Marie Claire tells us that middle-aged women want to read books about sex more than anything else, according to a new survey. Almost 2,000 women aged between 45 and 60 were asked about their reading habits – two-thirds said they liked "raunchy scenes" in novels, and more than half said sex in books was "titillating".
Apart from the fact that titillating should join Michelle Pauli's list of words we hate ("oh, do that again darling, you're really titillating me") this spurious piece of research seems to rather contradict the news earlier this week that erotica is actually suffering something of a slump, with Black Lace cancelling new titles. Ten per cent of those surveyed said they "actively chose books which featured lots of sex scenes" – it might just be me, but I'd find it hard to tell before reading if a book was going to feature lots of sex scenes, unless I was in the erotica section of the shop.
At any rate, they're obviously not buying enough of these raunchy books to keep the market ticking over, and their choice of their top 10 titles shows little proclivity for smut: Harry Potter, Agatha Christie and Life of Pi are definitely lacking in it; neither is it a central plank in Atonement, Bridget Jones (really? There's nothing better out there?) or The Time Traveler's Wife. I'm wondering if we might be able to provide some better suggestions of titillating reads. John Updike, albeit winner of a lifetime achievement award for bad sex in fiction, would get my vote, having recently read Couples – what are your suggestions, Black Lace titles included?
