out.) This guy sounds like someone who will always keep a scorecard in the relationship, where the relationship is built on quid pro quos. He did something for you (gave up porn), then you will have to do something equally as important for him. Before he takes out the garbage, does the dishes, washes the laundry, he may just ask himself what have you done for him, and if you hadn’t done something that he considers equal, he’s going to hold it against you until you balance the equation. And if it’s something bigger like children, relocating due to a new job, or buying the house you like instead of the one he likes, he’s going to expect you to give up something he considers equally as important to you, and honestly that is a terrible way to conduct a relationship. No good, healthy, longterm relationship is 50/50 all the time, but he may try to make it that way because that is the “fair” way to have a relationship. Trust me, it’s not.

20. 

    Janne Lewis said on 10.07.10 at 03:34 PM • [link]

    I’m not a psychologist and I don’t have any training as a mental health counselor, but as a writer I have to probe the actions and thoughts of my characters and that makes me wonder what lies at the core of Conflicted’s boyfriend’s demands. It could be that he is less interested in controlling Conflicted and more concerned about protecting himself. Maybe he is insecure about the physical perfection of those half-naked men on the romance book covers. Maybe he worries that he can’t possibly be the kind of perfect hero/lover Conflicted reads about—and that could mean worrying about his sexual performance but also about his ability (and willingness) to offer the emotional intimacy that is at the heart of a good romance novel. Maybe he realizes that watching porn limited his ability to connect to real women—people who are not physically perfect or constantly in heat—and he worries that Conflicted is similarly unable to really love him with his flaws because he isn’t the hero type.  Conflicted’s assurance that she loves him the way he is, that she can differentiate between idealized fictional relationships and real life, might remove the threat he feels. If it doesn’t, she has to seriously think about what that means for all aspects of their relationship. Just my two cents.

21. 

    Vixenbib said on 10.07.10 at 03:40 PM • [link]

    The debate about porn and romance may - or may not - be a distraction for Conflicted. 

    Yes, we only have one side of the story here - but someone has asked for advice and we can, individually, choose to offer our opinion, based on what she’s told us.  It is also possible to offer opinions on what we haven’t been told. Whatever, they are only opinions.  No-one has a monopoly on The Truth.  Even if we were to hear both sides of the story, we could still only offer opinions.  I write this because some people sound so bloody sure that they are right and anyone who has a different opinion is wrong!  My hackles rise. I hate being dictated to.  I’m guessing that Conflicted doesn’t want to be dictated to, either.

    I

22. 

    romantic@heart said on 10.07.10 at 04:07 PM • [link]

    I think the difference between porn and sex is simple. Porn is all about sex and/or stimulating the sex organ. Period. Romance novels stimulate the emotions as well as the mind. When I read a romance novel, I immediately recognize the heroine as someone I want to root for or someone too stupid to live and one I don’t want to have any part of. Same with the hero - a champ or a chump. The plots (or lack thereof) in the romance books speak to my imagination. They can be funny, sad, horrific, scary, educational, even a public safety announcement at times. Even going so far as - everything I need to know to recognize manipulative, abusive, masochistic, sadistic men/predators or my ideal boyfriend/husband I learned from a romance book.  Porn is geared up towards one thing - orgasm and how you achieve it.

    But, the question really shouldn’t be about whether romance books are pornography, too. The question should be is it addictive, too? If one is constantly buried in her books, spending money she couldn’t afford and neglecting her responsibilities, then it’s equally as destructive as porn and one should walk away from it. But, while men tend to have porn take over their lives, most women use romance novels as an escape for a few hours here and there away from either the daily monotony or stress of their lives.

23. 

    romantic@heart said on 10.07.10 at 04:17 PM • [link]

    Ooops. Forgot to add my ‘advice.’

    Conflicted,

            He got rid of his porn stash because he was addicted to it. If you aren’t addicted to your romance novels, why must you stop? If he wasn’t addicted to porn and it wasn’t an issue in your relationship, would you have asked him to stop reading porn for the simple reason that he has them? If not, then he shouldn’t ask you to stop reading something enjoyable - but not harmful (to your relationship) - either.

24. 

    Lynn M said on 10.07.10 at 04:22 PM • [link]

    I’m with Heather in that this situation smacks of resentment on the part of the boyfriend more than any kind of genuine concern. While he may not admit it - or even realize it - I see his asking/demanding that she give up romance novels as an expression of resentment because he gave up his porn. Especially given his lack of knowledge about romance books - that some don’t contain any sex whatsoever - and that he’s basing his opinion on the covers of a few, his argument comes over as petulant. If I can’t do/have what I love, then you can’t do/have what you love.

    If he felt his porn habit had reached an addiction stage, which I define to mean that he found that he could not engage in healthy, mutually consensual sexual relationships without aid of the porn, then he was right to give it up. If she is spending more time reading romance novels to the detriment of leading a healthy life, then she should give them up as well. But that isn’t the case here. His request is unreasonable.

    All that said, perhaps it is fair for Conflicted to show sensitivity simply because she loves this guy and wants to support his efforts to stay away from porn. Perhaps the books with suggestive covers could be stored out of site. Perhaps she could invest in an e-reader and use ebook versions of the more sexually explicit titles. But if he truly requires her abandoning all of her romance novel reading as some grand gesture or to make things “fair” for him, then perhaps she should reconsider this relationship.

25. 

    JamiSings said on 10.07.10 at 04:25 PM • [link]

    Things like this, because of my own experience with my first/only boyfriend, always set off warning bells for me. He tried to change me too and was “otherwise amazing.” I believe in God, he was an atheist, I like Star Trek, he loved Star Wars. He would call me “stupid” and “idiot.” Tried to change my taste in music - and he also tried to make me feel bad for reading romance novels. (I tried to solve the latter by loaning him one but he refused to read it. He did draw out elements of the cover.) Eventually the relationship went from verbal/mental abuse to physical. I dumped him when he left bruises on me.

    That’s why I think people shouldn’t try to change people except for dangerous things - like smoking, drinking to excess, drug use - that sort of thing. But don’t try to change what they read, watch, listen to, or even believe in. If you actually really love them you’re going to accept that they prefer Glenn Miller to Lady Gaga.

    If I had been in this woman’s shoes, I would’ve dumped him. But that’s just me.

26. 

    Chicklet said on 10.07.10 at 04:27 PM • [link]

    I’m due to a meeting in five minutes, so this will be brief. My uncle is an alcoholic with 30+ years of sobriety achieved, but he never asked my aunt to not drink alcohol. She drinks very little, but they do have a few bottles of liquor and wine in the house, for when they entertain. If Conflicted’s boyfriend wants her to remove her romance novels because they may be triggering for him, that’s one thing; asking her to stop reading them entirely because *he* has an addiction to porn is something else.

27. 

    Jill Myles said on 10.07.10 at 04:29 PM • [link]

    I agree that it sounds like an addiction thing to me, rather than a OMG HE THINKS ROMANCE IS PORN sort of thing. He’s a recovering addict - maybe it’s difficult for him to see you sitting there, reading things that in his mind, are titillating, and maybe he’s trying to help you by trying to ‘break you’ of this habit (whether right or wrong).

    My husband and I actually went through something similar with MMOs. We both played a ridiculously unhealthy amount. He realized it was unhealthy and quit, and eventually talked me into quitting. It was a combination of him being concerned for me (because he knew what the addiction was like) and because it was hard for him to stay focused with me sitting across the room gaming.

    I’m not saying it’s exactly the same thing and I’m not saying to give up your romances, of course. But you need to really talk this out (and even bring in a counselor if necessary).  Is it the covers? Is it what he thinks the content is? Would he object to you reading fantasy or literary fiction or is it just reading in general? You need to drill down and find out what the core issue is.

    Also? I suggest you get a Kindle/Nook/Sony. That way if you want to read something, he doesn’t have to see the cover and imagine things that are probably much worse than the actual content.

    Good luck, whatever you decide! It’s a tricky situation.

28. 

    RebeccaJ said on 10.07.10 at 04:36 PM • [link]

    I’ve been married for 30 years and I’d like to weigh in on this a little differently. I don’t think the question is the porn/romance.

    You said he was ‘addicted’ to his porn. There is a BIG difference between enjoying something and being addicted to it, so the issue is why should you have to give up something you enjoy because your bf has an addiction?

29. 

    RebeccaJ said on 10.07.10 at 04:39 PM • [link]

    I’m thinking this just sounds more like, “if I have to give up something, YOU have to give up something,” and that’s not how it should work. Unless you would rather read than be with him, unless you’d rather masturbate to a book than be with him and unless you’d rather talk to your book than talk to him, you shouldn’t have to justify reading.

30. 

    J said on 10.07.10 at 04:44 PM • [link]

    Lots of good advice here, so won’t reiterate - but one thing bothered me.  Faellie said “Pron (sic) which consists of pictures (moving or still) of real people is exploitative of the persons depicted and degrading of both the persons depicted and the persons seeing it.  It should be avoided at all costs.  Looking at it cannot be justified for any reason…” - um, no.  Porn can be exploitive, but is not always.  There is no reason to avoid it, unless it bothers you.  Me…I like watching the occasional porn movie - I’m not addicted, but once in a while it adds a little spice to an evening, and as long as I (and a partner sometimes) enjoy it (and I’ve felt tingly or amused, but never degraded), that is reason enough. 
    (instead 23 - instead of being so judgemental, perhaps watching 23 minutes of a good porn flick might change your mind?)

31. 

    Victoria Dahl said on 10.07.10 at 04:51 PM • [link]

    If her romance novels are a problem for him, then he’s not recovering from a porn addiction; he’s white-knuckling it. This is not “I stopped drinking and it’d be easier for me if you stopped drinking too.” This is “I gave up alcohol, and I can’t handle it if you use a highball glass for your orange juice or drink anything with ice that might clink.”

    Or if I were feeling ungenerous, I’d say it’s like a recovering alcoholic asking you to give up Coca-Cola because he doesn’t want to watch you enjoy something when he gave up something he loves. In short, this has nothing to do with her reading romance and everything to do with him not really being okay.

32. 

    Overquoted said on 10.07.10 at 05:10 PM • [link]

    I’m looking at this a little differently. Heavy readers can often come across as “addicts” (even if you only read a few books per week, each book takes hours of reading - in an instant gratification world, that can seem a trifle odd). So perhaps he thinks she has a problem with it. But he hasn’t asked her to get rid of it, yet. (Back then, anyway.)

    But personally, it sounds like he wants his porn back and is trying to convince her it’s okay for him to have it back by likening her hobby of reading romance novels to his hobby (turned addiction) of watching porn.

    I liken some romance novels to Zalman King films. Soft-core porn with a plot. *nod* So no, the boyfriend isn’t too far off. And I don’t feel the designation is a bad one, since I love Zalman King films and series. But let’s be truthful here, we’ve all had a few books we read solely because it made us hot under the collar. We just want our brains to be engaged in that feeling, which hardcore porn doesn’t do. Some romance is “porn for women.”

    And perhaps it’s not the sexual/romance content that bothers him. Maybe it’s just those many hours in which she’s focused on something other than him. Haven’t you ever had a chick friend who was furious with her boyfriend for playing video games “too much”? Even if, in your opinion, it wasn’t that long? We can be jealous of our partner’s attention, even if that attention isn’t directed at another person. And being in a relationship does mean adjusting in some ways. Either he has to adjust to his jealousy/longing for porn/hatred of romance/longing for those half-naked men/allergy to paper/fear of aliens or werewolves impregnating human women/etc, or she does. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a fairytale romance, at which point, I hate you. 8D

33. 

    Suze said on 10.07.10 at 05:14 PM • [link]

    kimsmith said it better than I could.

    Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of yesterday watching Dan Savage clips on YouTube, but I’m really questioning the reality of this supposed addiction.  This bit right here:

    he has admitted that at one point he was addicted to pornography ... since I’ve had relationships where porn really became an issue

    makes me suspicious.  Did he self-identify as a porn addict and realize it was a problem for him, or did Conflicted inform him, based on her past porn issues, that he had a problem and that it was going to be a problem for her?

34. 

    Lori said on 10.07.10 at 05:21 PM • [link]

    “my otherwise amazing and wonderful boyfriend “

    Dump him just because you used those words.

    First off, I agree with Ann that this was horribly insensitive. Obviously Concerned wants to work it out to their mutual satisfaction (no pun intended). When meoskop says that these words indicate that the guy is a total waste of time, it shows a closed mind. For instance, insert: “My otherwise amazing and wonderful boyfriend turns his shirts inside out and it’s a PITA to do the laundry.” (totally true in my house, only it’s my husband of 16 years, and it’s been 25 years of blissful togetherness)

    Now, moving on… I think that everyone has eloquently indicated what the difference is between romance and porn. But I’ll throw my .02 in anyway.

    For me, it’s about the journey to the HEA. It’s about creating an emotional bond between the characters that makes me feel something (and not necessarily in the tingly parts). It’s about closing a book and feeling good, knowing that romance still exists. And yes, I expect a good PLOT as well. Something remarkably missing in porn.

    If you look at almost any review of a romance novel, it doesn’t mention the sex (unless it’s something completely out of the ordinary). It mentions the road to emotional connection for the characters. Granted, some reviewers are more titillated than others, but most respected reviewers aren’t looking at the sex, except in how it forwards the emotional relationship. And that’s the big difference for me between romance & porn. The sex needs to further the emotional relationship between the characters rather than just be sex for sex’s sake (which in my mind, can hover perilously on the porn side).

    And if Concerned’s boyfriend can’t differentiate the emotional connection with the strictly physical connection of porn, how will he romance his girlfriend?

35. 

    Victoria Dahl said on 10.07.10 at 05:26 PM • [link]

    Did he self-identify as a porn addict and realize it was a problem for him, or did Conflicted inform him, based on her past porn issues, that he had a problem and that it was going to be a problem for her?

    This is a great question. And even if you assume that his identification as a porn addict had nothing to do with her input, if I were Conflicted, I’d ask myself about relationship choices. Two different boyfriends with porn addictions might call for self-examination.

36. 

    redheadedgirl said on 10.07.10 at 05:42 PM • [link]

    My initial response when I saw Sarah’s twitter post about this:  Dump that motherfucker already (tm Dan Savage).

    Even without getting into the “Romance v Porn” debate (because it’s completely immaterial), he’s gotta go, unless he realizes a couple very important things.

