Is reading romance novels the same as watching porn?
When I call out watching porn, I inevitably get some commenters (usually men) complaining that I don’t call out women reading romance novels. Both set up unrealistic expectations; both get people to focus on sex with someone other than their spouse. So aren’t they just as bad?
Frankly, no. Rebecca and I talked about this on a recent podcast, but I wanted to write this all out in one place so it’s an easy reference point to send people to!
Let’s start with some basic definitions.
What are romance novels?
The term “romance novels” covers a wide range of literature, some of which is pretty mild and some which is downright dark.
- Your Jane Austen typical romance novels, or your Amish romance novels with barely a hint of sex
- Novels with some sex, but not described explicitly
- Novels with explicit sex scenes, but the story could exist without the sex (the point of the book isn’t just to get the people into bed; there is a strong plot). Think the Outlander books, for instance.
- Novels where the whole point is the sex. There is a plot, but the book primarily is about the graphic sex scenes (this would be where erotica begins).
- Novels where the whole thing is just graphic sex
- Novels that describe very dark sex, where it’s about living out fetishes or non-consensual sex
When people talk about “romance novels being the same as porn”, they’re usually referring to #3-6 (although there has been a whole history of people disagreeing with women reading ANY novels!).
Okay, keep that delineation in mind as we tackle the next bit of the argument:
Why is porn wrong?
If we’re going to determine whether romance novels (#3-#6) are the equivalent of porn, we have to ask: What exactly are we criticizing porn for?
1. Porn is a huge driver of human trafficking.
Porn cannot be divorced from human trafficking. Much of porn is non-consensual; even so called “consensual” sites have been found to include non-consensual elements.
What is shown in porn is often demanded to be acted out in real life, and so even the things porn shows prompts real life abuse.
2. Porn (normally) includes real people
Yes, there can be cartoon porn, but porn tends to include real people. When you watch porn, then, you are getting sexual gratification from watching a very real person.
3. Porn is violent
The vast majority of porn today is violent. Real women are being hurt.
4. Porn changes the nature of sex
The sex included in porn is usually devoid of relationship and often includes degradation, humiliation, etc.
5. Porn glorifies lust
Porn puts sex at the forefront, and inflames lust.
6. Porn sets up unrealistic body standards
Porn can increase body shame and body image issues.
7. Porn can decrease our inhibitions and lead to rape myth acceptance
Studies have found that people who watch porn are more likely to get involved in non-consensual sexual activities, and women who watch porn are more likely to accept it.
Watching porn also desensitizes people to things that they would normally never want to do.
8. Porn can be used as a maladaptive coping mechanism for difficult emotions
One of the real issues with porn use is that it becomes such an ingrained habit as an escape from dealing with emotions. When you use porn, you masturbate, sending dopamine responses to the brain, which makes you feel better. So teenagers often start using porn to deal with rejection, boredom, loneliness, sadness, shame, etc. And thus they never learn how to handle these emotions in healthy ways and can become stunted.
You can likely think of others, but that’s a start!
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So this leads us to the question:
To what extent do romance novels mimic these aspects of pornography?
No matter how dark or graphic a novel is, no actual people were harmed in the making of it. That’s a huge difference right off the bat.
One of the things that bothers me about the way that evangelicals often frame the problems of porn is that they see it almost entirely as a sin issue that hurts your purity, rather than as a justice issue. To me, the justice issue is the most important one, because hurting someone else is so much worse than just hurting oneself.
When we look at types 5 & 6 of romance novels, they tick off many of these boxes, and I would agree that in many ways they are the equivalent of porn. They can increase rape myth acceptance; increase desensitization; increase lust; etc. They don’t tick all of the boxes, but they tick off enough that there’s nothing redeeming in them and they should be avoided.
But what about #3 and #4?
What about books where there is some sex, or even a lot of sex? Are they just as bad?
Many people who think that may not understand what type of sex much of these novels include. The sex scenes are often graphic, yes, but they also are often very woman-centered. They depict sex that is consensual, that is humanizing, and that is orgasmic (especially for her).
