Why Are Readers Demanding Less Spicy Reads?

Or Are They?

I recently saw a post that commented on trends in the publishing industry. One of them was that readers seem to be shifting away from so-called spicy reads.

The post gave some good reasons that this shift might be happening—but I think there’s likely more to the story than meets the eye.

TikTok Ramped Up and Ruined “Spice”

The major reason this post gave for the shift away from spicy reads is the rise (and fall) of TikTok. The TikTok algorithm tended to push more outrageous posts. Those would then be viewed, commented upon, and reshared in the form of mocking stitches and more. It kept people glued to the platform, which is the algorithm’s only goal.

The end result was that TikTok tended to overvalue “shocking” snippets. This led to creators ramping up their spice—the more shocking, the more ludicrous, the better. If the position seemed impossible? Guaranteed to go viral, because people are going to spend time commenting on how the physics would even work. A guy taking a tampon out of his love interest’s pussy with his teeth while also expressing jealousy that he has to “share” her pussy with an inanimate object? Pure gold, because people are going to argue about whether this is sexy or just really unhinged.

So, authors got “spicier” and “spicier,” but also crazier and crazier about what they were including in their sex scenes.

Readers Want Emotional Connection

The post claimed that the TikTok “shock value” race is the reason readers are shying away from “spice” now. These content creators were so focused on creating the most unhinged sex scenes possible that they actually forgot about the romance part of their romance novels.

Instead, these books tended to devolve into absolutely outlandish screw-a-thons.

This amplified an age-old problem in a lot of romance novels. Many romance novels suffer from “he was a boy, she was a girl, what more can I say?”-itis. The assumption is that a man and a woman left in proximity to each other will absolutely develop a romance, because man plus woman equals love!

This results in books where it feels kind of like the characters get together because the author said so, or maybe because the plot said so, or maybe even because “it’s a romance novel, duh.” If you try to dig down past those reasons, then there isn’t really much creating a foundation for a relationship.

Now add pages and pages of unhinged “spice.”

Conflating Romance and Erotica

What little emotional development was happening for the characters has been traded for reams of spice. Most of it is just the author playing with their dolls, seeing what zany scenario they can invent to top the last one.

Readers are almost inevitably frustrated with this. Unless you are specifically reading erotica, readers expect some kind of emotional arc for the characters. Sex can be part of that, and it often is. The idea that how much the characters bone proves how much they love each other doesn’t fly for most people. It proves your characters are horny, yes, but that’s about it!

As the post claims, readers are now gravitating away from “spice,” because they want more emotional connection between the characters. They want to walk away feeling emotionally satisfied, not uncomfortably aroused.

Spicy Reads Are Dangerous Now

I agree that the TikTokification of romance novels created a bunch of huge problems—the “each sex scene must be zanier than the last” trend included. I don’t agree this is the only reason readers are setting aside spicy reads.

In fact, I think there are a number of factors we’re not looking at.

One is the environment we find ourselves in. “Spicy” reads and games and media are being increasingly policed. Amazon recently de-monetized affiliate links for anything they deemed “too spicy,” effectively. Fifty Shades of Grey was one of the titles caught up in the “dungeon.”

What does that mean? It means that affiliates are much less likely to share books that have “spice” in them, because Amazon won’t pay them for those links. TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms suppress posts based on certain words. That’s led to self-censorship where we write about d!cks going in püssîes like thïs, because it baffles robots.

In that scenario, “spicy” books are more likely to be buried. They’re less likely to be talked about and promoted. Content creators pivot to “safer” content—like books that are “sweet” and “clean,” not filled with nasty, nasty spice.

The result is that recommendations are changed. People aren’t reading spicy books because other people aren’t recommending them.

Censorship, Obscenity, and Book Bans, Oh My!

The environmental factors are also reflected in the increasing nervousness of publishers. They’re still publishing spicy books; don’t get me wrong on that front. But we have reports that they are increasingly shying away from queer books in particular.

In my example, though, you’ll note that I pointed out Fifty Shades of Grey was caught up in Amazon’s dragnet. That book was not queer—and it was a huge hit. The same is true of SJM’s ACOTAR and the related books in the series. I’ve definitely heard complaints that these books are nothing more than screw-a-thons. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.

Whether or not SJM is writing PWP in her original fiction, though, is a bit beside the point. The books have been challenged in court—alongside explicitly queer titles—as “obscene” works that bookstores shouldn’t carry or sell. In short, someone tried to make it so private citizens couldn’t go into a private business and buy a book.