    If he is uncomfortable with her reading romance because all her sexual and emotional pleasure should come from him, he is controlling and manipulative and it probably won’t stop there.  I had an Evil Ex who didn’t want me doing anything that might “take me away from him.”  That included policing my reading, webbrowsing, and my friends.  There is a reason (well, many) that he is an Evil Ex. 

    If he is uncomfortable with her reading romance because he makes him feel that he “isn’t enough for her” and that “he should be enough for her” he (and she) are in for a sad, unhappy relationship.  Because monogamy isn’t “I will feel no attraction for anyone but you” it’s (at its healthiest) “I will not act on attraction for anyone but you.”  It’s supposed to be hard.  That’s what makes it good.  The fact that someone gets titilated watching porn or reading romance doesn’t mean their relationship is lacking, it just is a fact of life.  You will find other people attractive or something else titilating, and there’s not a lot you can do about it.  What you CAN do something about is your actions.  Having romance novels or porn doesn’t mean you love your partner any less. 

    And quite frankly, I’m okay with my Hypothetical Boyfriend having, watching, or reading porn.  And he better be fine with me doing the same, or he wouldn’t be even be Hypothetical.

37. 

    SB Sarah said on 10.07.10 at 05:44 PM • [link]

    I had an email in the inbox from an author who addressed this entry and her focus was worth adding to the conversation. With the increase of sexual scenes in romance, the increasing explicitness and the popularity of erotic romance, is it becoming more difficult for romance fans to defend against the pornography accusation? There is so much more sex, and sexuality-focused storylines, in the narratives and on the covers, from this author’s POV, that my comment about how the plot can and should exist without the sex scenes resonated with her—because she’s been disappointed by books that were more sex than plot or emotional conflict. I know I’ve had that experience with reading romances with higher “heat levels.”

    I personally bristle at the idea that romance=porn bc there’s sex in there. But this author’s POV was worth adding to the discussion because there is an increase in the sexual content of romance that I’ve noticed—just look at how many books that weren’t romances, but were mystery series, that were mentioned in the recent thread on books without sex.

38. 

    meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 05:49 PM • [link]

    I agree with that author’s point, absolutely.

    I doubt, for the purposes of this question, that the OP’s collection consists mostly of those books. Even if it did, I’d feel the same about her situation.  But the cross marketing of erotica (or even porn) as romance has been annoying to many readers. It’s difficult sometimes to defend the market when you don’t agree with the prevailing definition of the market.

39. 

    Scarlett Parrish said on 10.07.10 at 05:50 PM • [link]

    I’m not seeing where the boyfriend demanded she get rid of her romance novels. Doesn’t the original letter use the word ‘possibly’?

    Doesn’t seem to me like an unreasonable request. Or are men supposed to not ask their wives and girlfriends to do anything for them? At least he raised the subject and discussed it, rather than going in a huff and getting petulant.

    Sometimes men can’t do right for doing wrong.

    As for all this talk of addiction and so on (sorry; still catching up with all the comments) and people wondering why they should give up something just because their partner has a problem with it - um, why be in a relationship with someone if you’re not willing to sacrifice for them?

    Take alcohol for example: if you date a recovering alcoholic, do you have a right to drink in front of them? Yes. Is it a loving thing to do? Hell no.

    Now to catch up on the rest of the comments…

40. 

    AgTigress said on 10.07.10 at 05:51 PM • [link]

    There are already many very thoughtful and insightful posts on this thread, so there is no need for me to wade in with my detailed classifications of pornography, erotica, and novels that happen to include sex-scenes.  In any case, romantic@heart has already summarised the crucial element thus:

    I think the difference between porn and sex is simple. Porn is all about sex and/or stimulating the sex organ. Period. Romance novels stimulate the emotions as well as the mind.

    Sex detached from the complexities of life, the scratching of an itch, is really not the same as sex which forms an important part of emotional relationships.
    Whoever commented that there is an important difference between visual and written material designed to arouse and satisfy lust;  yes, that’s true, too.  Visual material is much more immediate, and at the same time, can more easily be detached from individual human personality and situation, though some Victorian written pornography can be amazingly detached, so much so that it is really difficult to keep track of who is doing what to whom.
    On the specific issue of the young woman who e-mailed Sarah, I think it’s quite hard for us to judge.  What I do feel sure about is that if the boyfriend were required to read a truly pornographic book, one in which there is no plot,  character differentiation or development, but merely an endless series of sexual couplings, and then one of his girlfriend’s romance novels, he would have to be pretty dim not to be able to perceive a major difference between them.  A rather similar difference, in fact, as that between one-off paid sexual intercourse with a prostitute (porne) and lovemaking with a beloved long-term partner.
    Whether he has the right to expect her to give up a genre of literature that she enjoys;  well, my answer to that is ‘no’.  Censoring the reading of others is the thin end of a rather scary wedge.

41. 

    Isabel C. said on 10.07.10 at 06:00 PM • [link]

    The romance v. porn debate is honestly never one that’s bothered me a lot: if someone accuses me of reading or writing porn, my response is generally “So what?” If I enjoy what I read—and people enjoy what I write—I don’t give a damn if other people think it’s porn, romance, fantasy, or anything else. (Although they’re going to be disappointed if they think it’s epic poetry.)

    I’m pretty much on the DTMFA side in most cases—there are plenty of fish in the sea, being alone has its perks, and life, as previously mentioned, is short—and this is no exception. No, the guy hasn’t out-and-out demanded that she get rid of her books, but the justify-your-reading-habits discussion is never one I find charming…and again, if the problem is her having the books out where he might be triggered, then he hasn’t bothered articulating that well.

    Also, as a girl who plays a lot of video games, I’m never exactly thrilled by guys who get pouty about *that*, either. I had a life before you, J. Random Guy, I’m going to go right on having one now, and sometimes that won’t involve you. Get a hobby of your own: demanding attention is only cute if you’re actually a puppy.

    ...and now I’m just avoiding work. ;)

42. 

    meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 06:05 PM • [link]

    um, why be in a relationship with someone if you’re not willing to sacrifice for them?

    Because in a healthy and satisfying relationship no one has to sacrifice anything. It’s not about taking things away from each other or giving things up for each other - it’s addition, not subtraction. I’ve been with my partner for 27 years. We make each other more, not less.

43. 

    Alpha Lyra said on 10.07.10 at 06:06 PM • [link]

    I used to call romance novels “porn for women,” but that was before I actually started reading them. Now I know better!

    It’s rare for a romance novel to titillate me at all. Once in a while, one will get me a little hot, usually because it has, perhaps by accident, stumbled upon a kink that works for me. But I don’t read romance novels for the sex. I read them for the emotion, and the comfort they give me. In fact, if a sex scene doesn’t carry any plot, I’ll probably skim it. I suspect many readers do this because, let’s face it, though writers work diligently to make the sex scenes fresh and interesting, they really are pretty much the same thing over and over again. It’s the story surrounding them I’m interested in.

    The fact that romance novels do not always have explicit sex scenes (I just read one with no explicit sex, and it’s one of my all-time favorites) is proof positive, IMO, that they are not porn.

44. 

    Jill Myles said on 10.07.10 at 06:06 PM • [link]

    Suze and Victoria Dahl’s comments made me go back and re-read the text again:

    You see, he has admitted that at one point he was addicted to pornography, but literally threw all of his stuff away when we decided to move in together. I respect this decision on so many levels, and I’m very appreciative since I’ve had relationships where porn really became an issue, BUT, my otherwise amazing and wonderful boyfriend asked me a few days ago what the difference was between porn and my romance collection.

    So in re-reading this, when you guys moved in together, he changed his ways and tossed his stuff.  In context, I’m wondering if it was out of respect for you or if it was his decision. And it sounds like she has had relationships in the past where porn became an issue.

    Either way, it does sound like he is resenting the fact that he had to change. But it also doesn’t sound like a one-way street? If I told my boyfriend that I hated porn and he needed to throw it away before we moved in together…and then I happily sat on the couch reading erotica, I could see where there would be issues.

    There’s just so much context that we’re missing from a short email. I mean, IMO a guy owning some playboys or dirty movies is different than one who sits in the corner of the living room wanking all day because he literally cannot stop.

    So yeah. I dunno. I think we need more context.

45. 

    redheadedgirl said on 10.07.10 at 06:07 PM • [link]

    @Isabel, even if there aren’t that many fish in the sea (in my experience, there aren’t a lot that go for tall redheads that are over educated, not skinny and swear a fuck of a lot), staying with someone because something is better than nothing is depressing as hell.  I’m much happier being single than I ever was after the initial bloom fell off the rose of the Evil Ex. 

    And I agree that the debate is immaterial, and rushing the assure everyone that the romance does not equal porn sounds, at times, like pearl-clutching. “Oh! Not that! I would never do THAT!”

46. 

    Jody W. said on 10.07.10 at 06:11 PM • [link]

    I don’t know. Are we sure the letter writer isn’t some troll who can spell (miracle!) trying to stir it up? No offense intended if letter writer truly wants support and ammunition to help her convince the boyfriend romance isn’t porn, but the letter seems especially…aimed at creating a fervor of warning bells and outrage. This is SBTB. Would anyone seriously write in expecting the people here to agree romance is porn and she should give it up because some potentially manipulative or abusive dude wants her to?

47. 

    Isabel C. said on 10.07.10 at 06:17 PM • [link]

    @redheadedgirl: Precisely. (Hell, as someone who’s been in a pretty good relationship for a while, there’s still a lot I miss about my single days.) Better to be alone for the right reasons than be with someone with the wrong ones, to quote Amanda Jones.

    And romance, I think, helps with that. Having a number of fictional romances available—with the advantage of being able to pick them up and put them down whenever convenient, heh—made me much less willing to rush into RL relationships, and much more okay with holding out for a guy who met my standards.

    Sometimes I wonder whether some dim recognition of that is behind the eye-roll-inducing complaints about romance “ruining women’s expectations” or whatever. Like, God forbid women have an outlet for romantic feelings that doesn’t involve settling for the first guy who looks and/or treats them semi-okay.

    So…yeah, basically, agreeing.

48. 

    AgTigress said on 10.07.10 at 06:39 PM • [link]

    I mean, IMO a guy owning some playboys or dirty movies is different than one who sits in the corner of the living room wanking all day because he literally cannot stop.

    You think?  :-D :-D
    Unfortunately, I get an all-too-vivid visual from this…

49. 

    J said on 10.07.10 at 06:40 PM • [link]

    OP says “You see, he has admitted that at one point he was addicted to pornography, but literally threw all of his stuff away when we decided to move in together.” - usually an addiction can’t be solved by just saying “I’m done” - so maybe he didn’t have an addiction after all?  Otherwise, wouldn’t he be in some sort of a support group or counseling?  Maybe he just liked it and thought it was too much or she wouldn’t like it (I mean, if it was an addiction, wouldn’t she know something about it before they moved in together - hard to hide an addiction like that from your significant other for long).  Maybe he feels his sacrifice meant she should too.  I think there is no real difference between erotica and porn - but not all romance is erotica.  And if she doesn’t have an issue w/it, then she should be allowed to keep reading it - as long as it doesn’t interfere w/their lives together.

50. 

    Shiloh Walker said on 10.07.10 at 06:42 PM • [link]

    @meoskop

    um, why be in a relationship with someone if you’re not willing to sacrifice for them?

    Because in a healthy and satisfying relationship no one has to sacrifice anything. It’s not about taking things away from each other or giving things up for each other - it’s addition, not subtraction. I’ve been with my partner for 27 years. We make each other more, not less.

    Ohhhhh… I disagree on so many levels, meoskop, I can’t even begin where to figure out where to start.  I’ll start with this, though.

    I like cats.  I’m not a HUGE cat lover, but I do like them.

    We’ve discovoered my husband’s allergic to cats.  SERIOUSLY allergic.  Should I have walk away from a wonderful relationship because he’s allergic to cats and I want a cat?  Or should I make him sick? 

    Compromise.  He’s more important to me than a cat. 

    My job often has me traveling.  Sometimes he gets tired of it.  Sometimes I take the family with me and sometimes I don’t. 

    I won’t sacrifice time with my family for the betterment of my career but I do try to make time to travel and he does sometimes get tired of ‘book’ related travel…and who can blame him? 

    But he does it because he understand it’s important to my career-just like sometimes I don’t do the big cons that could be very important to my career but they are too far away and would take me away from my family for too long. 

    Is it a sacrifice of sorts, not doing something that could push my career forward more?  Yes.  Is it a sacrifice on his part spending time doing biz things in lieu of more adventurous vacations?  Yes?

    We both want to be together as much as we can, and we both want me spending as much time with our family as we can-because the family, our marriage, our kids, are the most important thing. 

    IMO, a successful relationship DOES require compromise and sometimes sacrifice-the thing is, it has to be on both parts.  If it’s only one, then it’s unequal-that’s where problems start.

51. 

    Tina C. said on 10.07.10 at 06:44 PM • [link]

    meoskop wrote:

    It’s not about taking things away from each other or giving things up for each other - it’s addition, not subtraction. I’ve been with my partner for 27 years. We make each other more, not less.

      (Bold in the quote added by me)

    It’s official—I absolutely love this definition of a relationship.  (And reading it, it’s how I know I finally got it right with the one I’m in.)

52. 

    Nadia said on 10.07.10 at 06:48 PM • [link]

    @Isabel C:

    And romance, I think, helps with that. Having a number of fictional romances available—with the advantage of being able to pick them up and put them down whenever convenient, heh—made me much less willing to rush into RL relationships, and much more okay with holding out for a guy who met my standards.

    I’m pretty sure my early love of romances kept me from being sexually active in HS, LOL.  I mean, Mike from Trig class was cute and all, but could I count on him to save me from the pirates like Ruark did for Shanna?  LOL Unrealistic expectations, perhaps, but at 15, nothing wrong with embracing the fantasy rather than acting on the reality.  Maturity led me to look for the guys with heroic qualities rather than outright heroic actions, and reading the ins and outs of fictional relationships did help clarify the search criteria.

    @readheadedgirl

    And I agree that the debate is immaterial, and rushing the assure everyone that the romance does not equal porn sounds, at times, like pearl-clutching. “Oh! Not that! I would never do THAT!”

    Agreed.  My response is not all romances are porn, but some erotic romance has porn elements, and so what?  Are women not allowed to explore that purely carnal aspect of our sexual nature, even if only in our minds?

