The idea that women buy and enjoy dirty books is not new to me or to anybody else who has ever paid attention in a book store. I’m sure I was seeing Black Lace titles on paper before there was an internet. And it’s no secret either that the rise of the portable e-book reader (whatever brand you favor) has triggered a quiet boom in the prose-porn-for-women industry. But if you’re a man and you’re like me, you may have been fooled by the unassuming “Erotic Romance” styling of the genre.
Of course, romances (in the modern sense at least) were always somewhat erotic; but the bodice-rippers that circulated when I was a kid were fairly tame. Or, most of them were. I remember exceptions, including one title with an especially-lurid cover that an older girl I sorta knew abandoned in a place I wound up living for a time. She also left behind an article of clothing. (Delicacy prevents me from specifying.) Said article of clothing was discovered to have a most pleasant texture. Sadly, it became unclean (somehow) whilst I was reading the book…
Er, ahem. That was a digression. Where was I? Oh, yes. Was talking about a world in which most men tended to sneer lightly at romances while never looking inside them. Nowadays, if such a man bumps into evidence of the “erotic romance” genre, he might think to himself “huh, well, it’s the 21st century, no doubt they’ve spiced them up a bit.”
Oh, yes they have. Boy howdy!
Another fun fact: e-books don’t take up very much space on a hard drive. Some people have gigabytes of the things. Thus it came to pass that last week I was privileged to be allowed to rummage through one of these large electronic collections. For, you know, research. For the blog. Uhm, hmm. Yeah, for the blog.
And it was very educational, I tell you! Now you know (if you were wondering) what moved me to tweet this:
“Oh my god you filthy wonderful dirty wenches. Men, you have NO idea what is on the Kindles around you. NONE. You are clueless. That is all.
It’s not just that a person might happen upon a copy of Rachel Clark’s Edwina And The Seven Snowed-In Scientists (tagged “Erotic Paranormal Ménage Romance, M/F/M/M/M/M/M/M, Yeti shape-shifters”). You could imagine that was an artifact. A curiosity, an outlier, an anomaly. The internet is huge, people are myriad, Rule 34 is true. You could confidently opine that, sure, there’s probably enough kinky ladies out there who’d buy a book — hey, even a short series of them — with awesome porn like this in it:
When their fathers had explained the way they would all feel a connection to one woman, Kieran had literally laughed it off as legend. Surely it was impossible for all seven brothers, so different in personalities and likes and dislikes, to all fall for the same woman.
Yet here they were. Kieran had absolutely no doubt that Simon, Evan, and Brian would feel the same for Edwina as he, Jake, Calvin, and Gary did as soon as they got a chance to know her.
When Edwina finally nodded that she’d felt safe when they’d carried her back here, the tight grip around Kieran’s chest loosened just a bit.
“Do you remember why you felt safe?” Gary asked.
She looked like she was about to say something really sarcastic, but at the last moment changed her mind and admitted, “I was delusional, seeing things that weren’t actually there. I was just glad to feel warm again.”
“Is that all you remember?” Gary asked in a voice that had Kieran wanting to answer. Jesus, when did his youngest brother get so dominating?
“No,” she said honestly. She dropped her gaze to the ground and looked really embarrassed for a moment. But then, of course, the sassy, outspoken, pain-in-the-ass woman that he was more attracted to each moment finally lost her temper. “What the fuck do you want me to say? That I wasn’t scared because I figured I was probably already dead? That I dreamed I was carried here by a bunch of abominable snowmen?”
“We prefer yeti,” Jake chimed in. “Abominable snowman is kind of insulting.”
She pushed herself onto her feet and began pacing back and forth.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you prefer. I was delusional and not thinking clearly, and there is no such thing as abominable snowmen, so I can’t insult something that doesn’t exist. It must’ve been you and your brothers carrying me back here because everyone else I know probably thinks I’m dead.”
