I still remember the time my boyfriend and I bought our first ‘sexy’ books. We were excited and silly as we browsed the extensive Mills & Boon selection at WH Smith, two university students instantly transported back to our 13-year-old selves. There were so many genres in the smorgasbord of erotica that lay before us – were we into sexy historical novels or sexy medical novels? Sexy rich men who were misunderstood royalty or sexy rich men who were misunderstood CEOs? Sexy stable boys having fun with duchesses or sexy lawyers lusting after legal secretaries (and if so, would a gavel be involved at any point in the proceedings?)? Decisions, decisions!

We ended up grabbing one at random—mine was of a sheikh from a fictitious Gulf state, my mate is the heir to a Greek shipping fortune—and wincing in embarrassment as we avoided eye contact with the cashier as we shopped, since there were no self-service checkouts yet. We stuffed them deep into our shopping bags and scurried out of the store, cheeks red. The only thing that made this bitter humiliation worth it was the tantalizing promise of self-exploration that lay ahead; although the trip had supposedly started as a joke, we were both oddly quiet on the way home, waiting to disappear into our respective bedrooms and learn to speed-read under the covers.

Since that first furtive encounter in my late teens, times have changed—at least when it comes to sales. Purchases of print books classified as romance and erotica have more than doubled in the U.S., from 18 million in 2020 to over 39 million in 2023, reports The GuardianSales of romance novels and saga books in the United Kingdom increased by 110 percent over the same period.

Anyone who remembers being told in the poor sex education class at school that men are constantly craving it, while women have to be somehow “persuaded” to go to bed, might be surprised by this rise in erotic interest among the latter. I am not.

Women have long been standing up, um, stimulating Literature, from Lady Chatterley’s Lover and pulp fiction to Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper, the idea is far from new. But there has been a noticeable shift in the past decade in terms of shame – or the lack thereof. It began in earnest with the phenomenon of the self-published Fifty Shades trilogy in 2011, when Christian Grey and his “Red Room” sparked a viral sensation and opened millions of women’s minds to the idea that maybe they aren’t so boring after all.

Finally, the general public started talking about female pleasure. In 2019, Lisa Taddeo’s non-fiction book Three womenwhich describes the complexity of female sexual and emotional desire, became a bestseller in the UK and the US; it has now been adapted as a television series starring Betty Gilpin and Shailene Woodley. Netflix’s hot pseudo-historical drama Bridgertonbased on the book series of the same name, is one of the streaming service’s most-watched series – and we all know why, even if people don’t want to say it out loud. (I will – women with great hair and makeup in immaculate dresses being seduced by attractive gentlemen in the back of carriages? That’s full-blown lady porn.)

Then there’s the rise of romance and just plain raunchy novels, which have sent BookTok into a frenzy and boosted sales of the genre. Whatever your particular inclination, there’s an outlet: Neuroscientist Ali Hazelwood writes smutty love stories about women in STEM and science; Sarah J Maas specializes in, for lack of a better term, “fairy porn.” Emily Henry’s classic romantic comedies Friends to Lovers and Enemies to Lovers, popular with millennial and Gen Z women, have sold more than 4 million copies.

“The reason romance novels were so vilified is because it was the only genre where it was OK to talk about female desire, and that doesn’t make it art for some reason,” she said The Independentwho calls the genre “inherently progressive.” “In literature, you can write about people having bad, gross, scary or sad sex,” she said. “But you can’t write about good sex with an emotional connection without people saying, ‘That’s rubbish.’ I feel like it’s a long con that’s been going on since before the Victorian era to just convince women that everything about them is a little bit shameful.”

Change is long overdue. There has always been a huge disconnect between what pop culture would have us believe and what men and women actually experience when it comes to sex—to everyone’s detriment. For decades, there have been constant jokes about women pretending to have “headaches” to avoid their marital duties; comedy shows and male stand-up comedy acts have perpetuated the stereotype that the desire for sex and masturbation are exclusively male interests—while avoiding them is reserved for women. But has this ever truly reflected the reality of our respective sex drives?

Not according to science. Testosterone – the hormone associated with high sex drive – peaks in men at 18 and then declines very slowly until around age 40. In women, on the other hand, libido often increases in their late twenties and thirties, even as our fertility declines (possibly the body’s very last attempt to get us to conceive a child). According to a British study, men’s libido experiences a decline between the ages of 35 and 44, while women’s declines are greatest between the ages of 55 and 64.

Emily Henry

My 30- and 40-somethings and I sometimes talk about it in dimly lit bars. The awkwardness has almost disappeared now that we’re older, if not wiser – “it” means that in many cases the tables have turned. In heterosexual relationships today, it’s the women who “lust after it” who buy lingerie, light fancy candles and block time in their schedules just to try and get their partner between the sheets. They are the recipients, not the givers, of the “I’m just too tired” excuses.

Combine this with the elephant in the room – gender inequality when it comes to orgasms – and you have an environment in which erotic fiction was doomed to thrive. Even among those of us lucky enough to get some, half of 18- to 35-year-old women say they have trouble orgasming with a partner, while 55 percent of men versus just 4 percent of women say they usually climax during a one-night stand. In general, there is about a 30 percent orgasm gap between heterosexual couples, according to sexologist Dr. Karen Gurney’s book Pay attention to the gap.

Then there is the fact that modern dating culture, which reduces us to statistics, swipes and algorithms on various apps, has all but destroyed the idea of ​​true romance and courtship. Dates are like joyless, forced job interviews, where compatibility is determined as clinically and efficiently as possible in the race to find the right partner. Under such circumstances, Course Nurses do something for themselves. Instead of questions about career goals over lukewarm beer, we can immerse ourselves in stories of seething, sensual glances across the boardroom; longing hands touching on the dance floor; glances full of barely contained passion over the operating table.

Despite lingering taboos, women are very interested in sex. We may not shout it from the rooftops, we may not joke about jerking off at every opportunity, and we may not have a recurring subscription to Pornhub. But give us a good book and our imagination… well, that’s a whole other story.