Disordered Desires
How romantasies shape affection & the call to discernment
In our age of tech-addiction, romantasies (a genre-blend of romance and fantasy) are being heralded by some as the savior of literature. These books, which are fast-paced and include varying levels of “spice” (or sexual explicitness), could often more precisely be labeled as erotic literature. Rather than taking on this topic at a society-wide level, I’m interested in the ways it’s infiltrating the church.
What is it that has many women in the church championing these books with as much fervency as the rest? These books have a unique way of quietly silencing the alarm of our consciences and subtly altering our beliefs over time. Because of this, many women are facing a crisis of discernment. The following piece provides a starting point for considering how romantasies work within our beliefs and bodies.
How Romantasies Override the Alarm of Our Consciences
The great 17th-century scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal paints a withering view of the theatre, a prevailing medium for story at the time, in his book Pensées. It’s a bit lengthy, but it has insightful implications for romantasies and is worth the read:
“All great amusements are a danger to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theatre. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they are likely to be touched by it. Its violence leases our self-love, which immediately forms a desire to produce the same effects which are seen so well represented; and, at the same time, we make ourselves a conscience founded on the propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot hurt their purity to love with a love which seems to them so reasonable.”
Though “chaste and virtuous” might seem like rather tongue-in-cheek descriptors of the torrid bedroom scenes in romantasies, unpacking the way these stories work on our hearts makes this less certain.
The power of empathy
While the characters, the settings, and the plots inside romantasies are mere simulations of real life, the feelings they produce in us are genuine. They cultivate hope, anticipation, desire – and all of that lives in us, breathing beyond the paper and blurring into the lines of our realities. This access to our inner self is not neutral; it is a creative force, both fostering and destroying feelings and beliefs, according to its particular message. One of the key soldiers in this force is the employment of empathy.
The intimate empathy that books foster in us has a unique ability to soften our current convictions. It doesn’t do this didactically, but with the slow, patient, layered story. We feel for the star-crossed lovers who desperately want to be together. We know (in fact, are led to believe through minute sensory descriptions of gaze, touch and longing) that they will sleep together in a torrid bedroom scene, but we still root for their success in this goal because we feel their passions in ourselves. Describing this to a friend, we might roll our eyes over the obvious error in the characters, but our internal feelings are prone to veer from logic.
What Pascal is getting at is the perceived reasonableness and purity of the love we’re presented. Though the books depict worldly romances, women look more broadly at the attributes of the characters and see their own desires: the man who will fiercely protect them, love them, desire them. It’s the “touch her and die” and “fated mates” tropes. These themes press down on an exposed nerve in women while simultaneously relieving the burden of an impossible desire by achieving it artificially.
The capacity for this empathy to change us – both in our beliefs and actions – is great. Consider the nature of changes we can easily discern within ourselves, and the changes which are harder to pinpoint.
Following the release of Fifty Shaded of Grey, the sale of BDSM products doubled and tripled at some adult stores.1 Cosmopolitan noted a 400% increase in sex toy purchases overall, noting specifically that one product even topped an Amazon best seller list.2
Forsaking the tangential pathway about the rights and wrongs of various sex toys, the numbers are clear: women not only read Fifty Shades by the droves, but it also impacted them to such a degree that they went out and made actual changes to their lives because of it. They wanted their real, in-person romances to resemble something they saw in the book.
The change here is clear: women were persuaded to become more sexually adventurous, opting to try the same methods the book characters employed. The women received a roadmap and they followed it.
But many ideological changes are more subtle shifts of belief. If the goal of the literature we’re reading is the celebration of sin, then in what ways is it catechizing us as Christians?3
Knowing the answer to this requires being awake to what a book wants to teach, so that we can discern whether or not we want to accept the teaching. Is the book sympathetic to same-sex attraction? Does it champion women domineering men? Suggest the ends justify the means? Look for the subliminal messaging in what is championed and what is mocked, what the crowd says and how the protagonist contravenes. The answers to these questions follow closely.
How Erotic Literature Trains our Desires
A study on female sexuality4 “found that the males were more responsive than the females to 29 of 33 categories of stimuli that were potentially erotic. One of the three classes of sexual stimuli to which females were as responsive as males was the reading of erotic literary material.” In other words, and which I think is a surprise to no one, literature is a potent means of women’s sexual stimulation. This puts me starkly in mind of the light switch versus iron analogy from the 90’s. Erotic literature is a conduit for the slow-burn romance women delight in. That we work this way is a matter of creation. What we allow to stimulate this response is a matter of choice. This matters deeply, because erotic literature is not just a conduit for desire, but a means of shaping it as well, since any actions eliciting a sexual reaction train our desires.
