Phenomenon Underlying Behind Reading Erotic Novels – Disclosed!

Fifty Shades of Grey, a novel by E.L. James's that appeared in 2015 had made the whole book market inundated with a flood of erotic bestsellers. People from all corners began wondering what this type of novel's secret of success could be. The readership of erotic novels and the causes of this literary predilection is now investigated, i.e., who reads erotic novels and why, by a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt/Main, Germany and is published as an Open Access article in the journal Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.

Contemporary erotica is typically dismissed as being of low literary value in the media as well as the academy. Critics and scholars tend to classify its readers as having mediocre to poor taste, without, however, examining their motivations and experiences in more detail.

The Phenomenon of Erotic Novels

The study enrolled around 420 female participants between 20 and 40 years of age, among which the majority of respondents were heterosexual women in stable relationships with an above-average level of education. They described themselves as being enthusiastic frequent readers who enjoyed sharing their reading experiences with others.

Reading erotic novels was indicated as a diversion, and feelings of ease and relaxation & were frequently named as a motivating factor by the majority of respondents. The sexual explicitness of the novels and their potential to provide orientation in readers' own lives also played a role for the participants, although this role was less significant than had been assumed in previous studies.

Readers' opinions about erotic novels also came as a surprise, by contrast with more general critical ideas about contemporary erotica. "Many of the study participants saw erotic novels - at least in part - as being emancipated, feminist, and progressive. We attribute this finding primarily to the respondents' more traditional views of male and female gender roles," says the lead author Maria Kraxenberger.

The present study is the first to investigate empirically the readership and motivations for reading that underlie a major contemporary cultural phenomenon. Although readers of erotica have a significant impact on the international book market, the mainstream conversation about literature and reading is still reserved for "serious" readers of "good," if less popular, kinds of books.

These findings underscore the need for more research that explores reading experiences outside the canon of serious literature.

Source-Medindia