Because this is so rarely portrayed in any other format (it’s very hard to show sex that works for her in film because so much of female arousal is internal versus external, and so much of what makes women aroused doesn’t film well), it seems really jarring. So people who watch graphic rape scenes in Game of Thrones can think a novel that depicts how a woman reaches orgasm is somehow more graphic.
As Rebecca said on the podcast, we’re fine making pornographic sex jokes on sitcoms, but we draw the line at sex that women would actually enjoy that respects women.
There can definitely be a problem with using these novels for sexual gratification and escape
Absolutely. And this is where everybody needs to know their limits and be really mindful (and why I’d personally totally steer clear of #4 too! Nobody needs a book that’s just about sex!).
But when it comes to #3 books, books that have a clear plot and where the sex is just part of it, but not intrinsic to it, we have to ask: Are we just against sex that women like?
So many women told us that romance novels were their sex ed–and in a good way, too! Before reading these novels they didn’t know what sex that women enjoy was actually like, because they had only ever seen male-centered sex on TV and movies. It gave them words to express what they wanted.
Personally, I hope our books like The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex mean that this isn’t necessary anymore, but I totally get it.
How should we think about romance novels?
I think the key is this: Is this book encouraging you to separate sex from intimacy and relationship? Is this book encouraging you to objectify yourself and/or others, or minimize the dignity in someone?
Is this being used as a maladaptive coping mechanism for negative emotions, OR for escapism to not deal with the reality of your relationship?
If so, then you need to stop.
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But let’s remember that sex is not bad. And sex is an integral part of life. Even the Bible contains a lot of talk about sex! Expecting that a whole portion of our life should be completely cut off perhaps shouldn’t be the goal; instead, we should be asking, “how can I think about sexuality in a healthy way and integrate it in my life in a healthy way?”
That’s a difficult question. It requires some nuance.
But thinking about sex is not the same thing as watching porn, and we need to stop the false equivalences.
What do you think? Are sex scenes harmful or helpful or does it depend? Let’s talk in th comments!
My wife reading romance novels like your 3-5 examples led to an affair. They may not be the level of porn but they are very destructive to a marriage.
I’m sorry for both of you that an affair happened in your marriage, but using a single example to prove that “this happens” across the board is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly. I hope you have both been able to dig down and find the root reasons why a choice of reading material might have contributed to an affair.
I remember there was this book I read by Dannah Gresh (yes that Dannah Gresh who wrote all of that awful stuff about modesty) back in the day for women who read erotica and romance novels around the time 50 Shades came out called Pulling Back the Shades and though it has been a while I remember it had some problematic stuff. Like for one thing I remember that she seemed to think that the BDSM community approves of the 50 Shades books when in reality on the internet many of them called it out saying it was very inaccurate and abusive and not Safe Sane and Consensual.
She also if I remember seemed to think that women fantasizing about domineering man proves complementarianism and women reading erotica about dominant men is a symptom of there not being enough good men leading them in their life or something which you have obviously proved that is wrong and that women want equal partners and fantasy is different than reality where you are in control of what you fantasize about.
There is probably a lot of other stuff wrong but that is some stuff I remember about the book. That might be a good book to review.
My personal view is that anything which encourages us to imagine other people having sex is not a good thing for a believer to do. Sex was intended by God to be between husband and wife, and while I’m ok with the kind of books that include sex ‘off page’, I do have doubts as to the wisdom of reading descriptions of fictional sex. Although I know others may view this differently, and I respect that. But to liken romance novels to porn under any circumstances is ridiculous, especially bearing in mind the injustices involved in the porn industry.
Even if romance novels were as harmful as porn, it’s still an unfair comparison unless they are read by roughly the same percentage of women as the percentage of men who watch porn. Are there any studies on this? E.g. if 90% of men are indulging in a harmful activity and only 10% of women are indulging in an equally harmful activity, then it surely makes more sense to focus effort on combating the harmful activity which affects the greatest number of people. But nothing like pointing the finger at someone else’s fault to detract attention from your own, which is maybe why so many men use the romance novel argument to deflect attention from porn use!
