The girls (inclusive) are fed up with reality. We are done with trying to improve ourselves or using our leisure time to learn something new. Instead we are reading smutty romance fantasy books in droves.
Recently I was succumbing to a stress spiral and my friend recommended and then insisted I read a book that she enjoyed, and just like that my path into the cult was secured.
I devoured five enormous books of one of the most popular romantasy series in an embarrassingly short time, reading morning, noon and night whether it was polite to do so or not.
Thinking I’d stumbled on something precious and unique, I remember sheepishly telling my sister-in-law when she was unwell that there was some easy reading that would be good for her recovery. She laughed when I mentioned A Court of Thorns and Roses. Obviously she had already read the whole series and many of the spin-offs.
It’s not just her. Since my awakening, many people I never would have suspected are in the thrall of the horny fairy books. I hadn’t “discovered” anything, I had joined a thriving worldwide phenomenon.
What’s so addictive about these books? Why do I see people dragging around novels the size of carry-on luggage to read in cafes and on the train?
There are the essential ingredients of course: fairies, swords, magical palaces and rose gardens. But the real answer is: explicit sex scenes.
The author of several bestselling series Sarah J Maas, whose five-star reviews on Goodreads reach well into the millions, knows exactly what the girls want. We want detailed descriptions of outfits and interiors, hundreds of pages of crackling sexual tension, and the notion that in the right circumstances we too would be good at archery.
She also does the smutty bits with precision and flair. And most significantly, in a way that women can get behind. In so much of popular culture the straight male perspective is prioritised and they just don’t get it. In this fantastical universe the men take birth control and, in a huge stretch of the imagination, the fairy world has bothered to invent it. The ACOTAR series goes to great lengths to demonstrate that the heroine is safe and comfortable, even spelling out how she isn’t being financially coerced. Only then can the characters start breaking furniture and rolling around in paint.
The romantasy books I’ve read, now that I’ve gone down this garden path, all feature strong women with big personalities and other skills and pursuits. They are absolutely getting laid, don’t get me wrong, but their relationships with men never define them. This point is so basic it is ridiculous to even have to make it but most movies still do not clear this bar.
It’s a sensation beyond one series and romance novels are nothing new. But there is something about our current times that makes escapism so appealing.
At a time when people are turning up to hospital with scurvy and when a cursory glance at the news shows the impacts of climate change are here, staying home on the couch reading about dragons is about as good as a holiday.
Girl meets boy/fairy/winged creature and falls in love or tries to break a curse. It’s classic stuff. But it’s engrossing, it’s rollicking, it’s absorbing and at least you’re not scrolling. It’s in fact virtuous if you think about your attention span and the thousands of pages that lie ahead when you start a series.
In fact, of all the people I know who have read dozens of these smutty fantasy books and share the obsession, they mostly have senior jobs, stressful workloads and significant responsibilities. Maybe that’s why they need to immerse themselves in worlds of demons, swords, leather outfits and cauldrons. Things are simpler. Hotter. There are no spreadsheets.
As Shannon, my friend who provided me with the gateway drug, said: “At 30 I never thought horny fairies would have such a positive impact on my life.” It’s cheaper than travel, it’s more fun than therapy and you can read anywhere you’re able to drag a book the weight of a brick. Of course we are reading smut.
Emily Mulligan is a mum, aunty and occasional writer from Sydney
