Erotica For Women
The term Erotica for Women was the original term used before Fifty Shades Of Grey seems to have made it okay to use the word “Porn” in polite society. It just felt less “dirty” and already had a half a century of “Steamy Romance Novels” (“steamy” being a secret code word for “porn” fiction) to support it as a genre.
Now that the cat is out of the bag that a lot of women really LIKE porn of all flavors and levels of intensity, “Erotica For Women” is one of those comfy and safe terms we all use when we don’t want to sound like pornographers, and as a gentle keyword landing strip for women new to porn that might want to have it start off as a bit less shocking and explicit.
What the term “Erotica For Women” does do on the negative side however, is encourage writers such as Leon F. Seltzer at Psychology Today, who went over the “Holy Sweeping Generalizations, Batman!!!” edge when he wrote this in his article entitled “The Triggers of Sexual Desire Part 2: What’s Erotic for Women?”
If there’s such a thing as erotica for women, it revolves around the romance novel. And the amazing popularity of this literary genre suggests the vast differences that distinguish what arouses a woman’s libido vs. a man’s.
Focusing more on the distinct differences between erotic cues for females vs. males, I might begin by emphasizing that males betray a strong preference for very young women. Minors, specifically 16-year-olds, actually represent the single, most popular age category for male porn searches. On the contrary, women show a predilection for older men—sometimes much older than themselves. Which isn’t particularly surprising since the confidence and competence they so highly value in males is largely a factor of maturity and experience.
Erotic female fantasies also differ from most males’ as regards the powerful rendition of the hero and heroine’s thoughts and feelings. Whereas the woman in male porn is pretty much devoid of real human dimensions—being obsessed with “an overwhelming urge to have [indiscriminate] sex with plumbers, pizza boys, and her BFF”, the heroes of romance novels are regularly presented as discerning, clever, and intelligent (if somewhat distant, brutal and untamed). Uncomplicated, sexy scatterbrains may be sufficient for most males’ arousal, but women demand much more from their heroes. Sure, they prefer them handsome, tall, and strong. But they’re not interested in their simply being sex machines either. And romance novels pay scant attention to details of their genitalia—again, as contrasted with sex fiction written for males, which depicts a woman’s curvaceous body in the most lavish, graphic terms possible (and here I’ll omit any examples).
Romance Novels? Male preference for 16 year olds? Handsome, Tall and Strong Males? Oh my. Where did this guy get his PhD from, Bob Jones University?
