Are the books anti-intellectual or are you?
- Kay Zempel
- Feb 16
- 6 min read
Content warnings: language, sex, and rape
The title is rather clickbaity, but it does sum up the crux of an argument that has take root in my brain recently. Every few months or so, someone will pop up on the internet with the same hot take: romance novels, and their readers, are either degenerates or stupid or both. Are there problems in romance as a genre? Definitely. But when denigrating an entire genre, one with the largest reader base, I think you need a better argument than that.
This seems to me as a harmful view to start as we have a growing literacy crisis in the United States. According to a YouGov poll, 40% of American adults did not read a single book in 2025. Not one. If you look further at the data, 82% of the country's reading is done by around 20% of American adults. (1) That a person is picking up a book and reading to begin with is huge. This is coupled with declining literacy rates in the US. A little over half of American adults could read above a 6th grade reading level in 2024, according to the National Literacy Institute. (2) But instead of focusing on how literacy in America is declining, these defenders of great literature instead claim that modern fiction, specifically women’s fiction, is anti-intellectual. Women's fiction and romance are killing modern literature with the depictions of sex and the focus on women. It provides emotional satisfaction that increases empathy like that’s a bad thing. Ultimately, the argument ends like this: women=dumb and emotional therefore women’s fiction=stupid and anti-intellectual.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve read some pretty dumb literary fiction and some absolutely disastrous nonfiction. Bad books exist in all genres, not just the ones marketed to women.
And any good writing instruction will tell you that in fiction, your job as an author is to make the reader feel things. Suspense and tension keep readers turning the page. Emotional satisfaction is what makes good literature, well, good. It is what makes any art form delicious. It’s goosebumps with a beautiful piece of music. It’s tears at an actor’s performance. It’s the second-hand satisfaction when your team makes a goal.
Which means this emotional satisfaction doesn’t just happen in romance or women’s fiction: we enjoy when the detective solves the murder, cheer when the hero completes the quest, and cry as the protagonist in a coming of age novel learns their lesson and is changed for life. Even darker subgenres, like grimdark fantasy, have cathartic elements. The hero gets the shit kicked out of him over and over again. And we kind of like it.
If emotional satisfaction isn’t the problem, then it must be the sex. Writing and reading about sex is icky and therefore not intellectual. Tell that to the likes of Anaїs Nin and Tanith Lee.
What is the problem? What makes these novels anti-intellectual? I think one distinction is that literary fiction, nonfiction, and other genres are marketed as novels. These are Books with a capital B, full of metaphor, symbolism, and allegory. These Books have a deeper meaning, a subtext beneath the text. These Books are smart.
Now, again, good literature contains metaphor, symbolism, etc, etc, etc. But women’s fiction and romance novels aren’t marketed as capital B Books. These little b books are instead promoted as products. These are not Books to be understood, they are content to be consumed.
I don’t want to make this a gendered problem, but from the beginning, romance particularly has been written by women, for women, but marketed and sold by men in the publishing industry. (3) This has gotten worse with BookTok and Bookstagram. Now, popular novel are recommended via social media. The goal is to prove you've read what's hot so you aren’t left out of the conversation. The point is to read and enjoy and post about it.
Because these books are presented as a product, there is less of an impetus to engage with them in the same way one might engage with Hemingway, Faulkner, and the like. If you’d like more feminine examples, then Shelley, Woolf, and Plath. Serious novels are meant to be read, fluffy women’s fiction is meant to be consumed.
Does this mean that if you read popular novels, or read novels like one might eat popcorn, that you are not reading correctly? Not at all. I’m a volume reader. I read a lot and across genres. I read so much that recently I read a novel that I had already read before and didn’t realize until I was halfway through. I then turned around and did the same with the next novel I read. I greatly enjoyed both books—both times I’ve read them—and learned a lot in my read throughs.
However, by looking at women’s fiction as a product to be consumed, I would argue that the unwritten contract going in is that these novels serve as entertainment first and foremost. Any emotional satisfaction is just the cherry on top.