I’d agree that there really isn’t anything beneficial about just reading erotica–even if it’s “tame”. Anything where the main purpose is to inflame sexual desire outside of relationship likely isn’t healthy. But I also wouldn’t want to come down hard on it, because i know so many women who were so harmed by purity culture that it was the only way that they could embrace the fact that they were sexual. And since they were reading books that were about female centred pleasure in healthy, monogamous relationships, it’s hard to compare it to porn. I just wouldn’t choose it myself.
Biggest difference, aside from the “real people are exploited in porn” problem: most people learn nothing about healthy sex from porn, but a well-written romance novel can function as a how-to guide for mutual pleasure.
I’m grateful that you’ve written it all out here because I’ve been thinking about this ever since the podcast came out but would rather not comment on FB!
I really agree with a lot of what you’ve said and all your criticisms of porn are absolutely spot-on. And I agree about the inherent misogyny in a lot of these conversations.
There are some other criticisms of porn that you haven’t mentioned, though, which I think might have a bearing on this situation. Fight the New Drug is absolutely amazing for their evidence-based work about porn, and they have a documentary called Brain Heart World which details the three areas in which porn has an impact — the individual, relationships, and society. Your criticisms of porn, while absolutely correct, mostly centre in the “World” section of that and part of the “Heart” section (how it impacts relationships). I know there is a lot less research and evidence about erotica than about pornography but both are used in a voyeuristic sense to get a sexual experience from engaging with another person’s sexual experience. Therefore I do wonder if (and I know the evidence isn’t strong) there is a reasonable expectation that the use of erotica for sexual experiences can have some of the same impacts on individuals and their relationships as pornography does.
Also, even “vanilla” pornography showing mutual sexual experiences has been shown to increase violence against women; even still photographs of sexually posed naked women does this. The evidence for this goes back many decades before the invention of the world wide web. Using another person’s sexual experience to give yourself a sexual experience is an inherently objectifying behaviour, even if the people whose experience so used is genuinely mutually pleasurable and rooted in relationship.
Yes, I’d agree. I think it just is inherently objectifying.
I’m honestly just wrestling with this issue, and I have so many conflicting thoughts and questions. I really appreciate the discussion, so let me explain: it seems to me that erotica is completely different from porn: you aren’t having any interaction with a real human being that you could possibly meet and recognize in this world or the next; much of the time the characters are completely fictional and not real people at all. Whereas with porn–excepting maybe the aforementioned cartoon porn–there is a real person who has been photographed, most likely exploited, and who you are inviting into your erotic imagination, to lust after. There is now a “3rd party” in you and your partner’s sex life, and that is a real betrayal. But when you are reading as opposed to viewing something, everything is in your imagination/fantasy, and if you share that with your spouse, then it involves the two of you and no one else… right? I guess the writer’s thoughts are being shared with you, and in that sense I suppose the writer is the 3rd party, but there is no interaction and no lusting after the writer, I don’t think? Help me out here; there are so few places in this world a Christian can go to discuss these ideas, and I am honestly just wrestling with how to understand this as an issue of conscience.
I disagree that romance novels (only those that are written with sex as the central theme or are dark/violent).
1. I think women are absolutely using/can use these books/stories as a way to escape fixing problems in their own sexual relationship.
2. I think women use these books just like porn, to arouse and sometimes replace sex with self-pleasure instead of sex with their husband.
3. I think it absolutely does set up unrealistic expectations of their spouse.
In my pre-teen into young adult years I was addicted to the Penthouse stories. No pictures, but those graphic descriptions were unrealistic and destructive.
My 4 cents (adjusted for inflation).
Yes, I would say you’re describing full-blown erotica, and I know this has become a major struggle for many women. I can’t see any good in it honestly.
I’d agree with your position. Porn is always going to be unfaithful in a relationship, and even I would say to a future relationship as you are bringing comparison in.
Novels, while potentially helpful//unhelpful in various ways as described in the article, are not breaking the faithfulness of the relationship in the same way, as there is no ‘other person’ in real life.
I’ve definitely evolved on this issue to be more inclusive of at least up to #3. I’m still thinking erotica is rarely if ever helpful. Yes, Song of Solomon exists, and I think perhaps the way that it beautifully captures marriage, romance, and sex is a good model for what similar writing should be like. The equivalence I think is typically unexamined misogyny. Violence in books usually isn’t given the same level of scrutiny, for instance.
