Page Title

Porn vs Novels

Soroudi, Daniel

Anthro 310

11/11/03

Pornography vs. Romance Novels

I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance novel, not for school, and certainly not for my own enjoyment.  Although I’m not much into pornography either, I get much more excited looking at visual images of attractive women than if I were simply reading about them.  Growing up, I remember the opposite to be true for my older sister, who often had romance novels lying around in her room.  The contrasts between romance novels and pornography underscore how different female and male erotic fantasies are.  These differences reflect human evolutionary history and the disparate sexual selection pressures women and men experience.

According to our course handbook and as evidenced throughout history, men have been larger, and thus, the hunters.  The role of women has been that of the gatherer, and also the rearing of offspring.  To aid men during hunts for food, natural selection has led males to develop enhanced spatial and visual skills, to better coordinate their attacks.  Females instead, have developed better verbal and language skills for communication.  Since men have adapted to become more responsive to visual stimuli, male sexual fantasies have become dominated by visual imagery, while female sexual fantasies place emphasis on the personal characteristics of the partner and the emotional context of the encounter.

The pornography industry has changed little since Victorian times, it is almost exclusively aimed at males (heterosexual and homosexual); it is overwhelmingly visual; involves many different youthful and attractive partners, and provides instant sexual gratification without the need for emotional commitment.  On the other hand, romance novels are aimed directly at women and are fundamentally about mate selection, emotional bonding, and commitment.  Romance novels generally do not contain explicit sex scenes.  This may also be why women do not purchase female-oriented visual pornography (which tends instead to be bought by gay men) and why men show little interest in romance novels (Symons 1979).

Male viewers of pornography crave variety, and frequently, pornography aimed at men includes multiple women.  A possible reason for this need to have many choices may be because men have an unlimited supply of sperm, and in order to achieve the greatest level of reproductive success, must attempt to impregnate as many women as possible.  The pornography men view feeds upon these desires.  Another reason for the variety of women is due to the fact that the male brain can focus narrowly for long periods of time on body parts and the physical sex act.  Therefore an assortment of changing material and an increase in stimulation are required or they become bored (Kastleman 2003).

In contrast, romance novels for women, talk about the characteristics of the mate.  These novels take into account a wide variety of sensorial factors, and do not focus on the physical body experience.  With these mental images in place, a woman can become highly aroused by mental images of couples, but rarely by the mere act itself or by close-ups of body parts the way a man would.  Females achieve greatest reproductive success by having the greatest number of children who survive.  I believe that because women have relatively few eggs, and can only use a small percentage of them over the course of their lives, they tend to be highly selective about sexual partners, carefully choosing a mate they become emotionally involved which presents the best opportunity for reproductive success (Galanti 2003).

Mass-market pornography aimed at men, and romance novels for women feed off the basic desires of each sex.  Variety, and young, visually attractive women are what men wish for, while women enjoy the romance and emotional involvement of intimate relationships.  These preferences are fundamental in their sexual behavior, and have evolved throughout history.

Works Cited

Galanti, G.  (2003).  Evolutionary Perspective on Sex and Gender, Basic Concepts.  CSULA.

Kastleman, Mark. (2003).  How internet pornographers market to women vs men.

http://www.1stopwebprotect.com/webprotect_articles/men_women.html

Salmon, Catherine.  (2003).  Warrior Lovers: Erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality. 

London: Yale University Press.

Symons, Donald.  (1979).  The Evolution of Human Sexuality.  New York: Oxford University

Press.