With the success of Fifty Shades of Gray, Anne Rice has decided to rerelease a series of erotic fiction books she wrote under a pseudonym. Her reasons are that women shouldn’t be expected to be any less sexual than men. Sure, that makes sense. She also says that women should be expected to read erotica just as much as men would.
I’m not arguing with Anne on either of her points really. Expecting one sex to make more money, be smarter, or have better hygiene habits over the other is, in fact, sexism. So if people were going to go around saying only men should read erotic literature or only men are sexual beings then those people would also be sexist.
The thing that kind of confuses me about this whole argument is the fact that I have always expected women to read more erotic literature. I have only read one of Anne’s books and it wasn’t really risqué at all, but I have heard that some of her other books are something that could get your heart racing. The reason Anne’s books are so popular is because women love them. I honestly don’t think I have ever heard of a man reading an Anne Rice book. I’m sure it’s happened, but I just don’t know any man personally that has read one. Women are what drives the popularity of Anne Rice, but we’re not stopping there.
Let me tell you a story, I know I have lots of stories, but listen up. My grandmother used to sell books. She did this for quite a few years. She would comb yard sales and thrift shops to find books that people wanted to read. She always had an adequate selection of racy romance novels. My grandmother herself is not a racy romance reader, she’s more into true crime; don’t ask me why; I couldn’t tell you. My grandmother knew these books would sell, so she sold them.
These were the books with Fabio-alikes on the front cover. Women wore the color red and had low-cut clothing on. Polite people will might label these books ‘poultry’ novels, because they have plenty of breasts and thighs, also twelve original spices. No, I’m kidding about the herbs and spices part, well, maybe I’m not. There probably is a racy romance novel that takes place in a chicken restaurant. Others who are less polite call these novels ‘bodice rippers’, because the women are always ripping their bodices open or a man is ripping their bodice open. This is not a genre associated with men.
Back in the Victorian days, any erotic literature was more likely to be associated with men. Women weren’t completely innocent during this time, but mostly erotica was shoved at men. This erotica was nothing like what we might have today. Somewhere along the line this changed. This genre started to be marketed to women.
I’m sure it went something like good little wife is at home all day taking care of the brats and making sandwiches. Dear husband isn’t that exciting, especially since football season has started. What is a woman to do? I believe this is also how soap operas got started. Women were at home during the day, why not make a show just for them. It would be full of good-looking men, lots of kissing, baby daddy drama, and other stuff. This sounds about right. Honestly, I could never get into soap operas. I can’t deal with all the drama. I couldn’t even keep up with Desperate Housewives. That show is lucky I watched it five times.
Part of me feels like Anne is really trying to cash in on the wings on Fifty Shades of Gray. I know when she published her erotica series she had to use a different name, most likely out of fear of backlash. Sure people could deal with a little erotica, but they didn’t want the whole experience. Times have seemed to change. People are more open about this. At least several of my Facebook friends have made statuses stating their reading of Fifty Shade of Gray and no one seems to be ashamed about this.
I guess since women aren’t as ashamed to admit they’re reading naughty novels, we’ve made a few strides in women’s equality, but this still doesn’t change the fact that the genre is already geared to and dominated by women. It seems like the whole argument for reprinting Anne’s series amounts to nothing more than “hey erotica is popular right now I want a piece of the pie, the sexy pie.”
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One-Eleven Books2 