I was reading some articles this morning saying that erotica is now the most popular type of ebook selling.  It made me pause to think about that.  Really?  Erotica?  It must be the fascination with the “50 Shades of Grey” books.

 What does this mean to us as a society?  Does it mean great masses of people all want to escape into a wild, uninhibited sexual fantasy?  Perhaps this is the case.  It is interesting that action, mystery, horror, regular romance, Christian romance and science fiction are all taking a back seat.  I had to ponder why, but there are a few things that came to mind – just my personal opinion.

 First, even those people who don’t like to read much, or don’t have the ability to visualize much while reading might like erotica because well, it is very visual and mixes in all types of drama and emotion as well.  Erotica doesn’t generally take a lot of concentration to read like action, mysteries, science fiction, some romances, or horror novels.  Though I love each one of these genres, I confess my current bliss is running along the biography, autobiography, self-help and business book line at the moment. 

 So what is the draw to erotica?  As I see it we live in a world that is highly social on-line.  We socialize and meet people, touch-base and talk to them in person, on the phone and on-line, but the true physical interaction of going out to meet people is not even close to what it once was.  Even though in many ways we are more social and more connected as a society, we are often connected at the office or in our own homes, which can lead to a lot of highly connected, but sometimes lonely people. 

 Not only are we lonely, but in our highly stressed day and age, sometimes we just want a good escape from reality and though all the different genres do offer escape, perhaps erotica adds in that element of mixing wild passion, high stakes and risk without the real life worry about all the diseases and problems out there.  In a book you can create the environment the characters live in and erase the nightmares of reality or blow them up to epic proportions and make one of the characters a hero to save the day.

 One of the great things about ereaders like Kindle, Nook, ipad, and all the other devices that you can read on, is that it’s all private.  You can take whatever book you are reading to any location and read to be entertained or expand your knowledge without anyone else knowing what you are reading.  This leads me to think that while a lot of people might not seek out or venture to purchase an erotica book off the shelf of the local bookstore, they can download to their hearts content and no one is really the wiser. 

 I’m not knocking erotica by any means.  I think we have an amazing assortment of choices to choose from at any given time and with the ebooks ready, available and easy to download it has made my library expand to 3 times the size it once was, but it isn’t taking up my shelf or floor space any longer and it’s all portable.

 All that being said, I have come to really love and sink into the ebook for so many reasons, the least of which is that I am getting to read and enjoy the works of new authors that might never have been published had they been made to submit and struggle through the hoops of publication from a publisher, and seasoned authors who are finding it enjoyable to release ebook singles and series.  Granted there have been some books that are not that informative or up to standard, but for the most part the books I have read have had useful and up to date information. 

 I am thankful for this technological age and encourage people to expand their horizons, read some things they’ve never read before, touch base with some new authors, make new friends and take advantage of the information age, but don’t forget to go out in the sunshine, spend time meeting friends and get out of the house and office now and then too, heck you can take your ereader with you. ha.

 Cherry Coley ©