Why Do Women Like Reading Erotic Novels

Abstract

In the wake of EL James's series Fifty Shades of Grayness, the book market place has seen a veritable surge of bestselling erotic novels over the past decade. The online written report reported here pursued two questions: (i) Who reads these erotic novels? (two) What are the reasons underlying this preference? Most of the readers of erotic novels that responded to our survey are heterosexual women in committed relationships. They are highly educated, from a wide age bridge, describe themselves equally avid readers and like to share their reading experiences with others. Distraction and feelings of ease were identified as prime rewards associated with reading erotic novels. The sexual explicitness of the novels and their potential to provide guidance in life also play a role, still turned out to be less of import than suggested in previous research. Opposite to critical opinion, our participants consider erotic novels––at least to a certain degree–to be emancipated, feminist, and progressive. We relate this finding primarily to the surveyed participants' rather traditional beliefs regarding gender roles. Our study is the first to explore empirically the readership and the reading rewards underlying a electric current large-scale cultural miracle, emphasizing the need for future investigations off the literary canon.

Introduction

Novels featuring explicit depictions of sexual fantasies and acts have been pop for a long time. In the by decade, however, the book market has seen an unprecedented surge of erotic novels (see Kraxenberger, 2019b). 50 Shades of Grayness is emblematic of this trend. The trilogy by EL James (2011, 2012)––subsequently complemented by two further spin-offs (2016, 2017)––sold around 150 million copies and was translated into 52 languages, ^{Footnote one} thus exceeding even the sales figures of Joanne Grand. Rowling's Harry Potter books in terms of paperback editions (Reich, 2015). A vast and active online fan community further testifies to EL James'due south outstanding popularity (3.5 million followers on Facebook^® only, and several more 1000000 on other social media sites). ^{Footnote 2} The filmic adaptations of the trilogy as well as of its successors have lured millions of viewers effectually the globe into cinemas and in forepart of their home TVs. Other contemporary erotic bestsellers that are nearly equally successful include Audrey Carlan'southward series Calendar Girl and Trinity, the After series by Anna Todd and the Crossfire novels by Sylvia Day.

To date, relatively trivial empirical research has been performed on the readership of these extremely successful contempo variants of erotic novels and to the expectations, rewards and communicative practices associated with these novels. In contrast, in the belatedly 1970s and 1980s, several empirical studies were devoted to then popular erotic and romance novels. Data by Coles and Shamp (1984) suggested that erotic novels are used by their primarily female person readers equally a type of not-threatening, socially acceptable substitute for pornography that serves their sexual stimulation. Lawrence and Herold (1988) saw evidence that erotic novels are mostly read for entertainment, still may also enter what they phone call women's "sexual scripts". Young (1979), on the contrary, surveyed a sample of immature women and found no link between reading habits and sexual behaviour. Radway (1984/2009) postulated that romantic fiction (including sexually explicit romances) serves women every bit a means of escaping a drab everyday life and of expressing discontent with and resistance to patriarchic structures while at the same time validating their own identify within these structures and increasing its perceived significance. In a similar vein, Modleski (1982/2008) suggested that a lot of mass-generated literature aimed at women plays with the tension betwixt the internalized male person gaze, the preoccupation with female person innocence, and sublimated feelings of rebellion.

Almost inevitably, these studies were shaped by the specific historical and cultural context in which they were written. In any event, these studies were conducted before the recent wave of erotic novels, which are characterized by a particularly explicit description of sexual acts and practices. It is therefore unlikely that, for instance, Radway's findings regarding popular romances from the 1970s and early 1980s and their midwestern female readers can readily exist extended to gimmicky variants of the erotic novels and their readership.

In terms of more recent research, a survey study by Deller and Smith (2013) has focused exclusively on readers of Fifty Shades of Grey. The report is limited by a fairly small information prepare (N = 83); moreover, analyses do not get beyond per centum descriptions and anecdotal comments from individual participants. Still, the study provides a broader picture of reading motivations, ranging from erotic pleasance and sexual arousal to taking pleasance in the online substitution with other readers of Fifty Shades of Greyness.

Non-empirical studies on the near recent variants of erotic novels have focused either on the texts themselves (e.g., by comparing EL James's novel with Pauline Réage'southward Story of O', Tsaros, 2013), on the responses of very specific reader communities (due east.m., by investigating the responses to Fifty Shades of Grey past evangelical Christian and Mormon bloggers, Whitehead, 2013), or on the texts' relationship to wider cultural debates about sexuality (due east.g., past discussing whether notions of sexual transgression tin be understood as mechanisms for reinforcing capitalism and heteronormativity, Dymock, 2013; cf. Deller et al., 2013).

Citing the low literary value of the new variant of erotic novels, many discussions in the media have readily dismissed their audience every bit readers of bad or mediocre taste, without actually investigating the reading motivations and reading experiences of these readers in any detail. Accordingly, the mainstream discourse on literature and reading is reserved for those who prefer 'ameliorate' (albeit less read) literature, although the readership of erotic novels has a considerable influence on the international volume market. Confronting this groundwork, the written report reported here pursued––without any predetermined anticipations––in a lesser-upwardly manner "from below" ^{Footnote 3} two straightforward empirical questions with an exclusive focus on contemporary readership: Who reads erotic novels? And why practise these readers enjoy these novels? To this end, we conducted an online survey amongst avid readers of erotic novels.

To answer the question of 'who', we collected 4 sets of data from self-declared readers of erotic novels: (i) demographic information, including age, educational level, professional person occupation and relationship status; (ii) cultural preferences, and specifically reading habits, including tendencies to share and discuss i's reading experiences with others; (3) participants' conceptualizations of erotic novels, including an investigation of the features of erotic novels that participants perceive equally important, also equally their stance regarding this kind of literature; and (four) a variety of personality measures.

To address the question of 'why', we analysed participants' self-reported motivations for reading erotic novels as well as the feelings they associate with reading this kind of literature.

