Emotional Pornography

While there is certainly substance and truth to this, similar to a man addicted to pornography. It represents the same struggles, I think for many women it is merely something more simple. I classify this in the same way I would a Soap Opera… it is definately sleaze in it’s finest, and the material is certainly not promoting a healthy “natural” relationship. Although, in the simplest terms the desire to read such material at the very least produces a fantasy that gets the blood boiling.

I think it is more than the sexual side of the material, that is simply one element. As you put it, there is conflict, submission, passion, anger, sadness, etc. The concept pulls on the many emotions to create a world of imagery and feeling. I won’t pretend to understand it, but based on the contextual nature I think that age restrictions should be in call. Though I must say the stereotypical reader that I have noticed has been more of the middle-aged, divorced, and somewhat bitter woman. Even worse, I once worked with a dude that read these things like crazy… he was, well… shall we say “special”.

Men have their fantasies, and women are entitled to their own. I think let the images float in brains, why do others try to control OTHER PEOPLES ideas and turn-on’s?

Sex sells, and thank God for it.

My Goodness! I can’t believe a romance novel can be turned into something disturbing and emotionally scarring. I started reading them when I was 19 and still read them at 42. I am not a bitter, unhappy, divorced middle-aged woman. Quite the contrary…I’ve been happily married for nearly 21 years and have 3 wonderful sons. Women love “love”, and to be loved. A romance novel lets us fall in love over and over again, and we get to experience that wonderful feeling through the heroine. Don’t try to stereotype romance novel readers…you can’t! I’m a professional woman with many interests, including travel, camping, music and art, sewing, knitting and jewelry making. I’m also a history and political buff. I read fiction and non-fiction. Here are the stats…48% of all paperbacks sold are romance novels and they rake in about a billion a year! Someone other than aging, divorced, bitter women are reading them!

“and we get to experience that wonderful feeling through the heroine”

Drugs aren’t the answer. Stop whoring yourself out to bus drivers. Your vagina may have scabies now. Stop coming on to Ray, he’s gay and doesn’t appreciate it. My friend says you like the cum in your eyeball.

*and they shag like seals.*

I read that a pig has a 30 minute orgasm.

mart said: “*and they shag like seals.*

I read that a pig has a 30 minute orgasm.”

Yeah they have corkscrew peckers too. Top that one.

RedHeadDo said: “My Goodness! I can’t believe a romance novel can be turned into something disturbing and emotionally scarring. I started reading them when I was 19 and still read them at 42. I am not a bitter, unhappy, divorced middle-aged woman. Quite the contrary…I’ve been happily married for nearly 21 years and have 3 wonderful sons. Women love “love”, and to be loved. A romance novel lets us fall in love over and over again, and we get to experience that wonderful feeling through the heroine. Don’t try to stereotype romance novel readers…you can’t! I’m a professional woman with many interests, including travel, camping, music and art, sewing, knitting and jewelry making. I’m also a history and political buff. I read fiction and non-fiction. Here are the stats…48% of all paperbacks sold are romance novels and they rake in about a billion a year! Someone other than aging, divorced, bitter women are reading them!”

I believe this article refers to the women who are “addicted” to chick lit. In any case, most events in this story are so unbelievable (and usually terribly written, boy, these authors could never be criminals!) that they are just…stupid. And about all that money…is it being used for something useful?

I perfer my shagging like seals somewhere before page 100. If it takes longer then that I loose intrest!

Am I the only one who finds the name ‘Scottie McMullet’ hillarious?

Not true, I love to read romance stories and I know my relationship with my Husband is perfectly fine.

and writen “porn” cant be any diffrent then the visual porn like Hustler and playboy.

scottie mcmullet is a legend in his own mind.

You forgot one detail! The seven pages about what her dress looks like before he busts her bodice and they shag like seals

Tink said: “Yeah they have corkscrew peckers too. Top that one.”

The four headed spiny ant eater penis? Those wacky monotremes.
Or, check out the many species of duck.
Or, how about the how bed bugs copulate.

Heh. Too bad Camaros haven’t been invented yet. Too bad its not a Camaron tartan.

I finally open up one of these novels and thumbed through it. It was not emotional pornography; it was pornography. I didn’t think “bodice rippers” used the work c**k. I understand not all of these are alike, but Jane Eyre it ain’t.

The comment on the book cover “Too bad Camaros hadn’t been invented yet” is hilarious.

