It occurs to me that romance novels are pornography for women. I don't mean they contain sex (although some certainly do). I mean they are a cheap trick designed to stimulate the pleasure center of our lizard-brains. Men, in their basest state, generally enjoy the idea of consequence-free sex with fertile women. Media which exploit this fact are considered pornographic. Women also have base instincts, but they generally revolve around monogamy and stability (and, of course, consequencial sex). Those themes (or should I say fantasies?) are fundamental to romance novels.
Does it sound crass to say that monogamy and stability are base instincts? We like to think of them as sophisticated concepts, but why? Hell, penguins are monogamous.
Romance novels are the most popular genre in modern literature, worth over a billion dollars in 2007. That might be bigger than regular porn, and that's not counting romance-themed movies or television.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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