Methods and sample description

Survey

Data were nerveless in an online survey conducted in High german. The survey was administered using the software Unipark (www.unipark.info). All experimental procedures were ethically approved by the Ethics Quango of the Max Planck Gild and were undertaken with the informed consent of each participant.

Apart from collecting demographic information, the survey comprised a broad range of forced-option questions and gratis clan tasks. ^{Footnote 4} The unnumbered items were presented with verbal labels arranged diagonally and in ascending social club. Items that were not part of validated scales were presented in randomized society.

In a gratis-association format, participants were asked to list titles of typical erotic novels. The forced-choice questions included High german versions of validated psychological scales. Attitudes towards femininity and masculinity were assessed using the Revised BEM Sex activity Role Inventory (BSRI-R, Troche and Rammsayer, 2011). Participants were asked to reply to 29 statements on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (applies virtually never/never) to vii (applies always). We also administered a short German language version of the NEO-FFI-30, measuring the five personality dimensions of neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness (Körner et al., 2008, based on Costa and McCrae, 1992). Responses were given on a v-bespeak Likert calibration, ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (hold strongly).

An boosted gear up of forced-choice items targeted participants' reading habits along with their broader cultural interests and habits of fine art and media consumption. The items were largely obtained by adapting a questionnaire which had previously been used to written report viewing stances and experiential response dimensions of self-motivated consumption of trash films (Sarkhosh and Menninghaus, 2016). Notably, this adaptation was non driven by the supposition that preferences for trash films and for erotic novels are closely related phenomena. Rather, variants of the adapted questionnaire can essentially exist used for capturing cultural preferences of whatsoever sort. Questions were presented on five-point scales, and participants were asked to indicate their opinions regarding erotic novels (disagree––agree), what features of erotic novels were important to them (not important at all––important), and the frequency of their exposure to erotic novels (never––very frequently).

Recruitment and selection of participants

Participants were recruited through postings on diverse social media sites and book blogs with a focus on erotic novels. The underlying rationale was that media and fine art consumption is typically self-sought, and that cocky-motivated readers of erotic novels are also more than likely to visit blogs or sites specifically targeting such readers (cf. Sarkhosh and Menninghaus, 2016). In improver, nosotros distributed bookmarks that advertised the study in a major bookstore and at a public book presentation. Full legal age was required for participation in the study. Among all participants, 80 volume vouchers, worth 20 Euros each, were raffled.

Since our data were collected anonymously, no conclusion can exist drawn every bit to whether individual participants answered our questionnaire on the basis of the digital postings or the bookmarks distributed. Moreover, our data do not allow united states of america to decide to what extent the self-selected participation in our report might have resulted in a representative reading sample. In fact, we did not even aim at a representative sample of readers that might accept included readers who were disappointed or fifty-fifty appalled by erotic novels. Rather, we aimed at participants who read erotic novels more or less regularly and actually like this kind of literature. Accordingly, participants with no prior experience in erotic novels, likewise as without any liking for them are not included in our sample (for a further discussion of the limitations of our approach, see also Outlook).

Five hundred and fifty-five individuals completed the survey. Since we aimed specifically at readers who like and repeatedly read erotic novels, we excluded data from individuals who indicated entirely unlike reading preferences. The remaining sample comprised 456 participants, all of whom reported that they read erotic novels. The cracking majority (94%) of our 456 participants identified every bit female. Simply 5% identified as male, and 1% did non disclose their gender. Due to the very pocket-sized number of male person participants, their respective data yielded unstable correlation matrices. Therefore, we decided to consider merely female participants in our analyses, resulting in a final sample of 427 participants.

Statistical analyses

All analyses were conducted in SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0, IBM Corp., 2013).

We used principle component assay (PCA) for dimensional data reduction (for a similar process, including reports of comparisons of averaged ways of individual detail loadings, see Sarkhosh and Menninghaus, 2016). In all cases, we used oblique rotation (oblimin). The sampling adequacy for all analyses was verified by the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure (all KMO ≥ 0.72). Bartlett'south test of sphericity indicated in all cases that correlations between items were sufficiently large for PCA (all p ≤ 0.001). Initial analyses were run to obtain eigenvalues for each component in the data. In the following steps, nosotros only considered components with eigenvalues over Kaiser's benchmark of 1. In add-on, we compared these eigenvalues with randomly created ones obtained from Monte Carlo parallel analyses (Watkins, 2000) and inspected the convergence of the scree plots to justify the option of the components we retained afterwards the PCA.

Results

The readership of erotic novels

Defining the 'typical' erotic novel from below

For the definition of the term 'erotic novel' we followed a lesser-upward approach. This has the advantage that the participants of our study could neither orient themselves towards a definition given by us––a definition that would not necessarily be in accord with the views of non-professional readers––nor were participants asked to select titles from a given list of literary works. Rather, participants were prompted to name titles of books they themselves considered to be typical erotic novels.

Four hundred xviii of our 427 participants provided titles. A keen majority of these participants (81.5%) listed 50 Shades of Grey. ^{Footnote 5} In most cases (65%), L Shades of Gray was listed in the first place, followed past the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day (three%) and Anna Todd's Afterward series (2%). Notably, famous literary examples, such equally Nabokov's Lolita, were hardly e'er mentioned. Rather, the data obtained conspicuously indicate that our participants associated the label 'erotic novel' primarily, if not exclusively, with gimmicky bestsellers.

Demographics

Mean age of our female participants was 33.9 years (SD = 10.iv, min = 19, max = 77). Five pct of our female participants were 20 years old or younger, 38% were betwixt 21 and 30 years old. 30-five percent of our female participants were betwixt 31 and xl years old, and fourteen% were between 41 and fifty years old. The group of participants anile between 51 and 77 years comprises viii.3% of our sample.