53. 

    Tina C. said on 10.07.10 at 06:48 PM • [link]

    IMO, a successful relationship DOES require compromise and sometimes sacrifice-the thing is, it has to be on both parts.  If it’s only one, then it’s unequal-that’s where problems start.

    Just to add, in response to Shiloh Walker’s response to meoskop, I don’t consider reasoned compromise to be the same thing as “taking things away from each other”.

54. 

    Nadia said on 10.07.10 at 06:55 PM • [link]

    I don’t think compromise and sacrifice are interchangeable.  Compromise has the element of give and take - you are both working for the greater good, taking both people’s needs into account.  You might be giving something up, but you are gaining by doing so.  And you are not the only one who might be giving ground.  Sacrifice has a martyr aspect to it that makes me hesitant to introduce that concept into a healthy relationship.  It seems very one-sided.

55. 

    AgTigress said on 10.07.10 at 06:56 PM • [link]

    I think the Shiloh Walker / Meoskop disagreement is at least partly a matter of semantics.  Compromise, yes; life is full of compromise, and even the most satisfactory and long-term relationships will usually require many compromises.  We all make them, and in most relationships, both partners give some ground, in exactly the way that Shiloh has described.

    ‘Sacrifice’ is a pretty strong word, though.  I certainly think that there are circumstances in which one partner might sacrifice a cherished aim for the sake of the other.  The most common situation is probably that in which both partners have demanding and satisfying careers, and it is just not possible for both of them to pursue his/her own wholeheartedly because of the demands of the other, and where compromise does not solve the problem.  But this kind of sacrifice can easily become pretty damaging to a relationship in the long term, because it can tilt the balance between the two people too much.

56. 

    meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 06:58 PM • [link]

    Well, as Shiloh Walker is not a ‘HUGE’ cat lover, I don’t think foregoing a cat is a sacrifice. OP states -

    I LOVE my romance novels and they have been a constant companion during so many good and horrible times in my life.

    I have a close friend who had a dog. She loved that dog. She put that dog to sleep because her man convinced her it was the right thing to do both for the dog and their relationship. I told her not to marry him. People bitched me out. 13 years later she called and said she shouldn’t have married him and was getting out.

    When someone asks you to give up something you love, something that harms no one (ie, isn’t drinking and driving), they are telling you who they are. Believe them or not, they’ve warned you.

57. 

    dick said on 10.07.10 at 07:01 PM • [link]

    I’m with the poster who suspects the letter’s a set-up.  As to whether romance fiction is soft porn?  Yes, some of it is.  So what?

58. 

    daffiney said on 10.07.10 at 07:03 PM • [link]

    I’ve had a similar conversation before with a good male friend. (Of course, since we weren’t in a romantic relationship, we didn’t have as much at stake as the letter writer.)

    My friend’s argument wasn’t so much against the sex in romance novels. (I’d told him that I generally skip those scenes anyways.) For him, the “porn” part of romance novels is that a lot of readers are looking for an emotional affair, rather than a physical one. He said that some guys get off on watching porn. Some women do, too. But in general, romance readers get off on the actual feeling of romance. Porn viewers and romance readers are both getting our satisfaction vicariously rather than actually engaging with another person. In that case, I had to agree. I DO like that feeling I get when I read a really good romance. I’m not falling in love with an arrogant, unrealistic regency hero, but I am falling in love—in a way—with the idealistic relationship the hero and heroine have together. I love that feeling. It’s what keeps me putting up with dozens of forgettable, horrible romance novels in search of the few that can really move me in that way.

    As for the letter writer, I understand why she’s torn. My husband isn’t wild about my romance novel habits, and I think he wonders whether I’m using them to fill some kind of need he’s not fulfilling. (Sort of like how I’d feel if he spent all his time looking at porn.) This is not true at all, but if he flat out asked me to stop for this reason, I would.

59. 

    cursingmama said on 10.07.10 at 07:03 PM • [link]

    How would this be addressed differently if the boyfriend was a recovering alcoholic?  Would we defend the girlfriends right to keep a magnificent collection of different liquors in the home they presumably share?  I don’t have an opinion on the answer, but it was the first thing that came to my mind.

    Also I personally don’t believe that Romance Novel = Porn.  That’s like saying anything served in a shot glass is liquor when clearly I can put lemonade in it if I want to.  (Not that I would, but to each their own)

60. 

    Dayle said on 10.07.10 at 07:04 PM • [link]

    J said:

    Faellie said “Pron (sic) which consists of pictures (moving or still) of real people is exploitative of the persons depicted and degrading of both the persons depicted and the persons seeing it.  It should be avoided at all costs.  Looking at it cannot be justified for any reason…” - um, no.  Porn can be exploitive, but is not always.  There is no reason to avoid it, unless it bothers you.  Me…I like watching the occasional porn movie - I’m not addicted, but once in a while it adds a little spice to an evening, and as long as I (and a partner sometimes) enjoy it (and I’ve felt tingly or amused, but never degraded), that is reason enough. 
    (instead 23 - instead of being so judgemental, perhaps watching 23 minutes of a good porn flick might change your mind?)

    And I just wanted to add “Thank you,” because you said pretty much what I was going to say after I read all the comments. Ditto, J, ditto.

    I write romance, erotica, romantic erotica, erotic romance, and all levels of heat in between. This discussion reminded me of something that made me chuckle: In our house, I own the Playboys (one or two) and probably bought all the porn movies (a handful of them). Last year my husband went on my computer for something and was initially startled to find a bunch of porn sites in my recent browser. Then he laughed because he realized I was probably doing research, because this was my job.

    (I bought him a shirt that says “My wife writes romance novels. I benefit, big time.”)

61. 

    Victoria Dahl said on 10.07.10 at 07:23 PM • [link]

    I’m not very invested in the romance vs porn debate. I don’t think a large group of people can even agree on what the definition of pornography is, much less how other things compare. And every book must mean a million different things to a million different readers. Jesus, a story about popping latex balloons is going to be porn for someone. And happy reading to them.

62. 

    Erica said on 10.07.10 at 07:27 PM • [link]

    Anyone who picks up Georgette Heyer looking for Jenna Jameson is going to be woefully and comically disappointed

      - I LOL’ed.

    But seriously, He sounds like a small group of recovering addicts who are fresh to sobriety.  Everything around them is a trigger and if he thinks they are porn its hard to convince him otherwise.  The best way to approach it is to explain to him that he is not being asked to read them. 

    Its tough because when we love someone we want to make them happy, but at the same time maintain our own identity.  I wonder if there is anything else he has asked the OP to change about herself.

63. 

    Aspexi said on 10.07.10 at 07:27 PM • [link]

    I’m surprised that the boyfriend isn’t enjoying any benefits from Conflicted’s reading matter which
    could serve to change his mind, as it were, about romance novels.

    A few years ago I started reading romance again, and yes, there are a lot more erotic elements to the stories, so many so that I have * ahem * picked up a few tips.

    My husband is now a big proponent of my reading romance and erotica. He teases me that he is going to write fan letters to some of the authors, which always makes me giggle: “Dear ______, I am one on your biggest fans. While I have never read any of your work, my wife does and thank you very much!”

64. 

    Anne said on 10.07.10 at 07:37 PM • [link]

    Hope I’m not repeating

    If porn was interfering with his life, he was addicted.  Just throwing it all away does not control addiction.  He is just a non-using addict.  12 step or other therapy is needed if he wants control of his life. 

    I also had a friend with OCD.  Believe it or not, the behaviors about what you get stuck on can change over a lifetime.  He got stuck on porn.  OCD got treated again.  Addiction gone.  poof.

    If he does not get help, that’s a deal-breaker to me.  If it isn’t for you, find a support group for you.  The concepts of Al-Anon apply to the loved ones of any addict, not just alcohol.

    Porn is a tool used to arouse and provoke sexual behavior.  There is no emotional attachment to the person you see.  It is easy, though for some folks to confuse the rush of stimulation with emotion.  The happy ending there is a physical whatever.

    Romances are about emotional growth and attachment and a happy ending.  Romance is the most optimistic of genres. The happy ending is a validation of the world-view of the reader:  that all can be right with the world. 

    If you do choose to stay in the relationship, maybe you just need a book cover to cover the image.  whatta I know

65. 

    redheadedgirl said on 10.07.10 at 07:38 PM • [link]

    @aspexi, that’s awesome.

    I grew up in an AA family, and we went through the stages of “No zealot like a fresh convert” to “actually dealing with the thing that caused the alcoholism.”  My recovering alcoholic parent now can have a dinner with people who are drinking and not flip his lid- this was not true in the early stages of sobriety.  But he had to get to that point and it was on him to get there.  My other parent knew that was the price of admission for this relationship.

    When I went home back in the carefree days when I could still drink (stupid migraines) I did not bring alcohol into the house because it was THEIR house, and to do so would be rude.  But in this case, this was not the stated price of admission, so the opportunity to compromise before he moved in has passed, and it’s not his house, it’s his and Conflicted’s house.

    And also, just to lead some weight to my “it’s him controlling what gives her pleasure” argument, in general, men are a lot less stimulated by written words than women are- the romance novels are probably not going to be a heavy duty trigger for him.  I think he’s being a dick.

66. 

    Rowena said on 10.07.10 at 07:46 PM • [link]

    Great response Sarah, I couldn’t have said it better.

67. 

    Shiloh Walker said on 10.07.10 at 08:21 PM • [link]

    Well, as Shiloh Walker is not a ‘HUGE’ cat lover, I don’t think foregoing a cat is a sacrifice. OP states -

      I LOVE my romance novels and they have been a constant companion during so many good and horrible times in my life.

    Well, I’m curious… and this IS something that does happen-I’ve seen it happen.  When I was doing allergy/asthma working in nursing, people would come in, get that diagnosis of cat allergies, and particularly if they were asthamtic-the other part was a huge cat lover.  Some people wouldn’t give up the cat-would literally put their partner’s health in danger.

    Is is a sacrifice?  Yes.  But if health plays into it?  If there is a loving, strong marriage, and they love each other, they should be willing to make sacrifices for the other. 

    Now compromise is routine, I will say.  Sacrifice-type stuff wouldn’t be routine, and I think the above discussion about romance books would likely fall into compromise more than sacrifice.

    I noticed you didn’t address any of the other issues… those are sacrifices my husband and I have made-they aren’t always fun ones, either.

    A successful, happy marriage isn’t roses and white picket fences and lollipops.  It’s work, and commitment, compromise…and yes, I’m sorry, sometimes it does require sacrifice.

    As long as it’s not one side always giving in, and as long as it’s for the strength of the marriage as a whole-it’s not about one side getting it up on the other, or one partner always getting what THEY want.

    It’s about both partners doing what they need to do to keep their marriage together, solid and strong.

68. 

    sheriguy said on 10.07.10 at 08:32 PM • [link]

    Frankly, I think he is just looking for an excuse to create a new porn collection. By equating the porn collection to your romance collection, he is trying to guilt you into allowing him to have porn. If you do not “allow"him to have porn, he will make sure you lose something just as important to you. Either way, you may want to get a new boyfriend.

69. 

    LauraGr said on 10.07.10 at 08:40 PM • [link]

    I think this is little different from the partner of an alcoholic not keeping booze in the house. Or loading the pantry with cookies and chips when you know your sweetie is trying to diet. 

    Obviously the guy doesn’t quite understand the differences between porn and romance and is uncomfortable by the perceived similarities. Snaps to him for being honest enough to open the discussion.

    I suggest a good, long talk and an ereader with a security feature.

70. 

    Phil said on 10.07.10 at 08:56 PM • [link]

    A lot of interesting and thought provoking posts thus far, but since I don’t think any guys have offered an opinion yet, I’ll throw in my two cents. 

    As far as I can tell from the original letter the BF doesn’t sound like an addict, but rather a guy who made what he considered a grand gesture to prove his devotion to Conflicted. He probably knew she had issues in the past, and in a moment of bravura stated that he would throw all his porn away to prove how much he cared for her. She clapped her hands, he dumped the stuff dramatically in the trash, and they were probably both very happy (and he must have felt quite noble and self-sacrificing).

    Flash forward a few weeks. Dude begins to regret his impulsive gesture, and notices that Conflicted spends all her time reading romance novels. He misses his porn, sees her enjoying herself, and his eagerness to prove himself slowly becomes annoyance.

    His carefully thought out ‘argument’ as to why romance = porn (from his POV) simply seems to be a rather petulant ‘fair is fair’ kind of deal. Though Conflicted didn’t ask him to toss his stuff, he did it for her (I doubt he would have thrown it away if he had remained single), and now he feels that she should match his gesture with some equal form of self sacrifice. ‘If I can’t have fun you can’t have fun either’ kind of argument.

    So I don’t think he’s an addict, but instead simply an immature guy who’s come to regret a moment of voluntary self sacrifice and is now reverting to 3rd grade style justice.

71. 

    Lindlee said on 10.07.10 at 08:58 PM • [link]

    I really don’t have any advice to add regarding this situation, but I did want to say something regarding the whole porn vs. romance debate. I have also struggled with the idea of whether or not romance is “porn for women.” And I think sometimes it is. If it wasn’t, then I don’t think this would be such a confusing issue. But most of the time…romance isn’t. It’s just reading a good book. But time and time again, mainstream media portrays the “porn for woman” stereotype and reinforces this viewpoint. How many times have we seen this scene acted out in movies/TV/novels?

    Hero opens up the nightstand drawer next to the heroine’s bed and discovers a romance novel. He opens the book to a random page and reads “his member was throbbing as he stared at her bountiful bosom” or something equally ridiculous.

    Well, I just conducted a non-scientific experiment on three novels that I have sitting on my desk: a Celeste Bradley, a Lisa Kleypas and a Shiloh Walker. I randomly opened each book at three places to see what I’d find. Well guess what? I only opened up on a sex scene once (in the Kleypas book) and it really only happened b/c there’s a crease in the book there (I really like this particular sex scene. LOL). Honestly I was a little surprised about the Walker book. Her books tend to be rather hot and heavy. I figured I’d at least open up to the hero thinking about sexing up the heroine, but nope. Once there was mention of the hero being on edge and the f-word used as a curse word, but that was it. Maybe everyone should conduct there own experiment and see how not-often we come up with a sex scene.

72. 

