Men's Guide to Women

More than once over the course of my life I have had a female acquaintance toss out her opinion on the subject of “pornography.”

“Looking at dirty magazines is disgusting.”

“If I discovered my boyfriend had a porn collection that would be the end of that relationship.”

“It is so gross that men look at that stuff.”

“We are married. The only thing he should be looking at naked is me.”

Hearing these comments over the years has always grated on me a little bit, but I have historically let these kinds of comments go just because it never seemed worth it to wade into a conversation about pornography with women in general.

A while back I found a large overstuffed brown chair to sit in at a local bookstore while I perused the contents of my selections. It was the middle of the afternoon, so the bookstore was almost empty and exceptionally quiet.

As I am reading, I hear some faint giggles in the distance. I let it go, barely acknowledging I heard it.

After a few more rounds of hearing the collective giggling, I am curious and begin to look around to see what is so funny. Finally I see three young girls, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years old, all tucked in a corner of the art section looking at what looks to be a standard paperback book.

Twenty minutes later I am up and headed to the checkout line. As I breeze past the art section I remember the giggly girls and glance to see they are still there. They were gone, but the book they were looking at was on the table near where they were sitting. Still curious as to what was so funny, I take a brief detour to check out the title of the book. It was a romance novel.

Who gets all giggly over a romance novel? I guess young girls can laugh at anything I thought to myself. Looking back at the book I noticed they had bent the hell out of the spine of the book, so much so it was very easy to figure out what they were reading simply by picking the book up and letting it flop open.

What I read surprised me. Three pages of very descriptive sex, short on dialog and long on penetrating details that I would not want my fifteen year old girl reading, assuming I had a fifteen year old girl to begin with.

That evening my wife had three of her girlfriends over for dinner to plan some sort of function that I had nothing to do with. I joined them after wrangling the children upstairs to the game room and later getting them off to bed.

Work had apparently degraded into random chatter by the time I got back to the group because the project was no longer the topic of discussion.

Never one to go timidly into a conversation I threw out my best thought provoking question based on the days events shortly after sitting down and taking a sip of my drink.

“Why are women allowed to consume large quantities of what I will call porn in the form of romance novels with little or no outcry from people in general but a man reading/looking at a magazine with naked women in it is deemed disgusting, gross, or just simply termed a dirty old man? Why the double standard?”

The room got so quiet I could hear myself drink. Everyone sat looking at me and looking around in silence. I did not look directly at my wife, but I was sure what expression she would have on her face.

For that matter, I did not have to look. I could tell by the new buzzing sound in the room that she had just flipped on her eyeball lasers and was making preparations to blast me out of my chair as soon as I dare look at her.

To fill the silence I quickly relayed the story of the events I had seen at the book store to lay the apparently necessary ground work for my question, clear up any misconceptions about me being a dirty old man, and let the silence hang again.

Finally one of the women, Paige, spoke.

“Romance novels are not pornography. They are romance stories, but romance does include sex sometimes. I think it is grossly unfair of you to classify a whole category of books as pornography based on three pages of reading.” Paige said.

“Fair enough.” I said. “So your contention is that I am not even well read enough to be able to have a relevant opinion on the subject. Okay.”

“They call those books ‘bodice rippers.’ “Darlene replied. “It is a bit small minded I think to compare dirty magazines with romance novels.”

“Admittedly, I have never read a single chapter from one of these books, but based on the few pages I did read, that was porn. No matter how you flower it up with fancy words, talking about putting Body Part A into Body Part B and describing the action, blow by blow, (pardon the pun) that’s porn.” I said.

“Not all romance novels are written that way. It is not fair to characterize them all as being porn.” Darlene retorted.

I was honestly surprised at the response I was getting. My wife had the least to say, at least in actual words anyway.

“Well since it seems I have squarely put my foot in it, tell me this. Why is a picture of a naked woman considered porn when a story with a graphic description of having sex with one or multiple men/women not?”

“Those women are being exploited or are exploiting themselves and the few pictures I have seen were gross unflattering positions. They just focus on body parts.” Em responded.

“So, you don’t think the pictures are attractive and you are repulsed by the potential exploitation, so that combined with close ups of body’s parts equates porn?” I tried to clarify. “Why is it OK for Wal-mart to sell fresh romance-porn every third Thursday of the month (when most of the new romance books come out) but not sell Playboy?”

“Why is a picture of a set of boobs more offending than reading about Jack piercing her mound with his pulsating, throbbing member, thrusting in a glaze of her love juices with her skirt pulled up exposing her naked ass any different?”

“OK maybe I went a bit too far with that last one, I apologize for my directness, but I think the looks on your faces make my case. You are all blushing. Your mouths are saying it’s not porn, but your ears just confirmed upon hearing it that it was. You would not be flushed and embarrassed by mere romance talk would you? Well, everyone except my wife, whose face is red because I have hijacked this intimate gathering and maybe irked her a bit. Before she asks me to leave, does anyone have a good answer for this?” I asked.

“Women read romance novels for the love stories and the plot twists. The stories carry the book not the sex. The sex is just a natural part of the romantic progression. The proof would be that women start at page one and complete the book, not skipping to the fifteen or so pages of sex in the book just to get off.” Diane said.