Nineteen percent of our participants held a university degree, 33% had obtained a higher pedagogy entrance qualification, and 37% a general document of secondary didactics. Nine percent of participants reported the completion of mandatory bones secondary schooling equally their highest level of pedagogy. Two participants (0.v%) went to special-needs schools, and some other 3% did not disclose their level of education. Thus, in total, 52% of our participants had obtained a academy caste or a higher pedagogy entrance qualification. When considering the data provided past the Federal Statistical Office ^{Footnote 6} for comparing, the information from our participants show an education level slightly above the average level for the German population (university degree: 17%; college teaching entrance qualification: 32%; in total: 48%).

Of all participants, 41% were working full fourth dimension, 23% were working part time, and 13% were homemakers. Sixteen percent of participants were students, two% were unemployed, and six% did not report their occupation or job.

About of our participants (94%) are High german native speakers; 3% indicated to have been brought upwards bilingually with German every bit one of their native tongues. Of all our participants, 69% reported to read novels only in High german. In accord with the relatively high level of education, 26% reported to read novels in German language equally well as in English language, and 4% of the participants read novels in more than than two languages.

Of the 427 participants, 85% identified equally heterosexual, 2% as homosexual, and ix% equally bisexual; v% did not written report their sexual orientation. Xxx-nine pct of our participants were married, and 28% were in a committed relationship, but single. Twenty-six percent were unmarried, and 4% stated that "it's complicated." Three percent did not disclose their relationship status at all.

Reading habits and exchanges amongst readers

The majority of our participant sample (80%) described themselves as loftier-frequent readers. 70 percent of the participants indicated that they are fans of a detail book series, volume or writer. On average, participants reported that they read 4.9 novels per calendar month (SD = 3.40; min = 0; max = eleven).

Regarding the frequency of exposure to erotic novels throughout the year preceding the survey, 41 (x%) of the 427 participants indicated that they had read erotic novels on a daily basis. One hundred and five participants (25%) reportedly did and then several times per week, 32 participants (8%) once a week, 77 participants (eighteen%) two or 3 times a month, 71 participants (17%) once a month, and 100 participants (23%) less than once a month. To assess participants' preference for erotic novels, we used the frequency of exposure data as a proxy (cf. Sarkhosh and Menninghaus, 2016; for an alignment of genre preference and genre exposure, run across as well Stern et al., 2018). According to the target group of our survey, the participants showed a loftier preference for erotic novels (Thou = iv.02; SD = 0.95).

The great majority of the participants (85%) reportedly exchange views nearly their reading of erotic novels with others. Sixty-five percent do then with their friends, 34% share their feel with other fans or interested readers, 27% of participants with their partner, and 6% with other people, such as family members. Moreover, readers who exchange views about reading erotic novels with others preferably do so in straight personal communication (M = iii.five, SD = 1.1) and via social media platforms (G = ii.79; SD = one.46). Blogs and internet fora were used less often for this purpose (Thou _Blogs = 1.96; SD _Blogs = one.33; M _Fora = i.86; SD _Fora = 1.23).

Conceptualizations of erotic novels

Important features of erotic novels

Participants were asked to indicate how important several features of erotic novels seemed to them (run across Tabular array S1, Supplementary Information). The experimenter-selected features were chosen on the footing of the bachelor literature on erotic novels, discussions with experts from the publishing sector, and our own scientific understanding of this literary genre. Participants' data was used to perform a PCA with oblique rotation. The PCA resulted in 4 components explaining sixty% of the variance of the initial item prepare. Table i shows the factor loading after rotation. (All further tables featuring component loadings for principle components analyses likewise show factor loadings later rotation).

Table 1 Component loadings for a principle components analysis (PCA) with oblimin rotation of the items describing important features of erotic novels (Northward = 427).

Full size tabular array

The items that cluster on component 1––such as "the inner life of the protagonists", "the clarification of the world of the protagonists", "the writing fashion", "the suspenseful story" and "the dearest story"––primarily reflect aspects of the story world (Comp 1; Yard = 4.25; SD = 0.53). Component 2 consists of features related to explicitness (east.g., "the erotic passages", or "a high degree of explicitness/bluntness"; Comp ii; Thou = 3.73; SD = 0.89). Component 3 refers to features of erotic novels that tin can be related to the structure of romance fiction (cf. "that there'south a happy ending", "that at that place are often several books per row", "the love story"; Comp 3; M = 2.77; SD = 0.69). Component four comprises the features female person and male characters of erotic novels (Comp 4; K = 4.01; SD = 0.85). Comparing the averaged means of the private items loading on the 4 components, all components show significantly different means (all F(1,853) ≥ 23.30; all p ≤ 0.001; all η ² ≥ 0.03). The component story world has the highest mean value, followed past the component female person/male characters (see Fig. 1).

Fig. one: Mean ratings for each of the iv components reflecting of import features of erotic novels.

Error bars signal the standard error of the mean. Ways with different letters are significantly different.

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Opinions nigh erotic novels

Based on participants' ratings regarding their opinions about erotic novels (meet Table S2, Supplementary Information), we performed a further PCA with oblique rotation. The 4 components obtained explicate 49% of the variance of the initial item gear up. Table ii shows the factor loadings.

Tabular array 2 Component loadings for a principle components analysis (PCA) with oblimin rotation of the items describing participants' predominant opinion on erotic novels (N = 427).

Full size table

The items that cluster on component 1––such as "hot", "heady" and "proficient"––can be interpreted to reflect the view that reading erotic novels provides positive excitement (Comp 1; M = 3.12; SD = 0.24). Component ii bears on transgressive properties of the novels regarding violations of moral boundaries and taboos (cf. "coarse", "obscene", "perverse"; M = 2.01; SD = 0.65). Component 3 refers to a conceptualization of erotic novels as having a rather low quality (cf. "easy to read", "kitschy", "commercial", "banal", "cheap", and "badly written"; Thousand = 2.58; SD = 0.55). Component 4 comprises items that can be summarized as progressive values (cf. "emancipated", "feminist", "progressive"; Yard = 2.88; SD = 0.59). Comparison the averaged means of the individual items loading on the iv components, the component positive excitement shows the highest mean value (come across Fig. 2), followed by progressive values. All components differ significantly from each other (all F(i,853) ≥ 59.0730; all p ≤ 0.001; all \(\eta^{2}\) ≥ 0.07).