    Jrant said on 10.07.10 at 09:01 PM • [link]

    Most everything awesome and insightful has already been said. I was actually a little disappointed with the immediate “dump him, do not pass go, do not collect $200” response. A lot of important details are missing from the letter (whose idea was it to throw out the porn, for starters.) If the boyfriend is “otherwise amazing and wonderful” (a phrase used by both truly happy AND deeply deluded partners) I think he at least deserves a chance to try to work through this with her. If he is just hyper-sensitive because he recently gave up his habit, (which was my initial thought) then his behavior still isn’t cool, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker, provided the two of them can work through it together. If, on the other hand, this is just item #23 on the list of things she does that he doesn’t like, then perhaps she should reconsider the relationship.

    And I don’t think this is spam. I don’t get the sense that the LW was in doubt of the distinction between porn and romance. Rather, she was having a difficult time articulating that difference to her boyfriend.

73. 

    Jody W. said on 10.07.10 at 09:11 PM • [link]

    But in general, romance readers get off on the actual feeling of romance.

    If you’re not using the phrase “get off” in an orgasmic sense but in a “I Feel Happpeeee!” sense, well, I “get off” on finding bargains at the grocery store. This means reading the sales flyers and coupon pages is porny for me. I can’t help it! I get all excited and giddy and think OMG we may not have to eat FREAKIN RICE AND BEANS all week, OMG salmon’s on SALE and it’s PERFECT GRILL WEATHER!!!!

    If you are using the phrase in the orgasmic sense, in that romance readers generally feel orgasmic after reading romance, then I disagree. I think the romance happpeeeee is much more varied. I don’t feel the sexual kind of happpeeee after reading romance. Based on the comments here, a lot of readers don’t.

74. 

    meoskop said on 10.07.10 at 09:12 PM • [link]

    I noticed you didn’t address any of the other issues… those are sacrifices my husband and I have made-they aren’t always fun ones, either.

    I didn’t, because a long addressing of those would be derailing of the main point. I see abuser warning signs, you don’t. I think compromise is one thing, asking people to give up (sacrifice) things they enjoy is radically different.

    My feeling there was we’re not going to agree, why derail everyone else getting into it? My point is made, your point is made, let everyone move on.

75. 

    Lyssa said on 10.07.10 at 09:51 PM • [link]

    Okay regarding someone asking a loved one to give up something…I think it depends on the conversation. If someone is buying books rather than paying bills…then there might be a problem. If someone is refusing to communicate or deal with problems by escapism, then there is a problem. But that is true of any substance, any enjoyment, if it interferes with you living a healthy life then it is not healthy (have a fight ...go out for a jog? that also could be a way of avoiding problems).

    Porn vs Romance. I take a different view here. I don’t see anything offensive about celebrating sexuality, sensuality, in any form. I do think that it should be balanced by a firm dose of ‘reality’ vs “air-brushed’, and “reality’ vs ‘fiction”.  A woman’s lover should not expect her to like the kinks portrayed , or look like the fantasy women of porn (or men). Likewise a woman should not expect her lover to be as perfect, hung, great smelling, sensitive, muscular, tall, wealthy, elegant as the men/werebeast/vampire in her novels.  These are both fantasies…and nice to play with, but reality is work, and compromise and not perfect without some practice on both parts.

    Do I think porn objectifies women? Yeah, but so does any ad for a new perfume or jean. But if you feel objectified, give him a smile, and pick up a J.D. Robb novel and ask “So when you going to invent things that change the world, while looking like James Bond and making sure I have three orgasms for every one of yours?”...and realize you do it too…

    spam word: dark76 76 ways to enjoy the dark? oh there are soo many more!!!

76. 

    Alpha Lyra said on 10.07.10 at 10:07 PM • [link]

    I think the key issue is whether reading romance novels is doing any actual harm to the relationship.

    Clearly, the boyfriend perceived some sort of harm from his porn addiction, which is why he gave it up. I know of many marriages that fell apart or went through great struggles because the husband became addicted to porn. For some guys, use of porn seems to escalate until they’re involved in paid phone sex and paid video sex and racking up enormous credit card bills. Or they find that the “tame” stuff they started with no longer gets them off after a while, so they need more and more extreme or violent images… until they reach the point that “normal” sex with a “normal” woman is no longer sufficient for them.

    I am not aware of romance novels causing these kinds of problems. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that someone could be so addicted to romance novels that their book spending could be totally out of control. Or they could be so obsessed with their romance heroes that no “normal” guy will ever ben good enough for them. But I don’t know of a single real world case where that’s happened, whereas I know of several real world cases where porn addiction has severely damaged or destroyed a relationship (it happened to one of my best friends).

    I think romance novels, much as we love them, just don’t have that kind of power. They don’t provide that kind of dopamine hit, or create the kind of powerful sexual feelings that can lead to addiction. If an addiction to romance novels ever happens, it’s got to be rare.

    Furthermore, I think it’s possible to enjoy things that have addictive qualities as long as you’re capable of enjoying them in moderation. I don’t mind if a boyfriend occasionally indulges in porn. I may not be super enthuasiastic about the habit, and I may prefer not to see the images myself, but as long as it’s not an addiction, I’m okay with it. I once had a boyfriend I used to watch porn videos with once in a while.

    In short, if reading romance novels is not an addiction, and is not harming the relationship, I don’t think she should have to give them up just because her boyfriend gave up his porn.

77. 

    Cathy B said on 10.07.10 at 10:39 PM • [link]

    Another argument Conflicted might wish to offer is the very real difference between romance and porn: in porn actual, real, live people are photographed and filmed. They stand about in a well-lit studio in front of people they do not know and perform acts most of us would not wish to share with anyone, outside the privacy of our own personal relationship and our own bedrooms.
    Romance is fictional (excluding the very few cases where they are based on real, historical characters). These people never existed except in their author’s brain. The author shares those characters because s/he loves them and wants you to love them too. I suspect there’s very little love between the producers and crew of a porn shoot and their characters.
    So romance is a love story on many levels: the love story in the book itself, yes, but also a labour of love by the author: just like a beautiful painting, a lovingly hand-crafted pot or tapestry (insert artwork of your choice). Asking you to give up your romance is somewhat similar to asking him to not play golf / do wordworking / insert loved hobby of your choice. That does not include porn. Porn has nothing to do with love. And if he doesn’t have a hobby he loves - get him one!

78. 

    tikaanidog said on 10.07.10 at 10:44 PM • [link]

    As far as I can tell from the original letter the BF doesn’t sound like an addict, but rather a guy who made what he considered a grand gesture to prove his devotion to Conflicted.

    Phil, I think you nailed it. SHE had issues with porn due to past relationships, he knew it, he made grand gesture, he now regrets grand gesture as no complimentary gesture is forthcoming, he now want’s his porn back. I see insecurity and immaturity on both sides.

79. 

    Diana said on 10.07.10 at 10:54 PM • [link]

    I think I’m missing something here. I didn’t read in the letter that he actually asked her to get rid of her romance novels. What I read was that he asked her what the difference was between them and porn.
    See this is the problem with allowing publishers to dictate book covers. Trashy looking covers lead to the stereotype of romance as porn.
    Actually like Shiloh I don’t think he sounds so bad. In the real world a guy giving up something he likes is pretty awesome. He might have given it up for her,she doesn’t say.
    He needs to read a few and to understand the covers do not make the book. Playboy,playgirl,hustler and internet porn is so far removed from romance novels there’s no comparison.

80. 

    Scarlett Parrish said on 10.07.10 at 11:00 PM • [link]

    Back again…blimey; lots of comments to get through.

    Okay, compromise/sacrifice.

    Possibly it is a semantics debate, but I don’t see anything wrong with sacrificing for a loved one. We all do it. Time, money, effort, the right to avoid the wet patch…

    Maybe compromise is a preferable word for some people, and I can see why. It implies meeting halfway whereas sacrifice is giving something up.

    Well, yes, but I see it as giving something up for the greater good. So you may end up with something better than you had before.

    Again, I don’t see anything demanding/porn-addicted in the original letter or email. He asked, he spoke, he voiced his opinions. That’s a good thing, right? Communication. He’s to be applauded IMO.

    Quick shout out to Shiloh Walker - I agree with nearly everything you’ve said about compromise/sacrifice.

    As for porn/erotica? My oh my…I’ve gotten involved in many heated discussions there. Given that I’ve just got home and have a headache, I think I’ll leave it for another day. ;)

81. 

    Jennifer said on 10.07.10 at 11:02 PM • [link]

    It doesn’t sound like she had a problem with his porn and asked him to give it up. He did that on his own thinking. Which makes me suspect that he is a “score-keeper” sort of fellow and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

    And I am totally with meoskop in that if someone asks you to give up something that’s not hurting anyone, it’s a bad sign. Romance isn’t porn, and I just don’t think that it’s remotely comparable to keeping booze around in the house when you live with an alcoholic at all.

    In short: I smell a rat. At the very least, I hope the letter writer politely told him no and he dealt with it.

82. 

    Suze said on 10.07.10 at 11:07 PM • [link]

    @Phil, that’s exactly the impression I got.

83. 

    Sue said on 10.07.10 at 11:11 PM • [link]

    Phil and a few others said what I immediately thought of when I read the Original Poster’s letter: he’s probably not addicted and she’s possibly being unreasonable.

    Defining porn is all about how you use it. A picture of a half-nude man isn’t porn if it’s an underwear ad and you’re a shopper. It is if it’s an underwear ad and you masturbate to it. If you turn to a particular scene in a book in order to put you in the mood for sex or a romantic evening, then you just used porn.

    If the Original Poster wants to keep her arrangement, she should argue that she doesn’t read her books for 5-10 minutes before putting them aside. Can her boyfriend look her in the eye and say that he often enjoys watching an entire porn video and then immediately falling sleep?

    I’d prefer if she got over her porn-apprehension, though. Not all porn is anti-woman and using porn or masturbating alone isn’t telling your partner they don’t turn you on. Perhaps she could start by reading her favorite scenes from her romance books to her boyfriend? And he could find erotica or the kind of porn film that has stories to share with her?

    Captcha word: length78. Oh my.

84. 

    ZoeG said on 10.07.10 at 11:11 PM • [link]

    What, exactly, is his objection to you reading romance novels? Is it just the sex or does he feel you’re neglecting him/life things in favor of immersing yourself in books?  Your comments “I’ve loved romance novels since I was in my early teens, and they have become a pretty big part of my life since then.” and “they have been a constant companion during so many good and horrible times in my life” prompts me to ask. 

    ...his sacrifice of something he loved (porn) is different than his asking me to get rid of my romance novels.

     
    Ah, recovering from addiction is not giving up something you love. It’s about making healthier choices and developing coping skills for dealing with a disease. Big, big, big difference.

    I think there are some knee-jerk-esque reactions here to just dump your guy which is unfair to him and you since you seem conflicted about what the issue really is. Hang in there and keep an open dialogue with your guy about romance novels and your reading habits and his issues with addiction.

85. 

    robinjn said on 10.07.10 at 11:18 PM • [link]

    I have skimmed through the comments, and hope I’m not whipping a dead horse here, but I want to talk about the “porn vs romance” thing.

    I think that a lot of romance is *also* porn. I know a lot of feathers will get ruffled when I type that, but IMO it’s true. Many romances these days have an obligatory very explicit sex scene within the first 50 pages, and several others throughout the book. Yes, the book also delves into character and romance, but the porographic element is definitely there. I think it’s disingenuous to pretend that we are not sometimes aroused and titillated by those scenes and use them to liven up our own sex lives. If we didn’t like reading them, they would not have become so much a part of the definition of a romance novel. In many of these sex scenes, the sex descriptions in themselves do not necessarily advance the plot more than “OMG he’s so hung he’s so hot and he gives me orgasms!”. In most instances they are not necessary for plot development (unless she finds out in the sex scene that he has two dicks and that’s why he’s got bonding issues or something)

    Somehow it seems to be that we want to make it shameful that we enjoy the sex scenes in romances. We don’t want to label it porn because porn is BAD. Romance is lovely and sweet and has flowers floating on the breeze and little birds chirping. Porn is dirty and sleazy and exploitative and gross.

    As a mostly female readership, we need to just get over it. So it’s porn. So what? Read it, enjoy it, use it, move on to the next.

86. 

    becca said on 10.07.10 at 11:22 PM • [link]

    I keep hoping the original poster will chime in her anonymously and clarify the situation. Right now, there are too many unknowns for me to have an informed opinion.

87. 

    becca said on 10.07.10 at 11:32 PM • [link]

    gads, that sounded stuffy. I meant to say, enough people here have raised enough questions about just what was going on that I don’t know what to think about it.

    I do have to admit that, to this post-menopausal woman, a lot of the sex scenes in books I read seem extraneous and I mostly skip over them, unless they serve to move the plot or relationship along.

88. 

    Kelly L. said on 10.08.10 at 12:03 AM • [link]

    Regarding the “giving up a pet” debate, I think there’s a difference between giving up a hypothetical pet (i.e. not getting one in the first place because partner is allergic), and giving up a real pet, and that putting the pet to sleep needlessly is worse still.

    My boyfriend likes cats; I’m allergic. He does not currently own a cat; his last cat passed away several years before we met. As we’re looking at moving in together, he is not looking into getting a cat because he knows it would make me ill.

    He also likes dogs, and unlike cats, he actually has one. Now, I have no issues with the dog—I have one myself—but if I were allergic to dogs too, then we would have an issue to discuss before moving in together. Would I investigate treatment options? Would he give the dog away to a friend? Would we continue to live separately? Personally, I would never demand that a partner give up an already-existing pet for me.

    As for putting a pet to sleep for no reason, if I demanded that, I’d like to hope my boyfriend would kick me deservedly to the curb.

89. 

    AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 12:29 AM • [link]

    I think people are using varying definitions of pornography here, and this is scarcely surprising, since the word has changed its meaning many times even during the last few decades, as explicitly sexual content has become more acceptable in mainstream writing.  The word has, however, retained broadly pejorative connotations.  Any graphic sex in a text was regarded as ‘pornographic’ 60 years ago, and was, moreover, illegal.

