[Tod121]

I have very recently discovered that my wife has bought an erotic book, it contains a series of steamy stories, it says will leave you hot and breathless..."Temptations Volume 1 is an anthology of steamy, passionate, and often filthy erotic stories that will leave you breathless and satisfied. Written entirely by women for women and edited by the world-famous Miranda Forbes, this book is ideal as a gift or for travelling."

Isnt this just porn for females or are you going to say this is totally different? I always thought women generally get aroused by mental images whereas men physical images, so what's the difference?

[raindropsugarcane]

I have a few erotic novels. I am not going to say that it is not porn, because it is. There is a big difference between visual porn, like videos or magazines with photos. A lot of that stuff just focuses on the visceral sex which can work for women. But I believe that men definitely have the claim on that kind of porn. Some women need more than just a video of two people going at it, or erotic images. Erotic or romance novels offer an emotional side. It is a bit corny, yes but it helps that there is a connection. That is why it is considered porn for women. At least that is my two cents. lol I may be wrong. but that is why I enjoy it more than any other form of erotic material. Also, being able to imagine a sexual act can be more arousing than actually seeing it acted out.

[bec]

i have recently been looking for romantic/erotic books/dvds by women for women. There r a few but few and far between!

[nyx]

I think most women by "romance" novels. They aren't "erotic" but they have tons of in depth and detailed sex scenes so they might as well be. I don't know what makes the cut off for erotic compared to romance, but they are very similar. Even the romance can get pretty hardcore. Tons of women buy them. I used to work at books-a-million and I sold erotic and romance everyday. However, most of those women weren't with their husbands. I have several romance novels myself, but they are pretty light on the sex. It just happens that some sci-fi and romance coincide at times. Reading about sex though I think is a lot sexier than watching it. I think writing allows for a lot more information than just the visual.

[kristalyn_04]

I agree the written word offers a deeper emotional component to it than video or pictures. What you can see on a screen in two minutes can be dragged out into several paragraphs of text that goes into great detail and includes emotion and deeper meaning than what you can see visually.

Personally I find many of them to be so obviously fake and unrealistic, like a chick flick where you know things would never play out like that in real life. For that reason, I prefer to write them rather than read them (I've written a few erotic short stories). But a well written story can be very HOT! Lol

[nyx]

I agree about them being sort of fake. I accidentally bought one that I thought was just a sci-fi about werewolves. The main girl met this guy that was to be her guide through Haiti, I think, and maybe about one plane ride later they were having sex. I was like, what? But I let it go because this was a new author for me. Then they kept on and on. Then they had sex in wolf form. AH?! I could not believe it. I didn't really go back to that author. Werewolf sex sort of traumatized me.

[jinhi]

In my country (in Asia), women as sex education is a bad thing, so myself and all women of my country who never buy books of pornography to read .

[Tod121]

I agree about them being sort of fake. I accidentally bought one that I thought was just a sci-fi about werewolves. The main girl met this guy that was to be her guide through Haiti, I think, and maybe about one plane ride later they were having sex. I was like, what? But I let it go because this was a new author for me. Then they kept on and on. Then they had sex in wolf form. AH?! I could not believe it. I didn't really go back to that author. Werewolf sex sort of traumatized me.

---------

Werewolf sex? LOL!

NYX, why do you think the women came into your shop without their husbands?

A friend of mine has written erotica and showed me his draths and I have read a few pages in an old "romance" novel and agree reading about and imagining it is VERY hot indeed.
Seeing evidence of my wife buying this book came as a bit of a "pleasent-ish?" shock. She can show an interested side to sex, we have seen a few movies which seemed to get her going, not porn movies, things like the classic Basic Instinct and Eyes wide shut with Tom Cruise but also a sex scene has come on the TV and she's gone "oh for heaven sake" etc, etc and switched it over, much to my frustration.
How do you rate these books, minor titalation or does it heat things up in the bedroom with OR without their other half?

[WildChild]

I think most women by "romance" novels.

Speak for yourself. LOL I don't and I don't personally know any women who read romance novels. I've read a few but I typically read hundreds of books a year for a variety of reasons including just to find out where a genre is these days. Actually I've slowed down the last couple years, I probably read less than a hundred books last year.

I own a bunch of books on sex and sexuality, most written by sex therapists and doctors. I don't own any "erotica" other than a few classics by Anais Nin. The closest I get to a "romance" novel is Jany Austin or Jean Auel. I have looked at some publishers writers sheets for romance novels. Unless something has changed in recent years they are very circumscribed, the target market traditionally was "old maids" and sexually frustrated married middle aged women. It looks like the vampire type stories are more geared a younger market . There are words and phrases that cannot be used (profanity filter) and the same very flowery terms for sex acts and body parts and arousal get used over and over.

Certainly for me reading is preferred to video or pictures and I enjoy some erotica but find most of it pretty off the wall from my tastes and the few "romance" novels I've read tended to tick me off. Desperate for reading material someplace, I been stuck with them in some waiting room and the predictability drive me nuts. Nice girl meets bad boy or misunderstood manly man, he saves her from sort of disaster and his utter manliness overwhelmes her lack of sexual experience or previously passionless sexual background and she becomes some sort of hyper orgasmic sexual dynamo.

There is certainly a market for this type of writing but would like to see more realistic story lines that don't foster the mentality that a man (generally some version of bad boy) will save a woman from her little box of limited sexuality. They aren't sexually empowering. Not really. I'm sure there are a few gems scattered in the mix. Like Kristalyn, I prefer to write my own and have been told by the very few people I have shared it with that it was very intense. I like to paint a scene with words and build the environment and feeling and in many cases the space is part of the sexual arousal. Its a sensual thing.

Kristalyn maybe we should put our heads together and create a book WE would buy?

[SaharaJim]

No WC..you shouldn't create books that you would buy; you should create books that you can SELL. :O)