Fig. 2: Mean ratings for each of the four components reflecting participants' opinions well-nigh erotic novels.

Error confined betoken the standard error of the mean. Means with different letters are significantly different.

Full size image

Cultural preferences

Participants were further asked to indicate their cultural preferences, with a special focus on literature (run into Table S3, Supplementary Information). Performing a PCA with oblique rotation on the 32 variables resulted in 7 components explaining 52% of the variance of the initial item prepare. Table iii shows the gene loading afterward rotation.

Table three Component loadings for a principle components analysis (PCA) with oblimin rotation of the items describing participants' cultural preferences and practices, including reading (N = 427).

Full size table

The seven components can be interpreted as preferences for the classical loftier arts (Comp 1; 1000 = 2.37; SD = 0.65), blockbuster/TV (Comp 2; K = 3.53; SD = 0.71), thrillers (Comp 3; G = two.51; SD = 1.06), popular fiction (Comp four; Yard = two.11; SD = 0.88), erotic romance and serial literature (Comp five; 1000 = 4.05; SD = 0.74), media content devoted to culture and special interest (Comp six; Thousand = 2.40; SD = 0.83), and porn movies (Comp 7; One thousand = 1.44; SD = i.xiv; for detailed information on the items that load on the respective components, see Table 3). ^{Footnote 7}

The component erotic romance and serial literature (Comp five, Thousand = 4.05; SD = 0.74) emerged as the component with the highest hateful; it includes the items "erotic novels", "romance novels", and "series of novels" (see Fig. 3). The component blockbusters/Television receiver shows the 2d-largest mean value. All components differ significantly from each other (all F(1,853) ≥ 5.47; all p ≤ 0.02; all η ² ≥ 0.01), with the exceptions of Components 1 and half dozen (F(1,853) ≥0.40; all p = 0.53; η ^two = 0.00) also every bit of Components iii and 6 (F(1,853) ≥2.79; all p = 0.10; η ^two = 0.003).

Fig. 3: Mean ratings for each of the 7 components reflecting participants' cultural preferences and practices.

Error bars indicate the standard error of the hateful. Ways with different letters are significantly different.

Full size image

Personality measures

BSRI-R

We used the revised BEM Sex activity Role Inventory to assess participants' scores on the femininity scale (F-scale; α = 0.85; Thousand = 5.07; SD = 0.76) and the masculinity scale (M-scale; α = 0.89; G = four.09; SD = 0.92).

In a next step, nosotros compared the mean values and standard deviations from the answers of our participants with the values reported in Troche and Rammsayer (2011). Results bear witness no pregnant differences between the two participant samples (all t ≤ one.58; all p ≥ 0.11).

NEO-FFI-30

Based on the German NEO-FFI-thirty questionnaire (Körner et al., 2008), nosotros obtained ratings on the scales for neuroticism (α = 0.89; One thousand = 1.81; SD = 0.96), extraversion (α = 0.77; Thousand = ii.18; SD = 0.67), openness to experience (α = 0.78; Thousand = 2.20; SD = 0.80), agreeableness (α = 0.74; M = 2.82; SD = 0.68), and conscientiousness (α = 0.lxxx; M = iii.00; SD = 0.64). ^{Footnote viii} Given the unbalanced age distribution in our data, we conflated all data across potential age groups.

We compared the data of our participants with those that had been reported for a population-representative quota sample (Borkenau and Ostendorf, 2008). Unpaired t-tests showed that our female participant sample differs significantly from the representative female person quota sample on iv of the five dimensions (for all details of the comparison, see Table 4). Specifically, the participants from our questionnaire report testify significantly lower values for extraversion and openness to experiences, and significantly higher ways for agreeableness and conscientiousness. Regarding neuroticism, the data show no significant differences betwixt the two samples.

Table four Ratings on the NEO-FFI-30; Comparisons of own information (Survey Data) with representative sample (Borkenau and Ostendorf, 2008).

Full size table

Reasons for reading erotic novels

In a next step, nosotros explored participants' reasons for reading erotic novels. Specifically, we assessed, on the 1 hand, participants' sought-after rewards when reading erotic novels, i.east., their reading motivations. On the other paw, we also wanted to know more about the actually experienced rewards, i.e. the feelings they associated with reading this kind of literature.

Motivations for reading erotic novels

The PCA regarding participants' motivations for reading erotic novels (see Table S4, Supplementary Information) showed three components explaining 58% of the variance (encounter Table v).

Table five Component loadings for a principle components analysis (PCA) with oblimin rotation of the items describing participants' motivations for reading erotic novels (Northward = 427).

Total size table

Component ane can exist interpreted as reflecting the motivation of seeking guidance; items with particular high loadings on this component were "to become to know new sex practices", "to become tips for my ain relationship", and "for my sexual stimulation". Component 2 captures the reward of distraction, including items such as "to distract myself", "to relax", and besides––but to a lesser caste––the item "to spotter less Telly". Component 3 reflects the reward of having a say, including items such as "to be able to bring together the conversation/to have a say", "because there are certain books you have to have read", merely also "to watch less TV". Overall, the component distraction (Comp 2, Grand = iii.52; SD = 0.88) shows a significantly college mean value than the items loading on having a say (Comp 3; K = 2.87; SD = 0.91) and those loading on the component guidance (Comp 1; One thousand = two.67; SD = 0.95; meet Fig. iv).The iii components' hateful values differ significantly from each other (all F(1,853) ≥ 10.03; all p ≤ 0.002; all \(\eta^{2}\) ≥ 0.01).

Fig. four: Hateful ratings for each of the three components reflecting participants' motivations for reading erotic novels.

Mistake confined indicate the standard fault of the mean. Means with different letters are significantly different.