Yes, I can’t really see a role for books where the only purpose is sex. I think that’s a line I wouldn’t personally cross, which is why I’d put me at a 3 and not a 4.
Genuine question: where would Song of Solomon fit on your continuum? I haven’t read it in a while but it’s got to be at least a 3.5 right?
I’d say it’s #2 – there is a lot of poetic description of how beautiful/handsome the man and woman are, but it doesn’t really go into any explicit detail of how they interact.
Yes, that’s what I’d say too. Unless it was considered graphic back then?
Awake, O north wind; come, O south wind! Blow on my garden so that its fragrant spices may send out their sweet smell. May my beloved come into his garden and eat its delightful fruit!
I have entered my garden, O my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my balsam spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk!… (Song 4:16-5:1, NET)
Actually less explicit than I remembered it being. Maybe #2 is fair. I think that’s the steamiest bit.
It is quite explicit; it just uses poetic language.
“Landscape” words are used to graphically describe each others’ bodies; in particular, the slow sexual exploration of each others’ bodies.
“Sense” words including what one smells, tastes, eats, and drinks are used to graphically describe different sexual acts and sensations.
There are also more explicit parts about clothes falling off as the lovers chase after each other.
Reading in a more modern translation might make the erotica more obvious.
I find Song of Solomon to be almost too erotic/arousing for me to feel comfortable reading.
I honestly don’t know, because it’s so allegorical. I guess I’d wonder how graphic it would have been considered then?
I mean, there are cave paintings found that are more graphic than SoS. For as long as there has been sin there has been porn. One of the earliest depictions of BDSM porn recorded is a piece of Egyptian art of a man giving oral sex to another man while being whipped so it was not nearly the most graphic for its time.
If there are a couple of extant examples of sexually explicit art from a culture (not Hebrew culture) of approximately the same era, I don’t know that it follows that Song of Songs was not graphic for its context. I’m not sure, but it seems to me highly likely that the poetic metaphors were culturally-known euphemisms that would have communicated quite explicitly!
Forgive my lack of knowledge/memory please as I haven’t been in an academic setting in years, but I seem to recall there being increased learning when multiple sense are involved. E.g. one can learn with just a visual example, but if you add another sense, such as hearing, to the learning model, it speeds up the solidification or rate of learning (one would need fewer repetitons to solidify). If I am remembering this correctly, then a person who watches pornography with the sound on and also adds in a physical action would be increasing the “learning” of that activity greater than a person simply reading of a scenario.
Perhaps this falls under one of the other reasons to avoid pornography.
Anyone know more about this or how off-base I may be?
So what are men—women’s spiritual and marital leaders—actually concerned about in this situation?
Women’s mental and spiritual purity if they read these books?
Women developing impossibly high standards for their marriages and sex lives, as in a woman wanting to have an actual relationship with her husband and maybe having an orgasm at least once in a while?
Or are men actually worried about having to step up their game in bed and out of it?
Women have let men get away with such low-quality relationships for so long that the bar is not merely in the basement. Men actually have to get that bar back up from halfway to the center of the earth.
And you know what? How about if men police one another in this regard? Women have been telling men for decades what is deficient, and men just blow us off as “not saying what we mean” or “not knowing what we want.” The reality is, men just don’t want to be challenged or have to put any effort into anything that doesn’t benefit them personally. So again, how about the good guys out there telling the slackers they’re lazy, selfish asshats and taking them to task? Otherwise, all that “leadership” is just bullying women who have been forced into a “lesser” position.
Fair call, but what are the outward, obvious signs that someone behaves like this in their marriage? Statistically, I know a few bad husbands but it’s not clear to me which they are.
I knew a guy once who talked negatively about his wife in her presence and I regret not putting him in his place about it.
I’m interested in hearing from women who have or had husbands who were selfish, lazy or worse what the signs of that were that their male friends noticed (or should have).