    Robinjn, above, is using the term to mean anything at all that, in practice, may trigger lust in some of those who see/read it.  I think that is far too wide and sweeping a definition, and also has the disadvantage of making pornography a shifting and indefinable entity, varying according to the personal tastes of the reader/viewer and even his or her individual state of mind at a given moment.  It would mean that many things that would not usually be classed even as sexual, let alone pornographic, would become so if some people occasionally got seriously turned on by them.  Frankly, if the definition depends not on the qualities of the thing defined, but on the responses of anyone and everyone who observes it, it is useless.  To say that ‘x’ is pornographic if it makes you want to masturbate, and the same ‘x’ is not pornographic if it doesn’t totally undermines the usefulness of language in achieving communication.

    A more practical definition, based on the ‘writings about whores’ etymology, is that which confines the term to texts that are written specifically and solely to arouse sexual desire in at least most of those who encounter them, and that pay little or no attention to the other widely accepted principles of storytelling, such as having a plot and interesting characters. 

    To me, a pornographic book is one that consists entirely of sexual conjugations, one after the other, without any serious story or character development.  Whether it arouses lust still depends to some degree on the reader’s mood and also on how well-written it is, but the intent of the writer is purely to achieve that end. 

    Erotic novels are those that follow the usual principles of storytelling, in that they have plots and well-drawn characters, etc., but the sexual relationship(s) form a major element of the story (eros is sexual love: not to do with whores, but with relationships).  This is where I think many modern romances fit.  To me, that is not pornography.  And then there are novels—about all sorts of subjects—in which, when a sexual encounter happens to occur in the normal course of events, will have it described rather than glossed over;  but the sex is not the raison d’être of the book.

    You may all disagree with these definitions, but I find that they work well in practice, and can be applied to books of all eras, both during and outside periods of legal censorship.  For example, Cleland’s Fanny Hill is an erotic romance, complete with HEA:  Apuleius’s The Golden Ass is a novel about a personal (religious) journey, that happens to feature some graphic sex.  Both were classed as pornography in the 19th century, and there is absolutely no doubt that scenes in both could be used to arouse sexual excitement, but to me, neither is, or ever was, pornographic.

90. 

    Deb said on 10.08.10 at 12:38 AM • [link]

    Amazing comments—sorry I didn’t have time to read all of them and apologies if what I’m saying has already been noted, but as to the difference between porn and romance novels:  Porn is about the objectification of an individual, until that individual really does not exist except as something to satisfy the need of the objectifier.  Romance novels (regardless of how explicit the sex—and the boyfriend here is wrong, not all romance novels have explicit sex and not all romance readers want explicit sex—see the request for “Fade to Black” romances from a few days ago) are mostly about celebrations of the individual woman and the individual man who are drawn to each other in sexual and other ways.

    Incidently, boyfriend sounds like a controlling tool.  Just because he had an addiction problem, doesn’t mean you have.

91. 

    Ridley said on 10.08.10 at 01:08 AM • [link]

    @Faellie “Pron which consists of pictures (moving or still) of real people is exploitative of the persons depicted and degrading of both the persons depicted and the persons seeing it.  It should be avoided at all costs.  Looking at it cannot be justified for any reason bar urgent necessity by the professionals controlling it (such as police working on prosecutions of the sort of stuff that involves children or unconsented violence).”

    I hope you’re not American, because that statement just shits all over the 1st Amendment. It also infantilizes women by assuming adult women can’t legitimately make up their own minds as to whether or not they want to be in porn.

    No one has to like watching porn, but not respecting porn actresses is nothing more than slut shaming, and that degrades women everywhere. Everyone’s body is their own, and they should be able to make their own decisions without other people clucking their disapproval.

    As for the question - romances are kind of like porn, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Men need to jerk off, and women need emotional release. If there’s addiction, that’s another story, one in which porn is the MacGuffin.

92. 

    AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 01:08 AM • [link]

    Oops, it was a poster named Sue who defined pornography in the very broad way that I think is unhelpful.  Sorry, Robinjn.
    :-)

93. 

    Conflicted said on 10.08.10 at 01:12 AM • [link]

    Wow…I can’t believe in such a short amount of time, such a heated and exhaustive conversation has come from my email.

    First, Thank you to everyone who has given an opinion, I like to think I’m open minded, and I like to get multiple points of view.

    Second, I haven’t had a chance to read every entry on here, but I did want to address some specific concerns that people were having:

    1. My boyfriend got rid of his collection independent of my desire or concern. In fact, it was something that he was working on removing from his life before we even got together. Did I appreciate the decision? Absolutely. Did I ask him to do anything with his porn? No. He has told me that at one point he would spend more than 12 hours with his porn a day, which I agree really does qualify as an addiction. I know that this is probably a battle that will continue throughout our relationship, but I do love him and respect him enough to work through these issues with him.

    2. Control. While it seems that some responders above took my comment that my boyfriend is otherwise amazing as an excuse to ignore controlling behaviors, I would like to clarify. He hasn’t ever asked me to get rid of my books, merely asked me what the difference was between porn and my romances. This in turn gave me the impression that he was uncomfortable and probably would respect my getting rid of my collection. It is a matter of mutual respect, not control that urged me to submit my question here. I will be the first to admit that our relationship has ups and downs, we have had a couple really big fights since my email, but he is very respectful of my feelings, and is the first to admit when he is wrong. I have been in several controlling and unhealthy relationships, which is why I simply have to clarify that he is the first partner I’ve had that I felt actually respected my feelings and needs.

    Now, that said, the issue has been moot since I sent my first email as I have not had time to read, but I have not gotten rid of my collection, and am hopeful that as our relationship has strengthened, he will feel more comfortable talking about it if he has problems, and that I will feel more assertive to explain my position. I think what really bothered me when he first brought it up was the fact that I really didn’t have a good grasp on how to respond. I struggled to find the words to explain the difference between porn and romance, but with all of these responses, surely I will be better equipped to be eloquent in my answers.

    I am definitely going to continue to read the responses here, and I would be happy to answer any other questions that arise.

    Respectfully and Gratefully,
    Conflicted

    but I do have a Nook, and don’t intend on buying the explicitly covered paperbacks either way, just as a sign of courtesy. Not hiding them for sure, just not flashing half naked men his way every two minutes. And, while I vaguely wonder if the issue will come back up, he seemed mildly satisfied with my comparison of romances to HBO. I do hope that if he were to bring it up again, I could ask him to read one of my novels and also use some of the advice I’ve received here.

94. 

    CT said on 10.08.10 at 01:16 AM • [link]

    Well responded, SB Sarah.  Well done.

    Re: JodyW’s “If you’re not using the phrase “get off” in an orgasmic sense but in a “I Feel Happpeeee!” sense, well, I “get off” on finding bargains at the grocery store. This means reading the sales flyers and coupon pages is porny for me. I can’t help it! I get all excited and giddy and think OMG we may not have to eat FREAKIN RICE AND BEANS all week, OMG salmon’s on SALE and it’s PERFECT GRILL WEATHER!!!!”

    ... I roared.  Hah!

95. 

    Wendy said on 10.08.10 at 01:27 AM • [link]

    There’s a lot of comments, so forgive me for reading only about half. My comment is: What if romance was exactly like porn? So what?

    Men are constantly “serviced” with sexual stimuli in our Western culture. It’s everywhere. Women? Not so much. Seriously, if every romance was wall-to-wall orgies, great! I think problems come when things are unbalanced, out of whack. The more sexually stimulating stuff out there for women, the better it will be, the more balanced things will be, in my opinion.

    And also, the day Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom are on the cover of a magazine just barely dressed. Yessir. :-)

    A great, interesting thread…

96. 

    C.H. Scarlett said on 10.08.10 at 01:42 AM • [link]

    This MAY piss a lot of people off, but I don’t think the guy should have had to or should have felt like he had to give up his porn NO MORE than he should be making the woman feel like she needs to give up the novels.

    Men LIKE to look at naked women (and sometimes other naked men)...big deal. We are in real trouble when we have to take what is natural to us and shove it in a big fat hidden closet. We are in real trouble when we have to feel ashamed of doing something that causes no one else real harm. But, put it right up there with those who make people ashamed of masturbating, or making women ashamed of liking sex, etc.

    Obviously, though, the man who gave up his porn is feeling resentful IF he is now questioning something the woman likes to do—-read romance novels. Why should her romance novel even be up for debate? Why do people feel like they need to give up healthy activities or harmless ones JUST because they are in a relationship? This is what makes a relationship miserable—-you can do this…you can’t do that. A relationship has a damn good chance to fail with that kind of crazy going on. If people need rules and restrictions to ensure that they are miserable then they need to move back in with daddy or join the military.

    If the woman was obsessed with reading mystery novels, would they even be put up to question? No.

    And here is another news flash from an Author to whoever else…erotica is no more porn than the movie 300, or Transporter, or most guy flicks or guy and girl flicks. If you have a story evolving two people then chances are, if it is realistic, there will be some sex.  But erotica is not about the sex…its about the story, everything revolving around the people. AND, even though most fantasy, action, or sci fi novels that guys read don’t have it listed on the genre—-there is SEX. They may not have romance or erotica on the genre label, but many, many times there is sex in the book. I was informed of that when a guy accidentally picked up one of my books, then emailed me to say that when he found out it was erotica, he almost put it down BUT THEN read a little, couldn’t stop and then realized it was as good, if not better than most of the fantasy novels he reads…THAT has sex in them.

    My advice to the couple, or any couple…don’t start denying yourself things that are harmless. And if the partner is doing something like looking at porn mags or reading romance novels and you get angry about it…then maybe look within because the problem has to do with you and your own insecurities…and is not really about whatever you think ticked you off.

97. 

    Heidi said on 10.08.10 at 02:01 AM • [link]

    Jesus, a story about popping latex balloons is going to be porn for someone. And happy reading to them.

    Thanks Victoria!

    I think we need more information. This is about so much more than whether romance is porn. I agree with those who say it’s got an emotional involvement, and I agree with those who say the sex can be very graphic. It’s both. So there. Who cares. My dollars are voting, and even if the *general public* wants to say I’m reading porn or I’m a weirdo for reading romance, I really don’t care. Obviously, since it keeps getting written, it’s being read.

    My children and husband HATE when I read. They’ve gotten used to it, tho, since it’s been 15 years we’ve been together. And, I used to read mysteries. So, it’s not the genre. It’s the fact that I. Am. Not. Paying. Attention. To. Them. Plain and simple. And yes, sometimes they eat cereal for supper when I’ve got a really good book. Does that make me a bad mother? I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure I’m not an addict. ;) When there is football on, does my husband do anything with them? HECK no. He’s emotionally & physically unavailable to us all. And that happens a lot in the fall. So it happens to everyone.

    I want more info on conflicted. There is much more to the story than the info we got!

98. 

    Ann Somerville said on 10.08.10 at 02:07 AM • [link]

    We are in real trouble when we have to feel
    ashamed of doing something that causes no one else real harm

    Yes, but I thought we were talking about porn - which isn’t harmless.

    No, wait. I’m not talking about the fact it gets people off. I’m talking about the fact it demeans and degrades real women (and some men). The awful impact it has on young women’s body images, and male expectations. The exploitation of the vulnerable, the reinforcement of rape culture and the involvement of criminal gangs in its production.

    It’s not *harmless*. Material which arouses isn’t immoral or dangerous per se, but lets not pretend all porn is equal, or that there isn’t a real cost with pornography which involves real people, especially real women. And this is why I think eliding visual and textual porn is so stupid and useless in these discussions. There *is* a difference in impact and harm, and we need to be awake to that.

99. 

    C.H. Scarlett said on 10.08.10 at 02:48 AM • [link]

    I’m talking about the fact it demeans and degrades real women (and some men). The awful impact it has on young women’s body images, and male expectations. The exploitation of the vulnerable, the reinforcement of rape culture and the involvement of criminal gangs in its production.

    Lets hope I do the quote thing right lol.

    Ok, whether or not porn demeans and degrades women is up for debate. And I don’t think porn has an awful impact on a woman’s body image or gives men any real expectations.

    I mean how many have watched a porn flick? How many women have actually wished she looked like that? They are not all that and a bag of chips. lol

    I would think that BARBIE does more damage than what porn does…UNLESS we are speaking about porn magazines like Playboy or Hustler.

    And again, what real woman has looked at those magazines and has felt less than what she is? I think a Vogue magazine would have her feeling more like crap than Playboy.
    
    But that brings us to the self esteem of women and what society has done to her AND what we allow to be done to ourselves. Things don’t hurt us unless we let it. Names, naked pictures—-its all meaningless unless WE give it power and we do…we give it power. We allow these harmless magazines, these harmless pictures to make us feel less than ourselves. We do it to ourselves and we do it to our sisters. If a woman has high self esteem and is sure of herself then we knock her down by calling her names or by saying she is conceded. We could drag the harm all the way back to religious organizations and the suppression of women in general if we wanted to…but like other sensitive issues, it really comes down to the individual.

    And obviously it does because how can a 300 pound woman be and feel more sexy than a size 0? And yet it happens every single day. Could it be that the 300 pounds of sexiness has gotten past all the crap and BS? I bet you she can’t be torn down by any magazine.

    And respectfully, I honestly don’t think Porn creates rapists, child molesters or anything else. Those criminals will be sick in the head with or without porn. That’s all psycho—whatever that has nothing to do with porn.
    
    And as far as criminals profiting off of porn, well, again, we give them that power. We have forced the naked body and acts of sex to be taboo. When we push it out of our cultures and make it forbidden or shameful, then we give the criminal power to control and take over.

    This is a very good discussion.

100. 

     Ann Somerville said on 10.08.10 at 03:57 AM • [link]

     UNLESS we are speaking about porn magazines like Playboy or Hustler

     You realise these don’t even qualify as hardcore porn by most people’s standards, right? I mean, you can buy them openly in newsagents and petrol stations. And yet you admit these could be harmful - so if they’re harmful, how much more so are the truly explicit videos and images?

     But that brings us to the self esteem of women and what society has done to her AND what we allow to be done to ourselves. Things don’t hurt us unless we let it

     If adult women aren’t immune from the impact of pornography on their self-image - and they really aren’t, given the popularity of labiaplasty:
     http://www.hda-online.org.uk/cosmetic-surgery/labiaplasty.html

     How much more vulnerable are young girls (well under the age of consent, and so no one should be looking at their vaginas other than themselves) who attempt to please their equally young and impressionable boyfriends with Brazillian waxes?
     http://tinyurl.com/2dt7xc2

     Look, if you enjoy porn, good for you. But can we please stop pretending that it’s consumed entirely by consenting adults, fully able to resist the negative messages and distorted images of female beauty? Or that everyone who participates in it is doing so freely and with full consent and enjoyment? It’s like prostitution - for every ‘Pretty Woman’ there are a thousand drug-addicted or abused women being forced into it by pimps or traffickers. It’s not a healthy, happy, trouble-free industry, and its uncritical acceptance isn’t doing anyone - least of all, women - any favours.