Full size image

Feelings associated with reading erotic novels

The PCA regarding feelings associated with reading erotic novels yielded three components which explain 45% of the variance of the initial item prepare (encounter Table S5; Supplementary Information; for factor loadings, see Table 6).

Tabular array vi Component loadings for a principle components analysis (PCA) with oblimin rotation of the items describing the feelings participants associate with reading erotic novels (N = 427).

Total size table

Including items such as "fascinated", "enthusiastic" and "carried away", component ane tin can be interpreted as reflecting feelings of captivation (Comp. one, K = iii.51; SD = 0.57). Component 2 captures feelings of embarrassment (due east.g., feeling "embarrassed", "embarrassed on behalf of someone else" and "disgusted"; Comp. 2, Chiliad = 1.61; SD = 0.49). Component 3 can be summarized as reflecting feelings of ease (including items capturing feeling "laid-back", "unconstrained" and "amused"; encounter Table 4). This component shows the highest averaged mean of all feeling components (Comp. 3, M = three.83; SD = 0.61), followed past the component captivation (see Fig. 5). All components differ significantly from each other (all F(1,853) ≥ 62.10; all p ≤ 0.001; all η ² ≥ 0.07).

Fig. 5: Mean ratings for each of the iii components reflecting the feelings participants acquaintance with reading erotic novels.

Error bars bespeak the standard fault of the mean. Means with different messages are significantly dissimilar.

Full size image

Give-and-take

Our study pursued an exploratory bottom-up approach towards identifying the readership of erotic novels every bit well equally the motivations driving their reading and the gratifications obtained from information technology. A multi-faceted picture emerges, which sometimes draws on aspects of both our research questions—who reads erotic novels, and why—and does not always allow for a clear subdivision of the individual results. While some of our findings confirm the assumptions and predictions of previous theoretical work, other results allow for new insights and interpretations.

EL James's Fifty Shades of Grey was mentioned most frequently as a typical erotic novel. This preeminence is in line with the view that James's story about the unexperienced Ana and her rich lover Christian Grayness with his dark by and desires tin can exist considered a image of the gimmicky erotic novel. This epitome might not merely have been an inspirational source for other authors, but has also contributed to the contempo social acceptance of erotic fiction (Kraxenberger, 2019b).

The 2 other almost oftentimes listed titles––the Crossfir e series past Sylvia Day, and Anna Todd's After series––tin be seen every bit supporting this assumption, every bit both replicate EL James'due south bestselling formula of a sex-, criminal offense- and trauma-enriched Cinderella story (cf. Deller and Smith, 2013). Fifty Shades of Greyness is a prime example of pop texts that are influenced by digitalization (for a clarification of digitally influenced aspects of the trilogy including its origin in the online phenomenon of fan fiction, see Kraxenberger, 2019a). Accordingly, in the survey past Deller and Smith (2013), 23% of respondents reported that they had heard about the Fifty Shades of Grey novels for the first fourth dimension via Facebook; 21% of the study participants had heard nigh the books via TV, paper and radio, ten% via Twitter, and 9% via other websites or platforms.

These findings underline the veritable hype almost the trilogy and its viral spread, in detail on social media channels. However, they also highlight a limitation of our own data sampling, in particular with regard to the educational level of our participants. Subsequently all, in order to mayhap become participants of our study, they had to accept the economic ways and the educational background to competently use digital technologies and to navigate social media.

The finding that readers of erotic novels are mostly women (Bollmann, 2013; Hogan, 1994; Illouz, 2013, Kraxenberger, 2019a) who commonly live in committed (heterosexual) relationships confirms before research (east.m., Radway, 1984/2009). In line with uses-and-gratifications theory (e.g. Katz et al., 1974), Illouz (2013) has argued on theoretical grounds that heterosexual women in stable relationships read erotic novels about heterosexual couples to get advice and inspiration on how to live up to the expectations which our social club tends to harbour regarding never-ending romantic honey and sexual desire in committed relationships (Illouz, 2013). Still, this observation may not arrive plenty. For ane, it disregards the miracle that heterosexual women are also a standard audience for same-sexual activity erotic novels featuring just male protagonists (e.1000., Busse and Lothian, 2017; Foster, 2015). Moreover, although our empirical assay confirms such a guidance component, ii other motivational components turned out to be significantly more prominent. Specifically, aspects related to distraction are the nearly important motivation for our participants to read erotic novels (come across beneath). This finding is too in line with previous research that has emphasized a temporary escape from everyday life as an important reading motivation (Coles and Shamp, 1984; Radway, 1984/2009).

The higher up-average education level of our participants––who are by and large professionals rather than homemakers and quite frequently read novels not just in their mother tongue––is too quite expectable: To get an gorging reader––and especially and then in a strange language––requires first and foremost a solid reading and linguistic communication competence, socialization that allows for developing an appreciation of reading, as well as a certain degree of ambition. Sarkhosh and Menninghaus (2016) advise that the comparable, above-average level of education of trash motion picture fans who participated in their study implies an ironic viewing stance of highly educated cultural "omnivores" (Peterson, 2005), which allows them to transgress normative limits of class and taste as stipulated, for case, by Bourdieu (1984). In a similar vein, our assessment of cultural preferences shows that our higher up-boilerplate educated participants reported a broad range of cultural interests. While they peculiarly appreciate erotic romance and serial literature, including erotic novels, followed by a preference for blockbusters and TV, their cultural interests too include dimensions as various as thrillers, classical high arts, and aspects of culture/special interest. At the same time, and in contrast to the above-reported findings for highly educated trash moving-picture show-fans, we obtained no indications for (self-)ironic dimensions of the liking for erotic novels.

In addition to the broad cultural interest, the very high number of books read per month indicated past our participants is remarkable. This high consumption charge per unit may have its cause in the texts themselves: like other pop literature, such as schematic women's novels or crime thrillers, or many TV series, 50 Shades of Greyness and many of its literary descendants are inherently characterized by the feature of seriality (Kraxenberger, 2019a). In general, seriality appears to support a repetition of previous self-rewarding experiences, and hence the consumption of entire series of novels rather than individual books. This might as well help to explain the unusually high number of participants who describe themselves as high-frequent readers.

