A time reserved for the Harlequin collection (and its vintage covers), erotic stories today invade the rays of bookstores to the delight of readers. Passionate meetings, impossible loves, sometimes tinged with fantasy (yes!) And melee with all the chapters … The common point of these new works is in action: intimate, even downright raw scenes, described in the smallest details and in a sometimes unbearable suspense. Enough to make those who immerse themselves with delight.
What readers find in erotic romance
But why such a craze for erotic tales, rather than for videos, much more suggestive? The difference is undoubtedly precisely in the much less frontal relationship to sex.
“”I have the impression that when I imagine something, I imagine myself in the image of the female main character, which makes him more alive and more erotic“, describes a surfer on the Reddit network.
“”I like all the strange and naughty things on which people write, and which would not be possible in real life“, Complete another.
Freedom of tone, imagination therefore. But also, a safe place For others, who see in this support a way of playing with their excitement, without falling into an industry that they do not endorse.
“”I don’t have to worry about the written characters or the situations in which they are. I can read my dirty dark romance without having to worry about anyone other than my own feelings“Honestly admits another reader.
Fewer images, less voyeurism, more imagination
Why does erotic literature work? Asked about the subject, psychologist Amélie Boukhobza first evokes the great freedom that these books allow.
“”Writing does not impose anything. He leaves room for the imagination. In a film, everything is already there: bodies, gestures, sounds … And it can be more disturbing, because we find ourselves projected in a staging that we have not chosen. With, in addition, this dimension of voyeurism: we look at bodies that are not ours, in a situation where we remain an outside spectator.“”
In a book, staging and sex are different.
“”It is the reader who does the work. We project our own images, we adjust the intensity, the rhythm, the details. Excitement goes more through suggestion. And it is perhaps there that it speaks more to women: the spirit seizes the text, dresses it according to its desires, its story, its fantasies. It becomes intimate, singular, a little secret too.“A bit like with erotic podcasts.
Become his own director of the intimate
As the lovers of the genre describe, the writing also avoids direct confrontation with porn stereotypes or too caricatured staging. He opens more to sensuality, emotions, psychology of characters. A field that often joins the female erotic universe.
“”In the end, I would say that the erotic book leaves a freedom that the film does not offer. We are not a passive spectator or voyeur in spite of ourselves: you become a creator of his own imagination. And this is where a large part of the excitement resides, in my opinion.“”