And also, given that you realistically wouldn’t be certain if you were talking to a husband who’s just a bit clueless or abusive, how do you go about confronting him in a way that won’t make things worse if it’s the latter?
Have you been to any large gatherings of couples? How much does the host husband do? Just grill? What about the other husbands? Are they mainly socializing among themselves, or are they setting tables, watching kids, and kissing skinned knees?
Which parent is bringing the kids to your kid’s birthday party?
How often do you see dads at sports practice?
How closely do you observe the wife’s facial expressions when you’re out to eat with another couple?
The signs tend to be there, but the people in power or just with influence have to be observant AND THEN TAKE CONCRETE ACTION instead of hanging back.
As far as abuse goes, I think the good guys could do a lot of policing there too. How about “If I see a bruise on your wife, I’m going to break your arm”? Or maybe you just kick his butt and his stuff out of the house, help the wife change the locks, get her in touch with a good divorce lawyer, and help her get the SOB out of her life—and the kids’ lives—for good. You organize a group of men—from church, neighbors, or coworkers—to help the poor woman get her damn life back, make sure her car and house maintenance is done, be a true example to the kids.
Things can be done. But we all—and especially the good men, because men mainly only listen to other men—have to be willing to step in.
Thanks for that. No immediate red flags from your first group of questions which is good, but good to have some things to look out for. The party question is a good one I hadn’t thought about as much as I probably should have, so I will now.
Your last couple of paragraphs reminded me of the only time I can recall knowing that a specific woman was being physically abused by her husband. This was about 15 years ago so my memory is a little hazy. They were fringe members of our church at the time. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes but I know she had a lot of support from my wife and others. I’d be surprised if the leaders didn’t at least try to confront him but don’t know that for a fact. I vaguely remember discussing with my wife whether to speak to him directly myself and deciding together (rightly or wrongly) that was more likely to inflame the situation. Initially she lied to police and said everything was fine, but eventually things escalated to the point where he was imprisoned and she was able to get away from him (she stopped replying to my wife’s messages after a while so don’t know for sure whether permanently or not).
I’m not suggesting that I/we shouldn’t have done more or better, but to me it does seem to illustrate the complexity of these situations. I’ve seen stats that in my home country women typically leave and return to abusive husbands multiple times before getting away from them permanently. What you’re suggesting (maybe minus the arm-breaking part) is great for a wife who’s accepted her husband is very unlikely to change and is ready to leave permanently, but what if she’s not?
(Let’s assume the people involved aren’t part of a church/community that’s arrivals perpetuating ideas that might make her more likely to stay in an unhealthy or dangerous relationship.)
Obviously it’s also likely that fewer women would return to abusive spouses (in the absence of genuine repentance, commitment to and progress in appropriate treatment etc) if they had the kind of support you’re describing, but I’m also not sure it’s that simple.
All of these are genuine questions I’m interested in your responses to, just in case it sounds like I have some axe to grind.
Women are so conditioned to be soooo giving, soooo forgiving, soooo ready to give him just one more chance that churches ought to proactively provide women-only classes on what constitutes abuse. It goes way beyond the physical (that’s just the easiest to see evidence-wise).
It really is going to take good, trauma- and abuse-informed men AND WOMEN to break these mindsets women have been indoctrinated with literally from birth (in church and even out of it) for anything to really change. We are trained to gaslight ourselves, to ignore reality, to think “he isn’t really that bad” because the periodic love bombing we receive when he realizes “this time I went too far” is a key step in the cycle of abuse (of all kinds).
You might try reading Zawn Villines (her substack or as zawnv on Facebook) for the secular version of a lot of what Sheila is trying to do. She pulls no punches with her language, and her commenters don’t either, so pre-clutch your pearls if necessary.
This list might prove useful for finding out how involved a man is, or isn’t, with raising his own children.
https://zawn.substack.com/p/the-dad-privilege-checklist
For what the typical wife does, that the typical husband doesn’t do, this article is pretty representative and should help you see what you may not have seen before:
http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/wife.html
Who wouldn’t want this kind of automatic appliance to handle all the annoyances of merely existing, let alone thriving? And who wouldn’t be annoyed when such an appliance started making demands of its owner? 🙄
Here’s a few:
-Men who say that their wives are “crazy.” Crazy isn’t a diagnosis. If she suffers from trauma or mental illness, a loving husband supports her in efforts to heal AND also works on not making the situation worse.