The neat bulk of our participants reportedly communicate with others about their reading of erotic novels (run across likewise Deller and Smith, 2013). This finding is in line with the relatively low hateful values of feelings of embarrassment that participants associate with reading erotic novels. The most ordinarily used form of exchange seems to exist talking in person or communicating digitally via social media in 1-on-one settings. Co-ordinate to Cordón-García et al. (2013), such sharing of i's reading impressions within an active, connected (fan) customs might lead to a more than social, participative, and hence broader reading experience.

Regarding their conceptualization of erotic novels, participants rated aspects related to the component story earth (including items such every bit "the inner life of the protagonists", "the suspenseful story" and "the beloved story") every bit most important, followed past the female and male characters of erotic novels. Like to the depiction of relationships in schematic romances (see Nutz, 1999; Zimmermann, 1982), the personal and somewhat heroic life trajectories of the protagonists seem to exist crucial for erotic novels, as many of them combine elements of highly emotional forms of fiction, such as (schematic) romances, with elements of thrillers and crime novels (Kraxenberger, 2019b).

Our analyses further revealed participants' stance that reading erotic novels provides positive excitement, i.eastward., they consider this kind of literature as "hot", "exciting" and "good". Although this component likewise includes the detail "entertaining", this quality seems to be of bottom importance for the conceptualization of reading erotic novels than suggested past Lawrence and Herold (1988).

Interestingly, our results show the 2nd-largest mean values for the component progressive values. Hence our participants consider erotic novels––at to the lowest degree to a certain caste––likewise as emancipated, feminist, and progressive. These attributions are difficult to reconcile with ii fairly consistent aspects of these novels' plots. First, these plots ofttimes promote the image of a perpetually young and cute woman, who, despite her talents or professional success, strongly depends on male recognition and confirmation. Second, preferred male person lovers tend to exist of higher socioeconomic condition equally well as sexually more experienced than the women, thus perpetuating the asymmetry between the 2 sexes.

One possible interpretation of the attribution of progressive values such as "emancipatory" or "feminist" to the novels under scrutiny possibly that they reduce the gender gap in the availability of sexually explicit and potentially stimulant materials tailored to the demands of women and men, respectively. After all, prior to the advent of this new type of erotic novels primarily directed at a female person readership, male audiences had far more choices of sexually explicit materials. In this sense, contemporary erotic novels such as Fifty Shades of Grey may be conceived as marking a step towards equal opportunities for both sexes.

This explanation would be well in line with our findings regarding reading motivation for erotic novels and the aforementioned guidance component, including items such as "to get to know new sexual practice practices" and "for my sexual stimulation". However, since the guidance component shows insufficiently depression hateful values, it tin can only partly explain participants' conceptualization of gimmicky erotic novels as 'progressive'. The positively valued explicitness of the novels might be some other factor that contributes to the attribution of progressive values; withal, the explicitness component, too, is altogether only of weaker importance, limiting its potential explanatory value for the attribution of progressive values.

Another caption of why our participants practice not perceive erotic novels as reactionary or unprogressive might prevarication in their mental attitude towards gender roles. According to our cess of the revised BEM Sex Role Inventory, the sample of our female participants appears to be in full accordance with the conventional gender concepts reported for the reference sample. Accordingly, they exercise non tend to reflect critically on gender stereotypes and patriarchal representations of women, or they simply do not mind such representations because of their ain understanding of gender roles and their identification with these concepts. In this vein, readers that can identify with conventional concepts of femininity might well search for and experience a confirmation of these concepts in reading the erotic novels under scrutiny.

Perchance even more important for a 'progressive' interpretation past their female readers, the novels often portray a pseudo-superiority of the female characters in terms of emotional stability, which they use to mould their male counterparts from merely sexual into affectively intelligent partners (while still being submissive to unyielding patriarchic structures). This would suggest that non much has changed since Radway'due south (1984) study, which observed that compliance with patriarchic structures was oftentimes simultaneously perceived as a way of overcoming or escaping them (see besides Modleski, 1982/2008).

Withal, this conformity to traditional gender roles also has pronounced limitations. For case, the highly pop Fifty Shades of Grayness trilogy romanticizes a sexual human relationship that tin also well be defined as straight-upward domestic abuse, defying both progressive values and conventional gender roles. The apparent acceptance of this relationship by the readers who participated in our survey may indicate that they perceive the violence in Fifty Shades of Gray equally an exciting sexual activity rather than every bit abuse. Accordingly, the female character can be perceived every bit admirably daring and curious and not every bit cocky-effacingly submissive and ruled by the violent whims of her lover. Such an interpretation of the abuse scenario and the readers' apparent desire for representations of submission (cf. Coles and Shamp, 1984) is probable to exist enhanced past a firmly established "protective frame" (Apter, 1982, 1992). This psychological construct refers to a tiptop-downward activation of the cognitive awareness that the presented human relationship is fictional and involves no harm to real persons. Moreover, the general credence of these novels as role of mainstream culture implies the understanding that these novels do not comport whatever social or emotional stigma for the reader (for similar results with erotic and romance novels, see Coles and Shamp, 1984; Lawrence and Herold, 1988).

Regarding our exploratory investigation of the ratings of our participants on the NEO-FFI-thirty, we institute our participants' scores to be lower on extraversion and openness to experiences, but college on agreeableness and conscientiousness when compared to a representative sample. These findings bespeak towards a variety of attributes by which the readership of erotic novels might be characterized:

Post-obit the estimation past Borkenau and Ostendorf (2008), the relatively low mean values on the dimension of extraversion can be understood as indicating a fairly reserved and rather introverted personality.