Which means that these novels could contain all the aspects of good literature (metaphor, symbolism, meaning), but the reader isn’t looking for it.
I also think that we forget that in fiction, sometimes sex isn't just sex and sometimes things that aren't remotely sexy are (Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor has two excellent chapters on this). (4) Let's tackle the latter, using an example from my genre, paranormal romance. In Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan point out the trend of paranormal romance heroines being turned against their will, either as a vampire, a wolf, a faery, and so on, as a replacement for the rape that was typical in old school romance. (3) On the surface, a bite on the neck, a scratch by a wolf, or being thrown in a cauldron don't seem overtly sexual. However, they function in the same way. The heroine's agency is taken from her in a very physical way that leaves her forever changed. That sounds like sexual assault to me.
Not all sex and not-sex in novels involve a lack of agency. Two writers I use as a benchmark for this is Ruby Dixon and Alethea Faust. You might not know Ruby Dixon's name, but you've seen her books, notably the Ice Planet Barbarian series and Royal Artifactual Guild. I have to admit. I picked up Bull Moon Rising on a whim. The cover is full of rainbows and a giant minotaur. The word rut is used frequently. Ruby Dixon recently noted in a Threads post that a lot of readers pick up her novels as a joke. (5)
But here's the thing, Ruby Dixon's novels have all the hallmarks of good literature. Ice Planet Barbarians is full of gender politics, agency, identity, and healing from trauma. It's just wrapped up in blue alien penis.
This is similar for Alethea Faust. I will always recommend Sex Wizards to anyone who is listening. Not because the magic system is based on BDSM. Not because the sex scenes are top tier. But because within those scenes are discovery of identity, gender, healing from trauma (are you all seeing a theme here?), and found family. It's so much more than just sex.
I write a good deal of spicy scenes myself. My short fiction is written specifically as erotica. I include dominance and submission when I want to examine control and who has it. I use bondage and sensory deprivation in a similar way. What is holding my characters back? From what do they need to break free? BDSM in my work also looks like trust, sometimes for characters that don’t know if they can trust anyone.
It’s not promoting degeneracy. It’s exploring our basic needs as humans.
So I don't think modern women's fiction is making us dumber, but I do think that we are dismissing these books at face value because they have a cutesy cartoon couple on the cover. You aren't going to find meaning and symbolism if you aren't looking for it. Just because you aren't looking for it doesn't mean it's not there.
Keep reading for a list of sources I used in this post.
You can read my review of Bull Moon Rising here as well as my review of Sex Wizards: Initiation here. My paranormal romance Moon Dance is available now. If you'd like to try some of my spicier stuff, The Dark Beside You is an erotic fantasy short story that you can get for free by signing up for my newsletter.
Kay Zempel spends her days with her imaginary friends in the worlds that she’s created. When not writing, you can find her on her couch: trying to make a dent in her TBR, playing cozy games on her Switch, or snuggling her dog (and occasionally her husband). You can find her on socials as @kay_zempel_author, yapping on Threads or posting pics of her sourdough on Instagram, or here on her blog.
Montgomery, David. 2025. “Most Americans Didn’t Read Many Books in 2025.” Yougov.com. YouGov. December 31, 2025. https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/53804-most-americans-didnt-read-many-books-in-2025.
National Literacy Institute. 2024. “2024-2025 Literacy Statistics | National Literacy.” National Literacy. 2024. https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics.
Wendell, Sarah, and Candy Tan. 2009. Beyond Heaving Bosoms : The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Foster, Thomas C. (2003) 2014. How to Read Literature like a Professor : A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. New York, Ny: Harper Perennial.
“Ruby Dixon (@Author.ruby.dixon) on Threads.” 2026. Threads. 2026. https://www.threads.com/@author.ruby.dixon/post/DUlpf74iS9U?xmt=AQF01aabeJ24gBjAJ2fPEkMPkGM2E4FTV5WgMwn6ho1zkw.
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