The rise of romance novels: why steamy fiction is taking over

Anyone that can recall the myth peddled in "scant" sex-education classes that men were "gagging for it" while women had to be coaxed into bed might be somewhat surprised by the surge in sales of steamy romance novels.

"I'm not," said Helen Coffey in The Independent. "Women have long been into, ahem, stimulating literature." But in the last decade there has been a "tangible shift" in terms of the shame tied to these types of books. No longer dismissed as a guilty pleasure, open conversations around female sexuality have entered the mainstream, injecting the genre with a new lease of life.

'Full-blown lady porn'

"I spent a weekend reading nothing but smut and I don't need to give you a reason", said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. "But since there is one, here it is: business is booming in the world of publishing and sex".

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Sales of print copies classified as romance or erotica in the US have soared from $18 million in 2020 to more than $39 million in 2023, while in the UK sales during the same period have climbed by 110% and are now worth £53 million annually.

There are endless categories within the genre (including the wildly popular romantasy: a cross between romance and fantasy), but the overall message is clear: the stigma around what used to be called "books women like" has vanished. "Readers no longer care about respectability".

The shift began back in 2011 when E.L. James's self-published "Fifty Shades" trilogy sparked a "viral sensation", said The Independent. Since then, there has been an explosion in sexy best-sellers and television shows. There's a reason why "Bridgerton" is one of Netflix's biggest hits: "It's full-blown lady-porn".

Interest in romance novels spiked during the pandemic as people confined to their homes discovered reading and turned to erotic books as an "escape", said Alexandra Alter in The New York Times.

And the "undeniable" influence of a growing community of romance authors and fans on TikTok has further spurred sales, said Hannah Swerling in The Times. The Booktok hashtag alone has more than 200 billion views, and there are countless hashtags for specific interests from #spicytok to #smuttock. Two of the platform's biggest authors are the romantasy writer Sarah J. Maas, and Colleen Hoover, the social-worker turned author behind the best-selling book "It Ends With Us" which has just been turned into a glossy adaptation starring Blake Lively.

'Destined to flourish'

There's also been a rise in more niche categories like #monsterromance. The overall "vibe" is one of "cosiness", said Emily Gould in The Cut. People are "hanging out in sweats with a 'light makeup' filter on, recommending books where a mothman with a prehistoric tongue gives oral to a woman lying in bed all the way from his perch on a tree branch outside".

With romance continuing to top the best-seller lists, the publishing industry is undergoing a major change with dedicated romance book stores cropping up across the US, said The New York Times. In the last two years alone the country went from having just two stores to a "national network" of over 20 including The Ripped Bodice and Love's Sweet Arrow in Chicago.

The rise of romance is "long overdue" said The Independent. There's been a significant "mismatch" in terms of what popular culture tells us about women and men's sexual experiences and the reality.

While men's testosterone peaks around the age of 18 and gradually decreases until the age of 40, women often see an increase in libido in their late twenties and into their thirties. Add to the mix the "elephant in the room" (the orgasm gap between men and women), and an environment is created in which "erotic fiction was destined to flourish".

Despite "lingering taboos", the truth is a lot of women really enjoy sex. "We may not be forever shouting it from the rooftops" or "have a standing subscription to Pornhub", but "give us a good book and our imaginations… well that's another story entirely".