Readers Get More than Porno Watchers

Tia Williams

Cavalier Daily

Cavalier Daily

1996-03-19

Readers Get More than Porno Watchers
Tia Williams
Perspective
Women like romance novels. Men like porn movies.
Yes, those statements are sweeping generalizations, but they usually hold true. Being a woman who enjoys romance novels, I cannot relate to porn movies.
Before I began a scathing criticism of them, I went out on a limb and experienced one. I just wanted to be fair.
For me, it was like pulling over to examine a car wreck. Although the problems I had with “Tasty Love" were numerous, I can only discuss a few in this context without offending the censors.
First of all, the movie obviously was not geared toward women. The men in the movie all looked like somebody's uncle from the wrong side of the tracks. They had beer bellies and Bee Gee haircuts.
Although otherwise naked, themen did not consider even removing their trouser socks an important act.
Hey, all of you people out there: I want you to know sex with socks is not sexy.
Second of all, the women in the movie were total frauds. I'm sorry, any woman who can lay flat on her back and have her twin peaks still stand at attention is not to be trusted, and besides, doesn’t that defy just about every law of gravity? Silicon is so out.
Those women were not sensuous at all - they looked more prepared for battle than a night of love. And what nine year old was the makeup artist? All of the actors, if you can call them that, looked like they had painted their makeup on.
I walked away from the movie feeling bruised, not to mention slightly nauseated. It seemed more painful than passionate.
Where were the whispered words full of tender affection and longing?
See, that is the difference between men and women. A woman would be delighted if her man wrote her a beautifully descriptive letter professing his desire for her and only her.
Yet a man would thrilled if his girl showed up at his doorstep in nothing but a fuschia teddy, clutching a bottle of raspberry-flavored "motion lotion.”
Women are moved by what they read or hear, and men are turned on by they see.
Despite the psychology behind men and women's preferences, I still think romance novels are more stimulating than porn movies.
Romance novels are very diverse. Novels run the gamut from Harlequin romances, featuring a carpenter and his "special straight-edge” to gothic romances, with a beautiful couple on the cover, both of their chests bursting out of their colonial outfits.
The sex scenes in those novels are not sex scenes they are love scenes, thank you very much.
Authors of such novels allow readers to use their minds, whereas flesh-popping porn films leave very little to the imagination.
The man does not grip the woman by her overprocessed hair and suddenly grunt, "Do it to me."
Instead, he opts to eloquently express his opinion that she is beautiful and wonderful before he commences his attempt to conquer her person.
The man has a rippling stomach, and although there is usually no mention of it in the novel, you just know the heroine's makeup is tasteful.
I must address, however, the fact that romance novels do contain their own flaws: They aren't very realistic.
As a curious eighth grader, I would flip secretely [sic] through my mother’s novels, occasionally stopping on an interesting dog-eared page. Taking those lustful scenes very seriously, I deemed it appropriate to instruct my 13-year-old crush dramatically to "take me." When he asked me "where?" I was swiftly brought to reality.
Some of the novels' language is outrageous. What exactly is the definition of the rather frightening- sounding "throbbing manhood?" And the lusciously retarded, yet bulging Fabio, posing as the dark rogue clutching his woman on the cover, is only attractive to 60-year- old midwestern women.
All in all, however, those novels are much softer, more sensitive and sexier than porn movies. Sex is sex. The difference lies in how it is packaged.
Wouldn't you eat rocky road ice cream out of a neat cone in a cute restaurant than eat it off of dirty floor with dog? I'll let you reach your own conclusion.