The low scores on openness to experiences tin can be interpreted in light of recent research co-ordinate to which high scores on openness to experiences predict higher tolerance, liking and interest for complex and cognitively challenging stimuli (Fayn et al., 2017; cf. as well Gocłowska et al., 2017). The low openness-scores obtained for gorging readers of contemporary erotic novels are thus in proficient accord with portraying these novels, as well as romances and other series forms of literature, as highly schematic and piece of cake to comprehend (see e.g., Kraxenberger, 2019b; Nutz, 1999; Thiel, 1991; Zimmermann, 1982).

Further, a recent study that presents a screening tool for the assessment of individual differences in responsiveness to art (Artful Responsiveness Assessment (Area), Schlotz et al., 2020) shows that college than average levels of the openness trait are distinctly predictive of higher "artful responsiveness." In contrast, the traits on which the participants of our study scored particularly loftier (i.e., conscientiousness, agreeableness, see below) are far less associated with artful responsiveness. This suggests that reading motivation and reading rewards underlying the preference for contemporary erotic novels accept less to practice with the trait of genuinely aesthetic responsiveness, which is predictive of intense fine art experiences of a more classical and less schematic type.

Regarding the dimension of conjuration, recent enquiry has reported links between conjuration and cooperative and altruistic tendencies (Zhao and Smillie, 2015) as well as empathy (Mooradian et al., 2011). Our readers' loftier scores on the dimension of agreeableness, forth with their ways of sharing their reading experiences with others, suggest that they accept a pronounced interest in communicative relations; besides, they might place more hands with protagonists of erotic novels. Loftier scores on agreeableness might also suggest a need for harmony. Accordingly, erotic novels could be especially well-suited for readers who appreciate the genre-typical presentation of a disharmonious, merely foreseeable event inside a articulate, predictable narrative scheme (for the theoretical assumption that readers of erotic literature exhibit a special liking for features of schematic dear stories, see Archer and Jockers, 2017). This interpretation allows for a link between participants' low openness to experiences-scores and their loftier agreeableness-scores.

Finally, we interpret our participants' relatively loftier scores on the dimension of conscientiousness equally indicating a rather persistent reader personality with ambitious tendencies (Borkenau and Ostendorf, 2008). These characteristics are reflected, for example, in serial reading and the loftier reading frequency of our participants.

With regard to the question of why people read erotic novels, our analyses prove that aspects related to distraction are our participants' almost important motivation, followed by the component having a say. The latter component aligns with the finding that our participants like to share their reading experiences with others (for similar results, see Deller and Smith, 2013; for a discussion of the functions of active participation in pop culture, cf. Lüdeke, 2011). It farther conforms with the finding that readers tend to experience erotic novels in general, and L Shades of Gray in particular, every bit an opportunity to engage in a public debate almost female sexuality (Deller and Smith, 2013).

The lesser importance of features related to explicitness and to seeking guidance as a motivation for reading erotic novels challenges widely held conceptions of contemporary erotic novels. Previous research had already shown that erotic material does non, for example, influence (long-term) sexual behaviour (Young, 1979). Nevertheless, L Shades of Grey has frequently been classified as "mommy porn" (see for instance Bosmann, 2012) and, consequently, as literary pornography specifically addressing a female person readership (for a distinction between pornographic and erotic literature, see Heinzius, 1995). The more adequate label 'erotic novel' interlinks explicit sexual content with a focus on the developmental trajectory of the protagonists (for correspondences to schematic romances, meet e.1000., Nutz, 1999; Thiel, 1991; Zimmermann, 1982). Equally our data on motivations for reading erotic novels shows, contemporary erotic novels, including Fifty Shades of Grey past East.Fifty. James, Syliva Days's Crossfire novels, or Anna Todd'due south After-series, are obviously read 'with ii hands' and cannot be reduced to their explicit sexual content. At the same fourth dimension and contrary to earlier variants of romances, explicit depictions of sexuality appear frequently and are vital and indispensable for the plotline (see Archer and Jockers, 2017; Deller and Smith, 2013).

Amongst the rewards that are reportedly experienced when reading erotic novels, feelings of ease, i.e., feeling "unconstrained" and "amused" stand out as the strongest factor. Theoretically, such feelings of pleasurable ease could result from a reading experience leading to a concluding catharsis as suggested by Dymock (2013). However, the overall picture of our results rather suggests that the ease component identified in our study bears on the entire trajectory of the act of reading itself (see Radway, 1984/2009, regarding the significance of reading romance and erotic literature). In this sense, the reward reported past our participants can exist interpreted to exist well in line with the hypothesis that ease experienced during processing is a major factor that predicts the enjoyment and the liking of all sorts of phenomena, with the levels of optimal ease differing both between persons and with regard to stimulus characteristics (Reber et al., 2004).

Outlook

As mentioned before, the results of our report are biased by our sampling method that primarily aimed at surveying avid readers of erotic novels online and resulted in an almost exclusively female sample of participants with a preference for gimmicky bestselling novels that are discussed on social media. Findings obtained for this sample cannot be generalized to a larger public and are limited with regard to the comparisons with other data samples. Moreover, the data presented here were not collected with the purpose of documenting in a representative study for the entirety of the German language audition the attitude towards and the experiences with erotic novels. Collecting data from readers that are not familiar with or even dislike erotic novels would have made little sense when aiming at a better understanding of erotic novels and their specific readership (cf. Sarkhosh and Menninghaus, 2016). It should as well be noted that due to the potent focus of our participants on novels of the Fifty Shades of Grey type, the results of our study ultimately likewise leave open whether or not we tin expect like reader and reward profiles for readers of other variants of erotic novels. Moreover, we cannot rule out that at that place is an gorging readership of erotic novels that simply is not responsive to calls for online surveys, and that precisely these readers may take named dissimilar, possibly more than 'literary', titles than our participants did.