Though not all romantasies are porn (as defined by a description of explicitly detailed sexual encounters), many fit the description. The difference between visual porn and erotic literature is medium, not content – explicit images exchanged for titillating descriptors. Harvard Health Publishing substantiates this, explaining, “Erotica is not the same as pornography. Whereas pornography is primarily visual and not very creative, erotica can be more evocative and verbal and allow you to participate mentally and emotionally.”5 It’s not a stretch, then, to include scientific data on the effects of porn on the body. What do the stats on porn say, and how might they relate to explicit romantasies?
Research is clear that “When there is a repetitive release of dopamine over time, the reward center of the brain becomes altered, leaving a person needing more stimulus to achieve the same result. As the brain gets used to the constant highs and lows associated with regular porn use, it starts to create new patterns that drive a person to continue watching porn.”6 It would be hard to deny women’s growing appetite for romantasies, with physical bookstores (like this one in Nashville) devoted to the genre popping up in an age when the likes of Books-A-Million flatline. If the reason for this insatiable desire is dopamine (it would be challenging to deny that factor), and if that dopamine is being repetitively released as women read, then women are being convulsively driven to keep consuming. Addicted, might be the better word.
Sexually explicit books, like visual porn, create pornographic habitats for routine excitement. They draw women back again for more, just as men are drawn back to the screen. Though the medium is different, the means and the method are nothing new. Similar to Pavlov’s experiment, in which “a conditioned stimulus [ . . . ] triggers a conditioned response”7 the content of the books trains women’s sexual desires.
As Christians, we want our sexual desire to fit the mold of God’s intended creation. Our satisfaction is meant to be found within covenantal marriage – which, meaningfully, is the beautiful metaphor we’re given to illustrate Christ’s union with the Church.8
The Issue of Discernment
I’d like to present the case for better discernment as the solution to an unscrupulous freedom where romantasies are concerned.
While Christians shouldn’t be reading porn, there is a vast spectrum of content that is less obviously wrong, but which still may not benefit the believer. This is where we hone our discernment against the friction of what we know is true and what we want to be true; what feels good and what is good; what is wise and what is convenient. This isn’t always particularly easy or pleasant, and we won’t do it perfectly every time, but helping us interpret His laws discerningly is the Holy Spirit, if we are willing to listen.
Rejecting Fence Laws in Favor of Discernment
It is incredibly tempting to write in terms of absolutes (the all’s and the nothings and the fence laws).9 This is what I grew up around, and it instilled in me a great sense of fear. Not a holy fear but a very earthly one, it had me looking for approval in other people as my meter for how I may or may not have been living in obedience to God, according to extraneous rules.
The safest bet here is to immerse ourselves in Scripture. In Hebrews 5, the author describes mature Christians as “those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). Discernment, like all things under the umbrella of sanctification, is a lifelong pursuit; it’s our daily life that provides the training ground we need. To accurately judge things (in this case books) as either good or evil, we have to be well-versed in what God calls good. Further nuancing this, as the famous Spurgeon quote is purported to go, discernment is also “knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
What if our books are actively encouraging thoughts against God’s order? Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” And, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
What kind of thoughts are we even trying to cultivate? “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8). While these words have to be applied well in order to have discernment, they put to shame a lot of top-selling books. Let these words inform your decisions on what to read and what to shelve.
While absolutes feel safe, they don’t make us holier, and they often rob us of the chance to grow our discernment. Cultivating this discernment will serve us all our lives, in every area of life.
In the past few years, I’ve gained a peek at the pervasive influence of smut in the church, and it concerns me. Some of the books are outright porn. Others are filled with physical descriptions that push the boundary between closed-door and open-door scenes, and while they might seem innocuous, they alter our thinking over time. My encouragement, if rejecting these books feels prudish, is Paul’s reminder to the Thessalonians, that “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7). We’re called to subject our entertainment to scrutiny, to see whether or not it is worthy of forming us.
There are ways to rationalize our consumption of less-than-holy entertainment, but instead, lean into the discomfort. As we lean in, we should ask why it feels discomforting, and then examine its fruit in our lives. Commit to searching out your entertainment and require better things of it than smut. Remember that we are formed by the things our minds linger on, and linger on the things of Christ.
Really loved this turn of phrase (“Who or what is catechizing us?”) from Haley Baumeister. I think it gets at the heart of what’s happening.
For a deeper dive into the connection between the Church’s marriage with Christ and “the sexual urge” read this piece by Sacha Mugisha.
Fence laws are distinct from God-given commands by various degrees; they are put in place around God’s commands to keep us from breaking the actual God-given commands.
Wow. A carefully-researched treatise, Mary; a needed warning.