-Men who use third parties to pick on their wives, stay friends with people who are rude to their wives, or allow their families to be rude to their wives. “So and so friend doesn’t like you,” or “I know that Rob is rude to Nancy but Rob and I have been friends since kindergarten so Nancy can just deal.” How he allows others to treat her is indicative of how HE treats her behind closed doors.
-How she views sex. If she turns 18 shades of red when the subject comes up, he’s probably satisfying her. If she rolls her eyes and makes comments about how sex is for men, he’s a selfish louse.
-If she gradually “loses interest” in her activities, especially if those brought her great joy or esteem in a community. If she used to be the President of the local Rotary and an award-winning writer, and now she’s barely at meetings and hasn’t put pen to paper in years, he’s bullying and isolating her.
Thanks both. These are helpful. I think the kind of person Jane in particular is describing is who I’ve been subconsciously avoiding being friends with for a long time without really knowing exactly *why* I find those people so unpleasant to be around.
Jo’s idea re recognizing signs of abuse as a women’s event topic is a great one.
Will read links later. Thanks both.
Tim: ironically, I almost added “men who don’t have a several close male friends who are upstanding guys” to that list. They really don’t have close male friends like that, because the men don’t want to be around them. It also highlights how bad abusive and controlling men are, when they are right next to genuinely good men who would never treat their wives that way.
Yeah, that kind of man is setting off your spidey senses, so you can choose to avoid them.
Women are encouraged to overlook their spidey senses with respect to that kind of man, then marry and have children with that kind of man.
Sorry for almost spamming the reply section:
One of the things that is really helpful to anyone in an abusive marriage is simply to be around good people who don’t treat their spouses that way.
The jarring contrast drives home how bad or dysfunctional one’s own marriage is.
Flip side, what hurts is all sorts of “well maaaaybe” and asking the wrong questions.
Bad question: can you, abused spouse, really not put up with this, or if you dig a bit deeper, will you be able to handle it?
Good question: is this a functional and healthy marriage? Is your spouse willing to treat you the same way or better than he treats his coworkers, manager, friends, etc?
A couple of very subtle signs I’ve seen in friends who were in unhealthy relationships:
1) Being excessively grateful for normal, decent behaviour – e.g. being brought a cup of tea when she’s seriously ill in bed or picking up a pint of milk on his way home so she doesn’t have to drive out of the way at the end of her 12 hour shift. Yes, being grateful even for little things is healthy, but acting like he’s scaled Everest when he’s just washed up three coffee mugs is usually a sign that the bar for ‘wonderful’ is set very, very low. Even more telling is presenting “he never hits me even when he’s really angry” as a sign of a wonderful man.
2) Asking questions about how you deal with ‘difficulties’ in your relationship that shouldn’t really be that difficult. I had a friend who asked me how I knew when was the ‘right’ time to ask my OH things like this, and was stunned when I just said that as long as he wasn’t falling asleep or rushing to get out to an appointment, any time was the ‘right’ time. She had to spend weeks edging around the topic, fussing over him to put him in the ‘right’ mood to ask, so that she didn’t get accused of nagging or just have him get angry/give her the silent treatment.
Oh, your #2 is so sad!
I would love to read a blog post or listen to a podcast on this one. I grew up with a Dad where this was the case (you had to bring up issues when he was in a mood to listen) and I also struggle with it at times in my marriage. It’s hard sometimes to bring up hard things or things I’d like to see changed in his behavior or even things I feel like he neglects because I feel like it’s not always a good time. I don’t know if this is a sign of my insecurities or poor marriage communication. Thanks for all you do!
We are thinking of doing a course on this one too!
Yes, please please address this issue! This has been such a big one in my marriage, and for a really long time I honestly thought it was legitimate for him to expect me to wait until he was in the “right” mood. Of course those moods never really came.
I would recommend the book “No Visible Bruises” – it talks about what abuse can look like and reason abused stay with and often lie for their abusers. It also talks about ways outside people can support and help, and organizations that offer support, help, education and seek social awareness and legislative change.
