Romance is porn...

... at least according to Sam over at the Sirens' blog (click link on above title). Sam says, "How pretentious to pretend we don't write porn. How utterly ridiculous to claim that romance books have any redeeming literary value." She's speaking specifically of erotic romance, but appears to be including all of romance in this statement. In fact, in her response to Chey McCray's comments, she says flatly, "Romance books are porn for women. What's wrong with that?"

Hmmm. In her blog entry, she's defining porn as anything that titillates sexually. I'm not sure I agree with that-- by that definition, a lot of commercials and advertisements could be considered porn. Indeed, much of what passes for current "literature" could be considered porn by that definition.

Romances, even the sexiest of them, do have developed plots and characters that raise them above the level of pornography, although I am NOT arguing that romances are great literature. Plot and characterization are not solely the province of lasting literature; any romance writer worth her salt develops a strong plot and interesting characters in her book. The sex scenes may titillate, but that is far from the book's only purpose, or we'd all just pick up Playgirl instead of wading our way through 100,000 words, wouldn't we?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the opposite of "great literature" is not "porn." No one will be studying the collected works of Ellen Fisher a hundred years from now, but I write romances with the intention of touching readers' emotions. That's not pornography; it's fiction writing. If you want to be titillated without any emotional content, skip my books and go get yourself a copy of Playgirl:-).