Still, this article just seems like baseless speculation to me. The anecdotal evidence given is a poor substitute for a real study. It sounds a lot like the pseudoscience we still hear about video games causing violence and such, despite the fact that actual studies mostly refute the claims.

I don’t know what studies say on romance novels, but there are studies published on the relationship between watching soap operas and how happy a person is in a relationship. One study concluded that there’s a correlation between soap opera viewing and unrealistic beliefs about relationships (categorized by relationship scientists Epstein and Edelson’s Relationship Beliefs Inventory). However, there was also a significant correlation between these relationship beliefs and television watching in general, with soap opera viewing being the upper end of the scale. These unrealistic beliefs are related to dissatisfaction in relationships, because they perpetuate dysfunctional communication and negative attributions.
Unfortunately, with this kind of research, cause and effect can’t be determined, so who knows if actually watching soap operas contribute to these beliefs, or if people who already believe such are more likely to watch soaps. Just as with romance novels, there are certainly people who watch soaps that have fulfilling love lives (let me know if you meet one…), but there’s clearly a connection between these types of media and unrealistic expectations in relationships.

If anyone’s interested, the study I referenced is in Current Psychology Vol. 18 Issue 2. If you have access to a library with the EBSCOhost database, you can access it online.

Being an under 30, single female, once I did steel myself (pardon the pun) to read a romantic novel. I freely admit, I love Love, am interested in males and even am still mad about horses. However, that 3.75 hours it took to drag myself through the tripe that in encased in a paperback novel that has a busty blonde in the arms of a man who’s boobs are bigger than hers on the cover would have been better and more enjoyably spent trimming the nose hair of a senile old man with a bad head cold and no handkerchief. Quite honestly, if you desire something “romantic” watch the Princess Bride and if you need to read it – turn down the volume and put on the subtitle. No “quivering loins” or “heaving bosoms” need to ever assault the written language again! Huzzar to that!

Enter your reply text here. OK

I started jerking when I saw the girl in the picture! (joke)
If offended, your dad reads playboy!

While peoples social thinking is generally not advanced, peoples innate thinking knows better.
Tell that (innate process) to a Vegas wedding bride.

I have met very few women who are admit to be dissatisfied with their love life. I have met plenty of men who are dissatisfied with theirs. coincidence? No. So to all the happily married women who posted that love this garbage, how often are you intimate with your spouse? Once a week? Less? Do you have to imagine he is someone else to be interested? I’ve been divorced once and in a much healthier relationship now. My friends are about 20 to 1 female to male so I think i have a pretty good base of women I’ve heard about their love life. It’s 100% that he wants more attention to her. Ok. I know ONE person who that isn’t the case…yet when you pick up thatromance trash book and read the emotional pornography you are ripe for the taking…its why you read it. *cry* This is based on personal observation of the women who not just read trash novels but also continuously fawn over the latest sex symbol guy. Go home and treat your husbands to some sincere, heartfelt romance…see if he won’t respond in kind :D

IN MY OPINION, romance novels warp the minds and imaginations of naive individuals. I can’t say that these fiction novels are bad to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt. Reading in any nature is better than watching mindless hours of television. You will learn nothing from romance novels but English and grammar. Fiction is healthy and pleasing, yet I suggest something more constructive to the mind. “Knowledge is never intelligence without opinion” ~Yours Truly, Drucifer

Romance novels should be shot.

Dude, have you read the Twilight saga? It’s awful, of course, but this article reminded me of those extremeley “romantic” vampires. The vampire background on Twilight saga is quite cool, but the romance story the characters develop is so awful in the way it becomes something I may describe as emotional pornography for fat ugly girls with glassess and stupid thoughts…oh! that’s stephenie meyer.

This entire article and the comments on it are by far the worst I’ve seen on DI. It seems like wishful thinking on the part of the writer and the audience. Everyone would like to believe something about a certain part of the population; but in the end it’s just discrimination. There is indeed a culture of romantics (mostly women) that indulge in literotica, and indeed there is a culture of similarly romantic people who fail at real relationships. But there is no cause to draw a linear correlation between the two groups, and worse, no studies presented to support this.
linguaphile85 did mention the case of soaps, but then pointed out the cause-and-effect nature of the studies. It is entirely likely that the romantics who fail at relationships then seek solace in trashy novels; life has led them to learn no better. It is also likely that healthy, happy women like to delve into the self-same world for an escape. Any further conclusions are bordering on fairytales without evidence.
This entire affair seems like “discriminatory pornography” against romance-novel-readers. Perhaps, the opinions of all participators should be reviewed?