“So what are men…actually concerned about in this situation?”
I was thinking the same thing myself.
What exactly are they offended by? Why repress women’s sexuality?
Hats off to you for tackling this 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Extremely well thought (as always) and so…satisfying 🙂
Thank you!
I have a very difficult time imagining that a man would get betrayal trauma (PTSD symptoms) if his wife was “addicted” to romance novels. My husband said he couldn’t throw out his p*rn magazines because they were “too good”.
Oh, wow. I’m so sorry!
THIS. you put into words what I have been struggling to say. thankyou
Thank you Sheila and team for tackling this issue; it’s so tricky!! I’m really grateful for how careful and nuanced your treatment was. I came away with a couple questions that I hope you can elaborate on.
1. In the podcast on this topic I caught the statement, “We shouldn’t be sensation-seeking when it comes to sex”: I was wondering if you could explain what you meant, because to me, sex is all about sensation… Are you talking about a certain kind of sensation? Or a different meaning of the word? And what reasons would you give for saying that we should not seek sensation?
2. I feel that there is another grey area that maybe wasn’t discussed explicitly, and that is erotica that describes kinky, but not dark, sex. If both partners are “on board” with a particular kink or fantasy or fetish, is it ok to read about it? Is it okay to read about your partner’s fetish that you want to explore, but don’t fully understand or know how to participate in? Not all BDSM is dark and dehumanizing! Much of it can be a beautiful picture of mutual submission, with the Dom(me) giving so much to the sub by way of nurturing, care and, of course, sexual satisfaction.
Your first question I think is just a different nuance of the word “sensation”- not as in the way the body and brain perceive the situation (which is good!) but rather as “sensationalism”: meaning craving the next big high and progressing further and further until sex is no longer mutual, healthy, and safe, but rather chasing more deviant experiences in order to satisfy a growing craving for the extreme. Does that help? ☺️
Yes, I meant sensationalism definitely–like trying more and more pushing of the boundaries to seek pleasure from riskiness.
I’m guessing a lot of bdsm would fit into this idea of sensationalism–pushing boundaries, craving newness and the extreme. But then a lot of “vanilla” sex advice talks about keeping things fresh and being creative…. is there any sense in which craving creativity and newness is wrong?
I don’t necessarily think so, and studies have shown that the more comfortable and secure people feel together, the more sex does get spicier, for lack of a better word.
Thanks Sheila, very helpful.
I love this article, and I’m looking forward to listening to the podcast episode too! I enjoy reading books in the #3 category – I love the stories and the characters, and the ones I’ve read are genuinely well-written. I wrestled with determining if it was “okay” for me to enjoy books like this or not, and came to the conclusion that for me, it is. I don’t read them for the sex, I read them for the story. Something else I’ve noticed with some of the books I’ve read is that they often make me appreciate my husband even more. I am married to an incredible man, and often I am reminded of his character when reading about the lead male in the books I enjoy. I love this aspect!
One thing that does bug me about some of these books (not all of them, but for sure some of them) is that they often portray the relationship as the center of the lead female’s life – she realizes she can hardly live without her man, that life has little purpose without him, etc. This bugs me because while my marriage is the most important earthly relationship I have, I have an even more important relationship with God. He is the center of my life, not my husband. Even outside of faith, there are other things in life that make it worth living – finding your soulmate doesn’t make life suddenly worthwhile. Your whole world revolving around your relationship isn’t particularly healthy. That’s just something I’ve noticed with some of the books I have read, and it’s something I want to be conscious of in my own life so that I don’t accidentally end up idolizing my relationship.
I think your experience is quite common, where the books don’t harm and even enhance your feelings towards your spouse!
I also think the romance genre makes a woman’s life revolve around the man. It is tough to find a well-rounded book.
I think for me the biggest thing is that your initial list of the problems with porn (which included lots of great examples) didn’t really list what to me is the number one problem with porn: that it is unfaithfulness to your spouse or partner.
Unless someone is in an open relationship, seeing and reacting to someone else fully naked is complete betrayal, and for some reason you didn’t seem to touch on that.