     And before anyone yells ‘Prude!’ at me, I point you to my writing output as evidence I like a good, sexy story as much as anyone. Because fiction isn’t exploiting real people.

101. 

     Isabel C. said on 10.08.10 at 04:00 AM • [link]

     C.H. Scarlett: Yes, this.

     Like I said above, I have friends who’ve worked in porn, I’ve looked at a fair amount myself, and I’m pretty sure all the guys I’ve dated have used it regularly. To address the last first: none of them have expected a triple-D bleached blonde who loves double-penetration scenes. Or, if they are, they haven’t said so. ;)

     Could the industry stand to be better regulated, and have I heard of very sketchy situations? Definitely. But I’ve also come across—heh—very professional, very ethical filmmakers/photographers whose models and actresses were very happy to be working for them. Do I love the profusion of sketchy consent and explicitly degrading language? No, not at all. I’m with the author of the True Porn Clerk Diaries: not all porn is degrading, but some is, and sometimes that’s the point. When that point is made without being labeled as a fetish, I have issues—but I have issues with things in lot of genres, including, at times, romance. (Catherine. Coulter. Enough said.)

     It’s complicated, basically, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to paint an entire form of media—everything from Planet of Anal Delights 4 to feisty indie webcam antics to naked girls in Playboy—with the “sketchy and degrading” brush.  (And, honestly, I’m a little…less than thrilled with the way that the romance-isn’t-porn conversations usually involve insulting porn.)

     All of that said? If dude was looking at porn for 12 hours a day…yep, I’d call that an addiction, and good on him for recognizing that and taking steps to deal.

102. 

     blackeros77 said on 10.08.10 at 04:11 AM • [link]

     Even if the ‘moral’ aspect of titillation is considered, it’s pretty obvious that textual porn or porn-like material, especially erotica, and erotic romance, is much more complex in its emotional and intellectual appeal than pictures and video. To be blunt, you don’t bother to remember the names of the women who are being fucked or licked or fingering themselves in visual porn. Readers become involved in the people behind the sex scenes in written erotica. It’s a different mental exercise, and not just about getting off.

     Romance is about language, a touch, and emotion. Porn is well…Porn. There is nothing to it but what you see. It does not exist for intellectual discourse, except for whatever you can exclaim at the end of a logistically fantasic scene. I have been reading romance novels since I was about 10 (I’m now 32) and people have criticized me for living within the pages of my books. But these novels are based off of someone else’s reality, the names have just been changed to protect husbands and ex-boyfriends from embarassment. Everytime a novel is passed from reader to reader, there is a new understanding or another laugh or cry to be had. (When you pass along porn all you get are sticky fingers and way too much sharing). An addiction to porn means that there might be an unrealistic view of how relationships and physical contact should be and spend way too much time alone. An addiction to romance novels might mean that you have the ability to read, you are an occasional daydreamer, and you need a temp escape from subways, soccer practice, ballet lessons, and departmental meetings.

     Here is the difference in Porn vs. Romance novels :
     *you can almost never duplicate the porn scenes unless you have a case of lube, a hand pump, and a plastic tarp.
     *You can steal a phrase from a novel and really rock someone’s world.

103. 

     Beth said on 10.08.10 at 05:17 AM • [link]

     Dear Conflicted,
     Thanks for the sharing your situation. I completely understand what you mean. When I started reading romances for the first time, my husband asked the same question. And I think that is a totally legitimate question because of the misconceptions that surround the romance genre. And it’s not just men that think that romance novels are chick porn. Plenty of women think that, too. Hell, I was one of those women until a few of my friends convinced me to read one.
     But once you’ve read a romance, it is very clear that of course these books aren’t porn. Your HBO analogy was spot on. Sometimes the fade to black scenes detract from the quality and integrity of the story.

104. 

     Sue said on 10.08.10 at 05:32 AM • [link]

     @AgTigress: I think you misunderstood my post. I am not calling anything that “triggers lust” porn; I think that’s a terrible way to look at sex, desire, and porn. It minimizes choice and action on the part of the individual doing the “lusting”. What I meant was that we re-purpose products all the time, including for the purpose of porn. That doesn’t mean the intended, non-porn use of those items isn’t still valid or shouldn’t remain available for such. 

     Perhaps I should have written this: If I claim that my house is porn-free, but I regularly masturbate to that steamy scene from the film Cold Mountain, then I am a hypocrite. Similarly, it’s not fair for me to ban WW2 pin-ups and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition from my house on account of sexy poses and then buy lots of books with pg13-rated covers, no matter if I really do only read them “for the stories”.

     Conflicted came up with a fair response for her situation, imo: boyfriend understands that neither publishers nor she view romance novels as porn, and ebooks mean she doesn’t also have to have a shelf full of bare-chested Fabio if she and her boyfriend prefer a Fabio-free home in addition to a porn-free one.

105. 

     --E said on 10.08.10 at 07:11 AM • [link]

     While there may be a good deal more to this story than seen in this letter, I had the same reaction SB Sarah did.

     As I read it, the skin on my back crawled. My RUN THE FUCK AWAY meter redlined at “It’s obvious to me that he really wants me to stop reading them and possibly even get rid of the ones that I have.”

     That right there? Stinks of control issues.

     Now, it’s possible that his control issue is a matter of projection: he had/has a porn addition and now he sees “porn addiction” in anyone who glances at a sexy picture. Sometimes people who are recovering from an addiction go way over to the other end of the scale and become insane anti-[their addiction] crusaders. This is about the kindest interpretation I can put on the boyfriend’s motives in that sentence I quoted two paragraphs ago.

106. 

     Wendy said on 10.08.10 at 08:22 AM • [link]

     I had to read this since I have heard it once before and ran the other way. Then of course I asked my husband what he thought.

     After he thought about it for a bit, he said that I can’t see where romance novels are porn. If they don’t always have sex, how could it be porn. Also the idea of asking me to give up my books he thinks he has a better time asking for my left arm. (I am so happy that he already is well aware that I will not be giving up my books.)

     So not all men are like this. Besides the idea of telling you to get rid of something you love is a sign of controlling. I hope it works out for “Conflicted.”

107. 

     Alexis Harrington said on 10.08.10 at 08:42 AM • [link]

     What a mess—I waded into this late in the game. I don’t much care what other people do as long as it’s their thing and doesn’t impact me. I’ve seen a few porn flicks and I admit that I’m baffled by their appeal. When I was in LA I watched one on the hotel TV that showed a bunch of giggling young women at a Nevada bunny ranch running around nekkid and playing with big pink dildos that were somehow attached to pogo sticks. Or something. Zzzzzzzz. To me the movies are boring and silly. Not to men because they tend to like in-and-out-let’s-move-on. My books, which embarrass my mother (tough stuff, Mom) have pretty specific love scenes but are tame by comparison to most. She nearly had a stroke when I had a hero suckle the heroine who was still nursing her baby. I thought it was very sexy myself.

     I’d say the main diff between porn and romance is that we know that an ironclad requirement of romance, like it or not, is the relationship and the HEA. And that difference is major.

108. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 02:06 PM • [link]

     Sue:

     What I meant was that we re-purpose products all the time, including for the purpose of porn.

     I’m still very unhappy about this definition, which seems to mean that pornography is ‘anything that may in certain circumstances incite to sexual arousal, whether designed for that purpose or not’, so that when it happens to titillate someone, it’s pornographic, and when it doesn’t, it isn’t.  It doesn’t work as a definition, chiefly because it can be applied to almost anything.

     I think that pornography is a creation, an artefact or work of art, made with the primary intention of arousing lust.  As such, I believe it to be neutral, not something bad, and worthy of proper study.  We must shake off the perception of ‘pornographic’ as a pejorative adjective, which is a hangover from older classifications that were extant when any allusion to sex was deemed obscene.  We should reserve our value-judgements for our assessment of the skill and competence with which it has been crafted, and its effectiveness in achieving its objective.

     Our experience of artefacts involves the intention of their creator, the competence of the execution, and the interpretation and reception we bring to them as audience, which closes the circle and completes the dialogue —  a dialogue between creator and viewer or reader.  (We have to sideline the performing arts here, which was why I became disconcerted by talk of pornographic films:  I was thinking only in terms of drawing, painting, sculpture and writing, where the connection between artist and audience is a direct dialogue, not a communication mediated through many performers who are themselves simultaneously creators and receivers/interpreters.  Definitions become much, much murkier when defining the creator / receiver relationship in the case of any performance.  A picture or a written text is a simple, private dialogue, whereas a play or a symphony is a public conversation involving many people.)

     There is a clear difference between pornography, a book or a drawing, shall we say, that is made for the sole purpose of isolating and arousing sexual response, and evoking ‘pure’ sex without the complications of human personality and individuality, and erotica, which deliberately embraces the complications of human emotion.  Neither is intrinsically ‘better’ than the other, and both may be executed well or badly, but they are not the same.  The former appeals to pure instinct and physical need, the latter to the social urge of members of a gregarious species for a more complex closeness with one or more specific individuals.

     Some of you here have castigated the concept of pornography (in performance form, I think) because it ‘exploits’ by dehumanising the participants.  But the whole point of pornography is ‘essence of sexuality’ freed of the human dimension that introduces so many distractions.  That is exactly what makes it pornography rather than erotica.  It operates on the same level as the ‘sex with a stranger’ fantasy, which is quite common in women as well as men, and which is perfectly acceptable as a fantasy, though not something that it would be wise to act upon in real life, for practical and social reasons.  Erotica deliberately operates on the level of a desire for a satisfying relationship rather than simply a satisfactory act of copulation. 

     I do think that the difficulty in discussing this subject is almost entirely down to fuzzy definitions. The basic etymologies make the difference between pornography and erotic art/writing perfectly simple to distinguish.  We are still left, as in all life, with the difficulty of classifying the results on a scale of excellence, and it is a fact that there is a lot of really, really bad pornography around.  But that does not make the genre itself ‘bad’.  It is no more good or bad than sexuality itself is.

109. 

     Sheriguy said on 10.08.10 at 02:54 PM • [link]

     Well I will apologize for misunderstanding the sitch.  I am so happy that this was really just a query on the distinction between romance and porn rather than my scenario of juvenile male guilt trip. On the subject of the distinction between the two I believe that porn can be romantic and romance can be porn. but they are not necessarily the same. A well written pornographic story where the participants have some sort of emotional entanglement can be a romance. And I am sure we have all read a romance novel where the sudden onslaught of banging just seemed out of context like the stereotypical porn flick “story intro”. Good luck with explaining the difference.

110. 

     bookwench said on 10.08.10 at 03:03 PM • [link]

     Porn is a subject. Romance is a subject. Text and images are the mediums through which these subjects are conveyed.

     Honestly, it sounds like he’s given something up and wants you to give something up too. The question then becomes, why did he give up porn?

     Was he addicted? Was it impacting his daily life? Or, did he give it up because it upset you?

     If he gave it up because it upset you, then yes, he has a right to ask you to give up your fictitious love life for him. If he gave it up for himself, because it was impacting his job and regular life, then - you have a decision to make. Is his comfort worth it to you? If the answer is no you shouldn’t be getting married, hon. If the answer is yes, you still need to talk to him about it, find out how deep this goes. Maybe come to some sort of agreement where you limit the time you spend with your romance novels and keep them away from him.

     Maybe he’s jealous. Maybe he feels they give you this idealized image of men he can’t live up to, the way you might feel porn gives him an idealized image of women that you don’t live up to.

     This is your call, but the word “porn” covers a lot of ground and seems to have triggered a lot of emotions. Talk to him about it.

111. 

     wild_about_romance said on 10.08.10 at 03:38 PM • [link]

     Maybe questioning whether romance is the same as porn masks his real, underlying concern.  Maybe her reading of romance makes him uneasy about how she views his body and his sexual performance.

     Let’s face it: romance heroes are almost always tall, hard-muscled, and handsome—and, if there is a sex scene, though it may be implied by the heroine’s wide-eyed gaze as the hero undresses or stated specifically, he is frequently generously endowed.  In those books that do have sexual encounters, the hero doesn’t fail to deliver a satisfying experience.  As we all know, real life doesn’t always work that way.  (And, no, I’m not suggesting that men are or should be responsible for a woman’s sexual satisfaction.)

     I think this is the same issue that many women have with their guy indulging in porn.  We don’t all have flat bellies and double D’s.  We worry that, if the women in a guy’s porn magazine reflects what he likes, we won’t measure up.

     My own husband was concerned about my reading romance, once he learned that some of them do include more than just kissing and heavy sighing.  However, despite the fact that my husband is balding and has a little paunch, he is definitely my personal hero.  Just as he doesn’t expect physical perfection in me (thank goodness!), I don’t expect it in him.  The important thing is that he’s perfect for me, and I’ve made sure to let him know that.  Now, he’s much more comfortable with my reading romance.  So, perhaps the boyfriend is really anxious that her expectations will be unrealistic, and he just needs some reassurance.

     As for the difference between romance and porn, it’s hard to define but easy to feel.  The definition may vary from person to person, too, depending upon their backgrounds.  Why are some films that are NC-17 or R porn while others are not considered porn but, rather, good movies with some degree of explicit sex?  In my opinion, it’s the focus on the relationship or other aspects of the story as opposed to being focused solely on sex.  To me, it’s like the difference between going out with someone for the first time with the intention of spending the night and going out with someone and having such incredible chemistry that, despite having no intention of spending the night, you do.  The former is purely about the sex; the latter is about the relationship.

112. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 03:46 PM • [link]

     A well written pornographic story where the participants have some sort of emotional entanglement can be a romance.

     I would unhesitatingly define such a story as erotica, not pornography at all.  The ‘emotional entanglement’ makes it so.  Whether it is a romance or not depends on the nature of the plot:  if it has a developing relationship that survives and overcomes problems, and reaches a happy and evidently permanent resolution, then it is a romance.

     Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) is well-written, contains a vast amount of sexual activity, much of it purely voyeuristic, but also well-drawn characters, character arcs, a proper plot, emotional attachments, and a happy ending.  It has served as the type of the ‘pornographic novel’ since 1749, but for the first 200 years of its existence, all sexual descriptions in books were classed as obcene and illegal.  In fact, it is not, in my view, pornography.  It is an erotic romance.

113. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 03:50 PM • [link]

     Going off at a slight tangent here, one thing that Conflicted might try is to persuade the boyfriend to read a couple of her romances.  He would learn what they are like (always a good idea if if one is judging something…), and moreover, he might like them.  Many men do.

114. 

     wild_about_romance said on 10.08.10 at 04:02 PM • [link]

     bookwench, I should have just said, “What bookwench said,” but, believe it or not, when I started my response, yours had not yet posted.  However, between writing my response and getting interrupted by a phone call in the middle, by the time I pressed submit, you’d already made my point—and more succinctly.

     So, ditto!

115. 

     Sheriguy said on 10.08.10 at 04:57 PM • [link]

     I would unhesitatingly define such a story as erotica, not pornography at all.  The ‘emotional entanglement’ makes it so.  Whether it is a romance or not depends on the nature of the plot:  if it has a developing relationship that survives and overcomes problems, and reaches a happy and evidently permanent resolution, then it is a romance.

     And hence the point I was trying to make . In my opinion, erotica is porn. I define pornography as material where the main focus is the sex act in any of its many variations. I see nothing negative or obscene about it. So to me erotica is porn. Whether it is also a romance depends largely on the plot and the skill of the writer.

116. 

     C.H. Scarlett said on 10.08.10 at 05:01 PM • [link]

     I’ll quote Robin Williams—

     Erotica is using a feather.
     Pornography is using the whole chicken.

117. 

     C.H. Scarlett said on 10.08.10 at 05:11 PM • [link]

     Ann Somersville,

     And yet you admit these could be harmful - so if they’re harmful, how much more so are the truly explicit videos and images?

     You misunderstand my response which was towards someone elses comment—-I am not saying Hustler and Playboy are harmful. In my opinion BARBIE and VOGUE does more harm on a person’s self image than what pornography does.

     As far as young girls and Brazillion waxes—-I am talking about adult women here, not young girls. If young girls are being influenced by boys or porn or those boys are being influenced by porn then that’s a matter for the parents. Teenage girls, though, will always be trying to impress boys with something—-however, perhaps if parents raise the stakes a bit and change their parenting, maybe teenage girls will expect boys to impress them instead with—-whatever.

     And again, as I said above in my previous post—-we give criminals the power. We could easily clean up prostitution if we wanted to. We could easily take away the power of the pimps—but instead we blame things like porn. We are always placing blame on something because people love their crutches. Its so much easier than finding a real solution.

118. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 05:21 PM • [link]

     Sheriguy, if you really regard pornography and erotica as synonymous (which was, indeed, the usual viewpoint in the 19th century, because all sexual description, even in medical textbooks, was thought equally obscene), then I consider that you are lumping two kinds of sex-oriented writing into a single category. 

     I see a need to draw a distinction between material that deals only with sexual action, omitting any consideration of personality and individuality, and that which describes sexual encounters between well-realised human characters, rather than types or ciphers.  Pure written pornography does not even follow the usual guidelines of storytelling:  it consists of a series of vignettes with only the most tenuous connections (usually an exotic setting).  Its aim is to arouse the reader, but specifically not to distract him/her with any thoughts about the fictional characters.  To that end, they are reduced to interchangeable ciphers, often identifiable only by their genitalia.  The deliberate effect of removing the individual human context enables the reader to concentrate solely on sexual excitement and gratification without emotion.  As I said, it is the ‘sex with a stranger’ fantasy.

     Erotic stories may also arouse sexual feeling, naturally, but that is not their only purpose.  There is something far more complex going on, something that is specific to those fictional characters, within a story arc, that engages the reader emotionally and intellectually as well as physically.

     If you can’t see a difference, fair enough, but I assure you that there is one, whether you see it or not!  :)

119. 

     IcePrincess said on 10.08.10 at 05:26 PM • [link]

     Ha! I love all these opinionated bitches telling Conflicted to ignore her opinionated boyfriend : ) Power. Manipulation. Fear. Addiction. Control. Sex. Desire. Freedom of speech. Feminism. How do I love this site…let me count the ways. Thank you ALL!

120. 

     SEB said on 10.08.10 at 06:52 PM • [link]

     Some good points, IcePrincess.  But:

     I love all these opinionated bitches telling Conflicted to ignore her opinionated boyfriend : )

     These are two different matters entirely, I think.  It’s one thing for commenters on a blog (with Bitches in the title, no less!) to give opinionated advice when asked for it…

     It’s quite another for a person to be told by a loved one what she should or shouldn’t do in her own home.

121. 

     IcePrincess said on 10.08.10 at 07:35 PM • [link]

     SEB, I totally agree that there are a ton of different topics falling under this very big umbrella (12 hours of *anything* a day would have been a relationship non-starter for me) but…

     I guess I assume that if you choose to live with someone, you value their opinion so not every request is a bid for control. My husband and I always try to tell each other what the other should or shouldn’t do, but then we both burst out laughing and go have sex instead.

122. 

     Sue said on 10.08.10 at 07:48 PM • [link]

     @AnTigress:

     I’m not comfortable with your repeated use of the word “titillate” here. Media is a thing, not a command, how we respond to it is a choice, and finding a picture attractive is not at all the same thing as using it as porn—just as observing to yourself that a particular man is attractive is not at all the same as ogling or sexually propositioning him.

     Yes, intent matters, but the end-user’s intent is just as important as the creator and manufacturer’s.  Does something intended to be porn from the design on down usually make for better porn, or products whose most obvious purpose is porn? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean homemade versions can’t also be functional.

     In regards to porn vs erotica,  “sex with relationship context” is typically considered a subset of porn as much as your “distillation/essence of sexuality” descriptor is. (Which I need to remember. I really like your phrasing here.) I absolutely agree that it’s useful to distinguish among different kinds of sexual-themed media (especially if you are shopping) and I’d love it if people would quit it with labeling things as “women’s porn” and instead adopted “erotica” to mean porn depicting “sex with stories/context”, but I’m afraid I can’t see myself ever saying to someone, “oh, that’s not porn, that’s erotica” anymore than I can picture myself saying, “that’s not seafood, that’s shellfish.”

123. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 08:10 PM • [link]

     Sue:

     In regards to porn vs erotica,  “sex with relationship context” is typically considered a subset of porn…

     Is it?  By whom?  Possibly yet another AE/BE (American English / British English) divergence.  Because definitions have shifted as social mores and legislation have changed, the most sensible approach is to base the definitions on the original etymologies.  I cannot see the category as ‘pornography’ with erotica as a sub-set.  To me, all work with sexual content is the broad class, because it deals simply with an aspect of human (and all animal) life, and pornography is a sub-classification within it. 

     Intention or design has only a partial influence on the quality of the final product.  It is possible to redeem a poor original concept by very skilled execution, or to ruin a brilliant one by sloppy technical work.  This takes us into the dangerous shoals of the ‘art-versus-craft’ debate, of course, which is always good fun.

     ‘Titillate’ is a very mild word, so I’m not sure what your objection is.  It does not in any way imply any ‘command’!  Perhaps you could explain this more fully, as I really don’t get your point here.  :)

     Of course the end-user’s intention is as important as that of the artist:  it is the balance of the two, their relationship, that creates the dialogue.  A book or a painting that is never shown to anyone, that is kept secretly by its creator, has no true life or existence.  When we read or look at something created 200, or 2000, years ago, we can be sure that the artist/audience dialogue will be slightly different from any that the artist could originally have envisaged.  This is why art and literature is infinite, because those dialogues are ever-changing, even though there is an unchanged and unchangeable basis.

124. 

     SEB said on 10.08.10 at 08:35 PM • [link]

     IcePrincess, I can agree in certain situations, but I have seen too many women (and men, for that matter) who don’t have the maturity or strong sense of self to draw the line when “told” what to do by their partners.  Even here, Conflicted says in the comments that the point is now moot as she doesn’t have time for reading anymore. 

     Maybe I’m paranoid, but I wonder about her no longer having time for reading, what was once an important part of her life, something she loved.  The timing seems dodgy: Boy “strongly suggests” to girl that she stop reading.  She rationalizes that she stopped for her own reasons, but ultimately boy got what he wanted (and I can’t understand what he could possibly get out of it BUT control - unless someone can better explain a good thing the boy gets out of her not reading a certain genre, especially as she has Nook to “hide” the questionable covers?). 

     This may be a complete misunderstanding on my part (sorry to be speculating so much about you, Conflicted!), but it is fun to psychoanalyze, and I think we can all learn alot by examining these fine lines between reasonable requests from partners vs. the slippery slope down to freaky-psycho emotionally abusive relationships.  Not that I’m saying anything specific, here.  Just wild speculation for the sake of discussion!

     And honestly, IcePrinces, the way you describe your relationship sounds ideal to me ;)

125. 

     Suze said on 10.08.10 at 09:26 PM • [link]

     I’m afraid I can’t see myself ever saying to someone, “oh, that’s not porn, that’s erotica” anymore than I can picture myself saying, “that’s not seafood, that’s shellfish.”

     Here’s my disconnect with that statment:  shellfish is a subset of seafood.  So what you’re saying, to my eyes, is that erotica is a subset of porn.

     Whereas I feel that porn and erotica are both subsets of sexually-focused writing.  sexual writing = seafood, porn =  mackerel, and erotica = shrimp

126. 

     AgTigress said on 10.08.10 at 09:39 PM • [link]

     Whereas I feel that porn and erotica are both subsets of sexually-focused writing.  sexual writing = seafood, porn =  mackerel, and erotica = shrimp

     In a nutshell, Suze.  That is exactly how I see it.  And that classification is strongly supported by the etymologies of the words.

     So what you’re saying, to my eyes, is that erotica is a subset of porn.

     I think that is what Sue is saying, and I think she is mistaken.  The main class is ‘sexual’: writings or depictions that feature sexuality in some form or another.  Within that class, the sexual content may relate to eros (sexual LOVE, that is, emotional relationships), or ‘writings about whores’, pornography, that is, sex for its own sake, detached from personal relationships. 

     As a typology, that makes perfect sense.  The suggestion that the over-arching class is pornography violates the basic meaning of that word, because content that deals with sexual love cannot be a subset of content that deliberately excludes all personality and emotion.

     None of this has any effect, one way or the other, on the acceptability or otherwise of any class (I think that all are acceptable, personally), nor on the skill with which they are fashioned, which can run the gamut from brilliant to execrable in all cases.

     :)

127. 

     cheetarah said on 10.09.10 at 12:36 AM • [link]

     If he quit his porn reading that’s good for him, but he can’t put his porn habit on the same level of her reading habit.  Besides, he met her as a romance reader when they started the relationship, why should this be an issue between them by now?
     First he wants her to quit reading romance novels, what next? this should be a red flag for Conflicted.
     Loving someone doesn’t give you the right to change someone’s habits.  And if someone isn’t willing to cope with the loved one’s habits, why be in such a relationship?

128. 

     Elemental said on 10.09.10 at 12:38 AM • [link]

     I’ve never really made a hard distinction between romance and porn. Romance novels were one of my early sources of porn (I could check them out the library, for a start), and it was some time, and thanks to this site, before I actually read one for the plot. And the sweetest, most romantic story I’ve ever read was a graphic novel that also had the majority of the page count as sex scenes. Trying to define the borders between erotica, pornography, romance, obscenity and something of another genre that has a bit of sex in it will always be an exercise in frustration—sooner or later, you have to say essentially “I know it when I see it!” or “Porn is erotic material that I happen to not like.” So I don’t worry about it, and try to read / watch that which appeals to me, and doesn’t exploit any real people.

     WRT the original poster, perhaps a solution might be to make erotic material something to look at or read as a couple? So it feels to him less like something a partner does instead of the relationship, which may be his concern based on his own past excess, and more something that can enhance it. (I’m not a relationship expert, so take that with a pinch of salt, of course. :) )

129. 

     orangehands said on 10.09.10 at 12:48 AM • [link]

     I think most people covered the topic extremely well. (I am always awed by the number of well-written and smart responses in posts at this site.)

     Lindlee @ 10.07.10 at 10:58 AM: I tried your experiment; it’s really hard to find a random sex scene if you don’t already know where they are. TV lied to me; I’m having trouble recovering from my shock. :)

     C.H. Scarlett (sorry, this got really long):

     In my opinion BARBIE and VOGUE does more harm on a person’s self image than what pornography does.

     I have a problem with this because it creates an either/or. I think Barbie is harmful (especially racially); I think Vogue is harmful (especially for body image). This does not mean I don’t also think porn is harmful, especially in the two ways Ann Somerville already linked to. It’s not like each item was created in a vacuum and has had no impact on each other. Porn and magazines both have started the trend of making sexualized women look like sexualized girls (get rid of all pubic body hair, create an emancipated look, uses images of wide and/or fearful eyes), and each has also just skipped the women part and gone immediately to sexualizing young girls.

     And respectfully, I honestly don’t think Porn creates rapists, child molesters or anything else. Those criminals will be sick in the head with or without porn.

     I am never, ever, ever going to defend a rapist and/or child molester, ever. I work with the victims. I am a victim. I have to work very hard to temper my immediate response, which is something along the lines of “burn them all”.

     I also want to clarify right up front and say I do not think all porn is bad, and I definitely don’t think the idea behind porn (work to sexually stimulate and/or arouse someone) is bad. I respect the fact and right that porn does something for a lot of people, and it doesn’t make them bad/wrong/disgusting.

     But as Ann Somerville said, to pretend the entire industry is consumed (and I’ll add participated in) by consenting adults is harmful, dangerous, and blatantly not true.

     Porn is both a component and visual medium of rape culture. Sexual slavery, human trafficking, sexual abuse, rape, and forced prostitution are all part of the porn industry, as a consequence of, as a component of, as an effect of. 