It was quite an impressive speech for a woman who was completely and utterly naked. She’d obviously forgotten her sans-clothing status under the blanket as she poured out her frustrations. It was kind of easy to forget that this woman actually hated the cold. If she hadn’t crashed her helicopter, she’d likely be flying back to a warmer climate at this very moment, and they probably would’ve never met her.
As her words finally ran out, she shivered and glanced down at her unclothed body. With a squawk of complete embarrassment, she tried to pull the material more firmly into place, managing only to drop it even further. Kieran felt his cock leap at the sight of her tightly beaded nipples. His yeti side definitely chose for her to be their mate.
Seriously, I do not mock this. It’s actually pretty good stuff. The setup may be porn-ludicrous, but the characterization is pretty good and the sex writing only moderately over-the-top:
Open and exposed to his gaze, she felt her nipples tighten even more from her arousal than the sudden cold. He must’ve felt her shiver because he leaned over and pressed his warm lips to her cold nipples. She arched off the bed at the intense sensation. He laved the tight buds over and over, his warm hand shaping and squeezing one as his tongue worshipped the other.
She almost leaped out of her skin when she heard someone come through the door. She was naked, hanging off the edge of the bed with all of her secrets exposed, she should’ve been horribly embarrassed, so the gush of desire that pulsed from her core surprised her.
Both men breathed deeply, and this time she was certain they could smell her excitement. Jake immediately started to strip off his clothing, his cock hard and thick and pointing at her like a divining rod. Kieran lifted her knees once more, pushed her thighs wide open and dipped his tongue to her slippery flesh. He licked her like ice cream, the flat blade of his tongue pressing against the sensitive folds.
Jake lowered his head to her breasts, nipping and biting at the hard peaks that begged for his attention. She moaned at the twin sensations. She wanted to writhe against them in sensual agony, but they held her so tight she could barely move. Kieran thrust his tongue deep into her pussy, licking and sucking at her juices, and she cried out at the incredible feeling. He found her clit and latched on to the small nub, suckling the sensitive flesh until she thought she’d scream.
But here’s the thing. This is no artifact. This is a genre. You can buy this title on Amazon, or any of a couple-dozen more from the same author. This publisher appears to specialize in “Ménage” titles; they’ve got at least another thousand titles out there. And that’s before we get to other publishers in other “erotic romance” sub-genres, plus a veritable cornucopia of titles-from self-published folks. Whether it’s your BDSM, your werewolves, your Male/male books, your cops, your cowboys, your dark elves, your vampires, your gangsters, your BDSM cowboy dark elves — I can’t even scratch the surface in one blog post, and I don’t propose to try.
On one level this is a “local man discovers unsuspected scope of ladyporn phenomenon, mind is blown” story. And some of you will laugh at me for it because, like, everybody you knew already knew about it. OK, fair. Har, har.
But on another level, this is a fascinating story about the liberating power of privacy. When a book was a physical artifact only, you had three choices. First, you could limit your reading to book-objects that wouldn’t get you more grief than you could handle, when you were observed with them by your friends and family. Second, you could limit your reading to times and places so private that your book-objects were physically secure from observation. Or, third, you could fudge, by reading book-objects that looked more innocuous than they were, placing them in the first category by courtesy.
Now the electronic reader gives you a fourth choice: read whatever the hell you want, where-ever the hell you want, and just flip closed your completely opaque personalized bejazzled leatherette Hello Kitty e-reader cover whenever anybody else gets too close to your screen. Throw in the Internet so you can buy whatever the hell you want without any witnesses, and the circle is complete. Your credit card statement says “Amazon” and your browser history says (at worst) “erotic romance” and it’s all so very safe from inspection, criticism, or judgment. Now the world is finally safe for the seven horny Yeti brothers who like to share, and for all the women who’ll enjoy imagining themselves as the lucky helicopter pilot who gets herself marooned with them.
That’s liberty, amplified by technology. And it’s no bad thing.
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