I’m not disagreeing that the justice issue about trafficking isn’t massively important – it is, and should be right up there. But shouldn’t the very first issue with porn be that you are breaking your vows, your promises to the person you made them to, the person you are in a pledged relationship with, and breaking another person’s heart?
I’m someone who has experienced this betrayal in my marriage and so yes its triggering because as so often in my interaction with the Christian world, it feels like my experience is just made out to be irrelevant and somehow overblown. When the reality is, my now ex-husband’s pursual of and interaction with other women naked online turned my world upside down and broke me forever.
When I read you saying regarding romance ‘I agree that in many of the ways they are the equivalent of porn’ it is really, really hard to hear that as someone betrayed with porn. it makes me feel that I’m supposed to equate my husband seeking and enjoying the most private and vulnerable parts of other women’s bodies, with reading a book. It makes me worried that men reading this article who have porn experience could use it to justify how what they did to their wife ‘wasn’t that bad’, or ‘was only as bad as reading a romantic novel’.
When what my ex husband did turned my world upside down and ended my marriage and broke the home our kids lived in. Broke the promises he had made me. Broke my ability to trust, broke my supreme joy and confidence in myself. And broke to some extent my trust in God too, or certainly in the church, and human faith institutions.
While I am a champion of your work, and so grateful for so much of what you are doing, I just wanted to be real that reading this made me feel that I’m supposed to believe that reading a romantic/sexy book is somehow equivalent to what my ex husband did. And I can’t understand that. I know for me I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest way if my ex had read books with great women characters in them, or with descriptions of sex. What is fiction is fiction, there is no real person to challenge or threaten our intimacy, or sexual privacy or make me feel compared or in competition with someone sexually.
Does that make sense? When it came out that the person I had trusted, had pursued these other women nude, it destroyed me. My marriage had been a lie, and I had been used. Stupidly giving my most vulnerable parts because I was the only one he would ever be with, when really the whole time I was being fooled. And to suggest that someone reading a book could destroy someone in the same way, I just can’t see it. Like if my husband had said to me ‘it’s no different me pursuing other women online nude than what you do in your book club, reading all kinds of stuff’, it would have made no sense. I obviously don’t very often read a book that has a lot of sex in it, but the thing is, even if I did, it is not the same for the relationship. The unfaithfulness, the betrayal is totally different.
So it’s just a plea to ask would you consider maybe being more careful in your wording so as not to give men justification/excuses for their actions, in order to lessen how they are perceived, and to include the unfaithfulness angle, because that is the main angle regarding porn in relationships.
When people talk about watching ‘sex on TV’ that can be misleading as what that usually means is you know people are having sex but you don’t actually see anything, or any private parts of bodies, unless you are actually watching something pornographic that is on TV. Porn shows everything, so there is a huge difference. It’s taking something meant either only for marriage, or only for very serious, special relationships, and making it an everyday, mundane thing. Porn use means that a wife who wanted to be the one and only is suddenly now just one of about 3000 women her husband has gorged himself on watching naked. It makes a mockery of choices of self-control chosen by the spouse prior to marriage. And it destroys the woman cheated on, as no matter how much she still loves herself, she has no desire to be part of a harem of thousands of naked women her husband has managed to see. It’s not desirable, it’s not a great offer.
I hope that makes some sense.
That’s an excellent point, and I’m sorry I missed that! Thank you for this.
Hi JSG,
I am with you 100% on everything you said. Broken trust, broken marriage, broken kids, broken covenant. I was so stupid and feel like a fool. I’m talking for decades. There’s no way that a romance novel can compare to watching p*rn. Sending you virtual hugs!!
JSG and Sunflower,
THANK YOU for putting into words the sense of deep betrayal so many of us have after finding out about our spouse’s porn use. This is so often minimized. I don’t feel Sheila has ever minimized it though, and I believe she wrote this article with the express purpose of taking away the justification sometimes used by men, namely equating porn with romance novels. She’s saying they are NOT the same, and that porn is by far the greater problem. I do agree that the unfaithfulness aspect of visual porn should have been more stressed though.