“So you are telling me that descriptions of explicit sex are not porn because they are scenes set in a larger love story? Is that what I am being told?” I asked. “In these magazines that are dubbed porn the pictures are set between articles on cars, clothing trends and interviews with interesting actors, politicians, or business people. Why is that different?”

“That is not a fair comparison.” Darlene replied. The “articles” are not the same as a single beginning to end story about a couple that happens to have sex in it.”

“OK. One more bit for your perusal” I said. I went to the Harlequin book website and looked up their submission guidelines for some of their various titles of books. Here is a copy of the Harlequin Spice book submission guidelines.” I unfolded the piece of paper in my pocket and lay it on the table in center of the group.

Reprinted here from http://www.eharlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=1263&chapter=0

Writing Guidelines
SPICE

Word Length: 90,000 –150,000 words
Format: Trade paperback
Editor: XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX
Editorial Office: Toronto

Modern women have finally begun embracing and taking charge of their own sexuality. Everywhere you turn; the media is celebrating and promoting women and sex: on TV, in Hollywood, in every magazine on the rack. SPICE is Harlequin’s new single-title imprint for really good, really smart erotic fiction for the modern woman who also wants a great read.

We are looking to acquire bold, pushing-the-envelope, high-quality editorial from top authors and talented new voices that have the ability to deliver believable, high-wattage sexual content set within the context of contemporary mainstream fiction. We want novels that will take the genre above and beyond today’s stereotypical erotica stories.

What will set SPICE apart is its broad spectrum of sexy editorial. Stories in this line will range from highly sensual love stories to more contemplative, humorous tales to gritty, slice-of-life experiences of sex and the modern woman. Our diverse editorial direction will include ethnic, literary (humorous, edgy, urban), mystery/suspense and paranormal genres in first or third person point-of-view (female only), or if it works for the story, multiple points of view.

SPICE is…

1. A great plot, an engrossing story with several explicitly sexual scenes that have context within the story.
2. A unique take on modern women, their lives, their relationships and whatever turns them on.
3. Sophisticated, urban, contemporary, realistic, relevant.
4. Graphic, using the kind of frank language typical of the genre.
5. Daring—feel free to explore any and all sexual situations, even ones considered “taboo.”
6. Not a string of unconnected, gratuitous sex scenes.
7. Not a big traditional romance with lots of sex.
8. Not full of euphemisms for body parts or lovemaking.

While actual SPICE titles will not be available until its launch in February 2006, prospective authors can familiarize themselves with some competitive titles, such as: Wifey by Judy Blume, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed by Melissa P., Story of O by Pauline Reage, The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet, Addicted by Zane, The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey, Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell; and authors such as Jaid Black, Emma Holly, Alison Tyler, Sherrilyn Kenyon and Toni Bentley.

Please submit partial or full manuscripts accompanied by a synopsis. No emailed submissions, please. Agented submissions are preferred, but not essential.

Send your submission to:

SPICE

“This reads heavy erotic sex to me. Why aren’t these novels wrapped in tinted plastic and put behind the counter where women would be forced to ask for them and declare proudly that they do indeed want to read porn?” I asked.

No real answer. I could tell the crowd was starting to turn against me and at least one or two were desperately wishing I would shut up and get off the uncomfortable topic. My wife was a little more direct.

“Honey, we really do have some things we need to take care of, can you let us get back to it?” she said.

“Have a good night ladies.” I said, excusing myself.

At the end of the day, I like knowing that females have their own backroom porn collections out there.

I like it that millions of women are out there standing on a razor thin line saying romance novels are not porn because they are wound together with a good story.

Based on the sales of these books and the numbers of women in the adult industries, from being photographed for magazines to more hard core options, it seems that many of the very readers of female porn are the very people making male porn for audiences to consume.

I like it that stacks of females out there posing for nudie pics don’t consider what they do porn, but consider it a form of art instead.

Whatever it takes to make your world go round, I guess.

Men, society tells us we are pond scum dirt bags because we like to look at the form of a naked woman in print or film, yet they keep packaging it up and selling it, and women all over the world will call you all sorts of nice things while they smile and take your money. Women are considered connoisseurs of low brow literature for their consumption of romance novels which they do indeed keep packaging and selling to the tune of $1,000,000,000 a year in new romance paperbacks.

It is somehow more degrading to see pictures of a naked woman than to read about one taking on two lovers at a time or getting sordid second by second details of an encounter in a romance novel. One is disgusting the other is an act of romantic fantasy.

All this has taught me is that men like their sexual charge to come in the form of a shot glass. Concentrated, direct, and quick and repeated as often as necessary to achieve the end goal. Women prefer their sexual charge in big frozen fruity drink. A slow chill in a glass that turns into a warm burn on the inside when given enough time to work.

On another note, going back and reading a few more chapters of these books I get a very clear understanding of what the idealized image of a man is to a woman and a better understanding of why some women will never find what they are looking for.

I have been told that nearly half of all the paperbacks sold are romance novels. I did not verify that, so take it for what it is worth, but that is a lot of potential soft core porn out there.

Men read Playboy for the articles. I know. I know.

Women read romance novels for the love and romance and the six pages describing the dress he is slowly pealing her out of. I know. I know.

I think it is more about the pictures and porn than either side will care to admit, and I am good with that.

Photograph courtesy of  http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1022/1134218160_ef03958134.jpg?v=0