Skittish Publishers Are Nervous about Spicy Reads

That has a chilling effect on the kinds of books publishers are willing to bet on. Fifty Shades and ACOTAR might still make big money if they were published today, but publishers are also looking at an environment that makes turning them into big hits more difficult—and potentially riddled with legal challenges. That, in turn, makes publishers think twice about what books they’re going to publish. They may ask authors already under contract to make their work less spicy or even “sweet” or “clean,” hoping to avoid censure or lawsuits.

This obviously isn’t true of every publisher. Some publishers are willing to stand up for their right to publish whatever they believe can sell, whether someone deems it “art” or “obscene” or something in between. But on the whole, especially when we’re talking about the Big 5, publishers tend to be conservative. They bet big on a few projects, and they are conservative in their evaluation of what they can sell. Sure, being shocking might sell more books. But it’s also much safer to court “Middle America.” That leads to a lot of milquetoast books being published, and a lot fewer risqué books.

There Is a Conservative Turn Among Younger People

Another interesting thing happening at this exact moment is that there is backlash against “spice” and sexual freedom and liberation among younger people today. We can see this in the existence of the “puriteens.” This demographic emerged in fandom probably close to a decade ago now. Most of them were anti-shipping, claiming that ships were often toxic and problematic and therefore shouldn’t be championed. A lot of them also aligned with sex-negative attitudes, suggesting that “horny” fanfic was a problem within fandom.

This demographic will now have entered their early twenties, but they still have these relatively sex-negative attitudes. They are, in a word, more conservative than the previous two generations.

I don’t think this is actually a result of Gen Z being less horny. I think this is the work of a conservative movement that has sought to vilify and repress queer people and women. One of the ways it is doing that is by spreading its rhetoric among younger people. Younger people seem to have adopted the message that “sex is bad.” They increasingly seem to prefer “romance” and “sweet” stories to “spicy” ones. Some claim this is because of the proliferation of sexualized content on the internet. Gen Z is tired of it. They’ve seen so much sex that they don’t want to see it anymore.

Occam’s Razor for Spicy Reads: People Aren’t Less Horny

I think the more likely reason these attitudes are emerging is that conservative thinkers engaged in rhetoric in spaces such as fandom. Younger people, who are more likely to be swayed by such arguments, were willing to accept them as a general rule. These conservative thinkers were likely older and potentially even active agents of certain organizations, operating with the aim of recruiting more adherents.

I point to fandom, because it’s an incredibly large gathering place. Until about 2010 or so, it was incredibly liberal. In the last two decades, however, it’s become increasingly right-wing, with the emergence of “anti-shipping” discourse. A specific example from the early 2010s is the virtual disappearance of the Roxas/Axel pairing from Kingdom Hearts fandom. Prior to 2010, this ship was quite popular. Post-2010, arguments emerged that it actually promoted grooming and child exploitation, even in works that “aged up” canonically younger characters. The ship became a lot rarer as a result.

Fandom Logic Leaves Fandom

Similar arguments exist across the board in fandom these days. They have even spilled over into online discourse about real people. People will comment on a two-year “age gap” between two celebrities being “problematic,” even though both parties are in their twenties.

These arguments are largely conservative, and they can easily be tied back to the current political forces at work in shaping the United States and other Western regimes. As a friend of mine likes to say, “Every accusation is a confession” with this rhetoric.

The idea here, though, is to vilify virtually all sexual—and queer—content, to scrub everything down to be “pure” somehow. It’s a decidedly white Christian nationalist ideology. The hope is that repressing sexual content means women and other vulnerable populations will remain uneducated. They will, in turn, be unable to protect themselves against those who would exploit them.

It is, in a word, disgusting. But that’s the moment we find ourselves in. I think simply blaming readers for being “over” zany TikTok smut and creators for getting too wacky ignores the larger sociopolitical reality.

Are Readers Actually Demanding Fewer Spicy Books?

If readers are buying less spice, reading less spice, demanding less spice—then it’s because something is telling them that they shouldn’t be buying spice. And as censorship continues to ramp up, reading and writing “spicy” books becomes ever more dangerous. And in that, continuing to seek out, to read, and to write spice becomes an act of defiance.

Long story short: I’m not sure that readers actually demanding less spice. I think the environment is telling them that it isn’t safe to demand spice—and that same environment is also actively working to cut off access.

So, while I could agree there is a trend here, I think there’s something more to be said for looking at how the world around us shapes our desires—both for “spicy” reads and beyond.