Some women online have reported negative feelings after immersing themselves in these sexy, fictional worlds. One woman on Reddit said she occasionally feels “depressed about [her] boring married sex life” due to the “overwhelming amount of sex in these books.” Others say the men in these books have raised the bar so high, they worry a real partner could never satisfy them to the same degree.
“Book men are just more attentive and emotionally available [because] they are written by fellow women,” another wrote on Reddit.
Spicy romance novels could give some readers unrealistic expectations, Heidegger said, if they haven’t received “comprehensive sex and relationship education and think that these books are how relationships always look.”
Katie echoed a similar point: Some less mature readers — like younger teenagers, for example — “probably don’t have enough life experience to know what can realistically be expected from a relationship or a sexual encounter,” she said. “Frankly, I’m sure there are some adults who may not be mature enough to understand what of a romance novel is reasonable and healthy to expect in a real-life relationship and what isn’t.”
Reading these books might expose deficits in your current relationship. But that might also give you motivation to make some positive changes.
“If you are in a relationship with someone who is not willing to prioritize your pleasure, you may feel even more unfulfilled,” Heidegger said. “On the flip side, you may feel more deserving of a partner who actually is willing to work on things with you, so your standards and expectations of a partner may shift.”
Katie believes the potential downsides you sometimes hear about may be exaggerated.
“Overall I think the blanket negative and disparaging attitudes our society has toward romance as a genre — and smut or romantasy or whatever as subgenres — is largely because of sexism, religious bias and lack of actual research,” she said
Consuming these romantic, erotic plotlines could improve aspects of your marriage or sex life, but they’re not a panacea for all the problems you might face. For Katie, these novels been a “major cornerstone” of her self-care regimen, “not the entire foundation,” she said.
“I don’t want to give the impression that reading romance cured my trauma or fixed my relationship. But it’s absolutely been a key contributor, and I don’t think I’d be as happy and healthy today without it.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