     A lot of studies have gone into discussing and dissecting the relationship between sexual violence, rape, child molestation and porn. (I’m not really talking about the person who once in a blue moon watches porn, but someone who habitually - though not necessarily addicted to - watches porn.) Studies have been done that show the dehumanization of women in porn have lead to men who trivialize and are desensitized to rape, have a distorted sense of consent, and develop an appetite for increased levels of violence. (I read a quote, which I sadly don’t remember verbatim, from a producer of porn who remarked that every year the porn he is charged with creating becomes more and more violent and dehumanizing because acceptability levels increase and demand grows for more “out there” stuff as what was once “hardcore” has become “mild”.) Studies have also been done showcasing the use of porn in child molestation, in that rapists talk about how they use it to incite themselves into committing acts, that they use it during their crimes, and that porn has made certain crimes seem more acceptable. (This is going back to the increasing habit of mainstream porn using women to look and act like young girls.)

     Again, this is not in anyway to excuse people who commit rape and/or child molestation. And it’s also not to say porn causes them to commit these acts. These studies are pointing out there is a correlation that cannot be ignored though.

     We could easily clean up prostitution if we wanted to. We could easily take away the power of the pimps—but instead we blame things like porn.

     I do agree that we have a taboo against talking about sex even as our mediums have more and more sex in them. The problem is we’ve created a culture with an unhealthy view of what sex, consent, and sexuality is. I’m not blaming porn for what we’ve done to sex in society, but I do think it has contributed and advances what has already been done.

     As for cleaning it up…a lot of groups have been trying. But porn is a multi-billion dollar industry, and I’m not holding out much hope the global society is going to stand up to it. You said, “I am talking about adult women here, not young girls,” [in relation to waxing] but I don’t get how they can be separated. Both groups are being given the same bombardment of ideals, and both groups are also actively searching for it. (Teen girls look at porn, just like teen boys. Should parents be having talks with both groups of kids? Hell yeah. Do they? Not necessarily. Whether it’s because they don’t care, don’t know, or whatever reason, a lot of kids learn about sex through their friends and the media, hardly the place of healthy sexual behavior and portrayal. And while parents can help point out the good versions of the bombardment, it doesn’t necessarily mean the kid can and/or will listen and/or be able to filter everything else out.)

     I think porn can be sex-positive, can be used to great effect and affection in a sexual relationship (with someone(s) else, or just your hand/favorite toy), and can be fun. But I think the industry as a whole is very harmful.

130. 

     AgTigress said on 10.09.10 at 12:51 AM • [link]

     Trying to define the borders between erotica, pornography, romance, obscenity and something of another genre that has a bit of sex in it will always be an exercise in frustration—sooner or later, you have to say essentially “I know it when I see it!” or “Porn is erotic material that I happen to not like.”

     Definitions are actually important.  Living as we do in a period where there is a pretty no-holds-barred attitude to printed material relating to sexuality, it is all too easy to forget that only 50 years ago, much of that material would have been illegal:  writer and publisher would have been prosecuted for issuing it. Lady Chatterley’s Lover (I class it as a novel with sex, rather than an erotic novel or pornography) was first published in 1928 — but only in France, so that only those men wealthy enough to travel abroad regularly could obtain it and (literally) smuggle it back into the UK.  You have no idea what a cause celèbre the 1960 trial was, and how people rushed out in their hundreds of thousands to buy the paperback edition at 3/6d!  We should not forget hard-won freedoms.  They can be withdrawn again, a fact that all feminists should bear in mind at all times.

     Of course these things are difficult to define, but that’s precisely what makes them interesting and worth thinking about.  Trying to establish the parameters and to draw distinctions that are NOT dependent on personal taste alone, but have objective validity, greatly improves our understanding.

131. 

     Liz said on 10.09.10 at 12:55 AM • [link]

     Hero opens up the nightstand drawer next to the heroine’s bed and discovers a romance novel. He opens the book to a random page and reads “his member was throbbing as he stared at her bountiful bosom” or something equally ridiculous

     lol…that totally brought to mind the scene in Lethal Weapon 4 where Riggs picks up Lorna’s book and starts reading about how the hero made the heroine’s “womanhood reach peaks that would rival the highest Himalayas”.

     I don’t have any advice on the situation, seeing as I have never been involved in anything similar.  However, I do think that romance can sometimes be porn for women, but that it is not always the case.  I had a total asshat professor as an undergrad that likened romance novels to porn wrapped up in a utopia-esque bow.  i remember watching most of the guys and some of the girls nod as he analyzed an entire genre based on his supposition.  all i could do was hope that nobody could tell that i read romance novels, since most of them already didn’t take me seriously because I was the lone liberal in a class full of conservatives.  I couldn’t imagine what they would have thought of me if they knew what I like to read.

132. 

     Elemental said on 10.09.10 at 01:20 AM • [link]

     Orangehands: I agree. More than with other industries, there is a need for porn consumers to do their research and support professional and respectful producers over sleazy and exploitative ones.

133. 

     Sue said on 10.09.10 at 04:03 AM • [link]

     [quote=“AgTigress”]It is? By whom?

     When actors and erotic film makers are interviewed, they identify with belonging to the “porn industry.”

     My issue isn’t so much with the words as how you used them in your sentences, i.e. “things verbing people”. I hear (often in conversations with very conservative people) a lot about how viewing certain objects (clothing that shows your shoulders and knees, pictures of attractive people, the existence of condoms, etc) is the direct cause of undesirable actions and expectations (as opposed to people being responsible for themselves and their opinions), a concept that I find insulting and frustrating to no end. I sincerely apologize if this was not your meaning, but your phrasing made me wonder if that was how you were interpreting my posts.

     You see, presenting porn as anything that that titillates us ignores the very real difference between finding a scene sexy and the expectation that you will literally use that scene to stimulate your sexual fantasies/libido, and the latter is essential in my definition of porn vs not-porn. Again, I’m sorry if I misunderstood you.
     
     Regarding subsets: you are correct about my opinion. Mind you, I do NOT see the word porn as “deliberately excluding all personality and emotion”, in and of itself. That classification is confusing to me, actually. “Porn” tells me the media type, not the product’s subject or quality, not whether it will feature love, genuine affection, whores, silliness, artistry, fleshed-out characters vs cardboard cut-out ones, science fiction aliens with tentacles, an actual plot, actors who are married in real life, actors whose bodies are “normal” not Barbie-wannabes ..... and also not whether it depicts healthy sex vs degrading, exploitative, or non-consensual sex.  This is why I don’t have a problem calling erotica porn. It’s good porn, porn I’d like to see more of.

134. 

     Sarah said on 10.09.10 at 06:46 AM • [link]

     Setting aside the debate about depictions of sex with and without emotional context and what difference that makes, I do think there’s one way (or another way) in which romance is comparable to porn:

     Romance depicts men the way women wish they were, porn depicts women the way men wish they were.  There’s a certain lack of respect and objectification in both cases. Yes this is a gross and unfair oversimplification (of both romance and porn), but I do think it’s important to recognize that both genres are about the viewer’s/reader’s fantasies.  Some viewers/readers can consume the fantasy without it distorting their view of reality and others can’t.  There’s nothing wrong with either kind of objectification (ie looking to someone else to gratify your fantasies) as long as you recognize that the someone else is first a person with their own point of view and has no responsibility to engage with your fantasy.  Treating another person *only* as an object is not ok. 

     If a woman is in a relationship just because she likes having someone treating her a certain way, buying her the obligatory heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, etc, but she has no interest in who he is as a person, his values and dreams and goals, she’s treating him as only an object.  I’m not in any way suggesting that this is on a par with sexual violence/coercion, either morally or psychologically, I just want to make the very limited point that sometimes women objectify men too, and sometimes this is ok and sometimes it’s exploitative.

     ps - It seems to me that romances written in the last 5-10 years make more of an effort to depict men realistically.  Has anyone else noticed this, or have I lost touch with what men are like in real life? (again, recognizing that this is a gross oversimplification b/c not all men are the same, etc)

135. 

     bookwench said on 10.09.10 at 06:59 AM • [link]

     Sarah - You’re not wrong; I’ve noticed a few romances lately in which the men actually had realistic flaws that didn’t make them somehow “vulnerable” for the hurt/comfort scenario. It’s a nice change.

136. 

     Alpha Lyra said on 10.09.10 at 07:29 AM • [link]

     I think that while romances do often depict an “idealized” man, they make an effort to make that idealized man three-dimensional and realistic, whereas I wouldn’t say pornography makes that effort for women.

     That said, I often wish I could find more romances where the heroines aren’t young and stunningly beautiful, and the heroes aren’t big and muscular and handsome and well-endowed. I’m not young and stunningly beautiful, and I’ve been attracted to plenty of men who weren’t cover model material. Are romance novels trying to tell me that only the young and beautiful get to live happily ever after? It’s kind of a depressing meta-message. I would eagerly read about less physically perfect heroes and heroines. While it seems to be tradition to make practically every romance hero a Fabio clone, this reader does not require that (in fact I dislike it).

137. 

     Merry said on 10.09.10 at 07:50 AM • [link]

     @Faellie “Pron which consists of pictures (moving or still) of real people is exploitative of the persons depicted and degrading of both the persons depicted and the persons seeing it.  ....
     [respectful snippage]

     The response was:
     I hope you’re not American, because that statement just shits all over the 1st Amendment. It also infantilizes women by assuming adult women can’t legitimately make up their own minds as to whether or not they want to be in porn.

     Oh for heaven’s sake! The 1st Amendment deals with freedom of speech. It is not restricted to whatever is currently deemed politically correct speech.  In the Victorian era, Faellie’s statement would’ve been considered extremely mild. In Elizabethan times, it would have been prudish.

     Times change. The right for Faellie to express her opinion does not. I vote for freedom of speech even for people I disagree with.

     Can we focus on the issue without name calling? Just a thought. For people who believe in the right to an individual thinking thoughts that don’t always agree with their thoughts.

138. 

     Faellie said on 10.09.10 at 01:00 PM • [link]

     Merry: thanks for the defence.

     Elucidation of my position may be appropriate.  I have no objection to erotica (using AgTigress’s definition).  I have no objection to porn (I used “pron” on my earlier post because of work computer issues) which is written.  I have no objection to porn people produce, in any form, for their own/their personal contacts’ use (although because it involves relationships I think this is more likely to come under AgTigress’s category “erotica”.) 

     As a feminist and humanist, I have very great objections to the porn industry based on pictures of real people, for reasons which orangehands set out very eloquently.  Appearing in porn is not a safe or good way to earn a living - I’m a trades union activist and I’ve seen (and tried to prevent/find remedies for) the damage even reasonably good working conditions can do to people, so I’m clear about the likely physical and emotional consequences for the actors involved in the porn industry.  A further possible point against the porn industry is that the evidence is that a very high proportion of prostitutes have been sexually abused as children, and I suspect that the same is true of a significant proportion of porn actors, although I haven’t seen evidence on that.

     I’m pretty clear that consuming commercial porn is also damaging to at least some people - the probable addiction of Confused’s boyfriend is a minor example.  Attitudes on what it is acceptable to consume change through the ages, as Merry suggested, and the current social acceptability/pervasiveness of porn is just another point on this circuit.

     Nowhere in my original post did I say or imply anything which is in contradiction to the First Amendment - the fact that something is not prohibited by law does not mean that it cannot be advised against.  Porn involving children or unconsented violence is of course evidence of a criminal offence.

139. 

     AgTigress said on 10.09.10 at 03:20 PM • [link]

     First, Sue, thank you for your reply, clarifying your interpretation of some of my comments.  They help a lot.  There is probably a linguistic gulf here between an elderly speaker of British English and a younger (I presume) speaker of American English.  Let me assure you most emphatically that I absolutely was NOT at any point suggesting that:

     viewing certain objects .... is the direct cause of undesirable actions and expectations

     I find that point of view as distasteful and specious as you do.  People are responsible for their own actions.  Inanimate things do do things to animate ones, all the time, the way a shoe blisters a heel, but that is not a comment or suggestion on how the animate creatures might react.

     The other cause of misunderstanding is that while I was talking almost exclusively about written texts, with the occasional digression into the (static) visual arts, you and many others have been talking about film, which is a different animal altogether.  No wonder you found my definitions questionable, when I was defining written material and you were thinking about performances.  I wasn’t even speculating about whether Conflicted’s boyfriend was slavering over a film, over pictures of breasts and crotches in a magazine, or over written accounts of endless sexual conjugations;  I was thinking about novels, because those were the things that Conflicted was being asked to define and possibly to give up as a quid pro quo.

     It is quite impossible to apply the kind of classificatory framework to a play or a film that can be applied to a novel or a painting.  For a start, that one-to-one ‘creation/reception’ relationship does not apply.  A novelist speaks directly to each reader.  Each reader will respond slightly differently, so there are many dialogues, but they have some clarity of purpose.  In a film, the original story may be by one person (though not always!), but by the time it has been received, interpreted and passed on by scriptwriters, producer, director, designers of settings and costumes, camera and lighting staff, and of course, the actors, it will have changed a thousand times.  In a public showing, the multiple audience is also a factor, since the reponses of some viewers will influence others (e.g. laughing at a joke).  The whole thing is a crowd scene at every phase.  The ‘creator’ is a many-headed Hydra, and the consumer of the result cannot engage with a single mind.

     Faellie, in her post above, is also talking about film.  I bow out of that debate entirely, because I am not especially knowledgeable on the subject, nor am I much interested in it.  I do think it is a pity if the term pornography becomes defined only as ‘sexually explicit films’, though, because it is a useful and quite precise word when applied to written material.  But nobody can stop language in its headlong course, alas.  :)

140. 

     Literary Slut Kilian said on 10.10.10 at 06:34 AM • [link]

     Romance isn’t porn for women.  Martha Stewart is porn for women.  I remember the first time ever I saw her on TV.  She was effortlessly whipping together a croque-en-bouche. Not a bead of sweat or a hair out of place.  No mess to clean up.

     A man looks at a woman in a sex film and thinks “I could do her.”

     A woman looks at a croquembouche in progress and think “I could do that.”

     Honey, nobody without a huge wallet or a huge staff can do that. 

     That’s porn.

141. 

     Tiffany sale said on 10.11.10 at 05:58 AM • [link]

     Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of a pickle with my boyfriend over the fact that I read them.

142. 

     willaful said on 10.13.10 at 06:07 AM • [link]

     I don’t think it matters in the slightest bit whether the romances are porn or not. The important thing is, you don’t feel you have a problem with them.  Just because he has an issue doesn’t mean everyone has an issue. It’s like an alcoholic believing everyone else should give up alcohol.

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