Another limitation of our report lies in its focus on participants from a specific culture with distinct values and norms. Therefore, future studies drawing on a representative participant pool are called for that include larger samples of male participants as well as unlike language communities. As well, such hereafter undertakings might accost and compare a diverseness of reading preferences, thus allowing for more fine-grained analyses of the (inter-)relations and interactions between personality features and literary preferences. In improver, future inquiry may also consider the role marketing strategies of publishing houses accept in the promotion of successful erotic books. This includes both the editing process through a publisher and the strategic focus on specific target groups within the broader readership. Annotation, however, that 50 Shades of Grey in item was able to win a considerable fan customs already before it was picked upwards past a publishing business firm. Therefore, business-oriented product and marketing are more likely to play a office with regard to James'due south successors and are clearly not the just contributing factor.

These limitations even so, our study is the first to provide a articulate film of a large grouping of readers of erotic novels and of the reasons why they really enjoy reading them. Most previous enquiry has disregarded the fact that the readers of novels such equally Fifty Shades of Grey represent a rather interesting phenomenon on the volume market: at a fourth dimension when the cultural technique of reading is oft claimed to be failing (Wolf, 2007), they read, in large numbers, erotic novels. Thus, ironically, but the readers who are often implicitly belittled for enjoying rather vacuous and tasteless entertainment are amongst those who effectively counter the much-deplored disappearance of the cultural exercise of reading. In fact, our participants study very high reading frequencies, which speaks against the often-conjured end of the book (in a similar vein, meet Lauer, 2018). At the same fourth dimension, their type of reading obviously differs from that of traditional intellectuals. Instead of applying herself to demanding reading, this blazon of reader––even though highly educated––enjoys simple, entertaining page turners to distract herself and to relax.

There is nothing wrong per se with such an attitude towards literature. However, given the prominent depiction of female submission and abuse, contemporary erotic novels do entail some problematic aspects, all the more so, equally our female readers apparently lack a critical reflection regarding the part of women in this new type of erotic novels. Given reports of a correlation between the consumption of fiction and unrealistic relationship expectations, including sexual perfectionism (Shapiro and Kroeger, 1991), nosotros call for further investigations regarding the credence of the representation of women in contemporary erotic novels.

From a cultural perspective, our study stresses the significance of analysing electric current reading practices equally they provide a footing for a better understanding of the coevolution of literature, readership, and the book market place. Over the past decade, erotic novels of the type investigated in this article have go a major player in this field. The extent to which their great success interacted, if at all, with other segments of literature and the volume marketplace, calls for further investigations beyond the telescopic of the literary catechism.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available since they include personal information from our participants only are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

2. Retrieved June 2020.

   Some other phenomenon that deserves to exist mentioned are the anti-fan campaigns that developed simultaneously. I case is the campaign "50 shades is abuse" on Twitter past Natalie Collins and Emma Tofi that aims at raising awareness of the romanticized domestic abuse in EL James's books.

3. This approach is common in psychology and very well established in the tradition of empirical aesthetics. T.Grand. Fechner, the founding figure of the latter field of research, already referred to this approach every bit early every bit 1876: The "path from below provides […] firsthand and clear orientation non only in the field of the terms […], only also about the reasons […] in the individual and her neighbor" (Fechner, 1876, p. 2, our translation).

4. Given the hypotheses and research questions on which we focus in this written report, some items from the questionnaire were not considered in the analyses presented here.

5. Ordinarily, participants did not specify whether they referred to the trilogy, certain books or whether they would include the two spin-offs under this notion. Therefore, too as due to the fact that many participants named commonage terms like whole series or "all books" of a certain author, we refrained from calculating, e.g. frequencies ranks.

7. The following items showed the highest loadings on the respective components.

   Component i (classical high arts): "museums and exhibitions", "theatre", "opera"

   Component 2 (blockbuster/Tv set): "blockbuster movies", "TV serial", "streaming service"

   Component 3 (thrillers): "literary thriller", "crime novels", horror stories"

   Component 4 (popular fiction): "literary fantasy", "literary science fiction", "comics/manga"

   Component 5 (erotic romances and serial literature): "romance novels", "serial of novels", "erotic novels"

   Component 6 (culture/special interest): "public broadcasting Boob tube", "civilization/special-interest Telly channels", "literary nonfiction"

   Component 7 (porn movies): "porn movies (paid content)", "porn movies (online)"

8. Blastoff and mean values given here refer to averaged (index) values per dimension/scale.

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Acknowledgements

Before putting the survey online, it was presented to and discussed with two professional readers from major German publishing houses—to B. Heinzius from Goldmann publishing, who is responsible for the German 50 Shades of Grey editions, and to 50. Pagel, at the time of the interview editor at the digital imprints for romance (Forever) and crime novels (Midnight) at Ullstein publishing. Many cheers for their willingness to be interviewed and the fruitful discussions we had. We would like to thank Freya Materne for her support with data acquisition. Many thank you to Keyvan Sarkhosh, Wolff Schlotz and Valentin Wagner for their useful input. Also, a big "Thank you" to the members of book groups on social media who shared the link to our report on diverse sites. This paper's data acquisition, analyses, and nearly of its writing were conducted at the Max Planck Found for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Chief, Germany. The get-go author was financed by the University of Basel during the finalization and submission of the manuscript, and by the University of Stuttgart during the review process.

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Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt Bargain.

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Affiliations

1. Department of Language and Literature, MPI for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

   Maria Kraxenberger, Christine A. Knoop & Winfried Menninghaus

2. Digital Humanities Lab, Academy of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

   Maria Kraxenberger

Contributions

MK adult the hypotheses and the study blueprint, conducted the interviews with experts from the publishing sector, collected the survey data, performed the data analysis, interpreted the information and drafted a beginning version of the manuscript. CK and WM provided disquisitional revisions of the data estimation and the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Maria Kraxenberger.

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Kraxenberger, Thousand., Knoop, C.A. & Menninghaus, W. Who reads contemporary erotic novels and why?. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8, 96 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00764-3

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• Received: 26 June 2020

• Accepted: 24 February 2021

• Published: 28 April 2021

• DOI : https://doi.org/ten.1057/s41599-021-00764-iii

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