Myth 6: Romance novels are 'chick porn'

The 1972 release of Kathleen Woodiwiss' "The Flame and the Flower" (AVON) is generally agreed to have revolutionised the romance industry for two reasons - by taking the 'action' beyond the bedroom door for the first time and by being released in soft-cover straight up. Following the success of this first release, AVON flogged over eight million copies of Woodiwiss and another romance author's books in three years. These single-titles fed the flames for more passionate, ground-breaking historical romance showing that sexual expression was in great demand amongst readers.

Literally, romance is distinguished from pornography by the inclusion of a relationship between two people as central to the story. Without the romance, the story would fall over. Pornography is all about sexual titlation and without THAT a pornographic story wouldn’t stand up (in fact the story is often very flimsy without the sex).

But when people criticise romance as 'female porn' I think they're being less literal. What they're talking about is the arousal (emotional or physical) that romance can generate. A good romance is full of what is called 'emotional punch', it's what gets your heart hammering and makes your breath catch and has you staying up late to see how it will resolve. Most often that's about something emotional that happens (or doesn't) between characters rather than something sexual. But romance lines with higher levels of sexual expression may also elicit a physical arousal in some readers. The best of those lines elicit both an emotional and sexual arousal.

Readers in other popular genres become just as aroused by literary devices like suspense, horror or mystery and some of these may also include sex. Sex has a role to play in increasing engagement but it is not the primary device.

Just like in the romance genre.

Romantic erotica takes the genre to the sexual extreme but still does not cross over into 'porn' territory, when skilfully delivered. Yes, there's plenty that isn't but, when done well, erotic romance arouses the reader on two levels -- a psychological engagement and a physical engagement. But pull the sex out of a well-written erotic romance and the story will still hold up.