Why Jane Austen Is Better For Your Love Life Than Sarah J. Maas

“You literally will blush as you listen to this thing,” she said. It’s become common knowledge that while men are visually stimulated, women are more enticed by narrative, where we can become invested in the characters before sex scenes arrive. But this difference in media has somehow given women a cultural pass to read (or listen to) pornography while simultaneously criticizing men for watching it, and it’s damaging our relationships. 

To illustrate my point, I took a look at two female romance authors who seem to have a similar grip on the hearts of women today, despite their extremely different approaches to the romance novel: Jane Austen and Sarah J. Maas. Admittedly, this is a bit of an unfair comparison. Sarah J. Maas, though receiving incredible attention by today’s standards, has a tough competitor in a woman whose literary greatness has been a hallmark of the Western canon for over 200 years. Though Maas’ series are more aptly classified as fantasy than romance, women are reading her books just as much for the romance as for the world-building, as Mel Robbins’ rave review suggested. 

More than reading good romance, though, women - myself included - want to experience good romance, and literature plays a large role in showing us the way. Fictional narratives help us to understand others’ thoughts and emotions more thoroughly, away from the larger consequences of real-life interactions. This can be great for teaching us how to have important conversations, or share intimate thoughts, but what about what happens inside the bedroom? Even if we feel the need for guidance, is pornographic fiction where we should turn to find it? 

Your Brain on Books

It’s no mystery that the media we consume affects our brains. Best-sellers like The Anxious Generation have shown us how screen time and over-consumption of media negatively affect our mental state. But more than affecting our mood, what we read and watch teaches us about how others behave, and can in turn inform our own behavior for better or worse. Mirror neurons, found in virtually every area of the brain, fire both when we perform an act ourselves and when we observe another individual performing the same act. Through the use of these neurons, neuroscientists believe that we mirror the actions of others in our own minds. By treating the actions of others as our own, we can observe how we would react in such a situation and then project the resulting thoughts and actions onto the person we are observing. This process allows us to interpret others’ actions and even predict what they may do next, an ability known as theory of mind.

Anyone who has read a novel knows that it can be challenging to keep track of various plot lines and characters, much less the inner life of each character’s motivations, beliefs, and desires. For this reason, some longer novels have a character page complete with short descriptions about each person in the story to aid you in keeping them straight. A study performed at the University of Toronto sought to prove that because of our sophisticated theory of mind there is a correlation between reading narrative fiction and increased social ability. By looking at readers of nonfiction and fiction alike, they found that “fiction print-exposure positively predicted measures of social ability, while non-fiction print-exposure was a negative predictor. The tendency to become absorbed in a story also predicted empathy scores.” So, as fiction novelists, both Maas and Austen can inform our social ability and emotional understanding of others. But with extremely different views on intimacy in romantic relationships, what does each author have to offer us as readers in forming our theory of mind?

Austen and Intimacy

Though Jane Austen only published six novels, over 30 million copies of her books have been sold since their first inception. Her works have become the inspiration for film adaptations galore, and she created tropes that can still be found in romance literature today. So what is the key to staying on top of the literary romance landscape? Each of her novels centers around something that all generations can relate to: relationships. 

Austen focuses on the mental strategy involved in creating and maintaining not only romantic relationships, but also familial relations and friendships. In his book Jane Austen, Game Theorist, Michael Suk-Young Chwe evaluates the ways in which Austen was ahead of her time in understanding processes of strategic thinking, specifically game theory. Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions, but it has applications in the social sciences far beyond its mathematical basis. Austen, according to Chwe, “argues that strategic partnership, two people joining together to strategically manipulate a third person, is the surest foundation for friendship and marriage” (6). Though this may sound negative, what Chwe is referring to is instances in which characters team together to obtain desired results in social situations. A good example of this in Emma is when Mr. Knightley teams up with Emma to change the subject of conversation and avoid a conflict between his brother and her father. In this way, communicating with your partner about your respective motivations and choices is shown by Austen to be the highest form of intimacy; it shows that you have a strong theory of mind when it comes to the other person. 

It's for this reason that we fall in love with Mr. Darcy as he explains to Elizabeth that he aided in rectifying her sister Lydia’s folly. He acted in such a way to win her affection after her initial refusal of his proposal. She, in turn, recognizes in him a true strategic partner; he has proven himself to be worthy of her in the most important respect. But Austen does not make this strategic partnership look easy, for it is not so in real life. Even the most strategically gifted of characters muddy the waters from time to time, sometimes with their overconfidence in their own ability and sometimes because of laziness. It's the former that leads Elizabeth to refuse Darcy at his first proposal - he has not considered her at all in his strategizing and she calls him on it. Because she is forthcoming with her reasons for refusal, though, he is able to take her words as instructions, creating true intimacy between them through honesty in strategy. 

Sex Sells 

Whereas Austen can make you swoon with a glance from Mr. Knightley or an apology from Mr. Darcy, Maas tempts women with sensuous moments and intimate bedroom scenes. Though marketed as young adult fiction, many reviews offer the caveat that her books, especially her series A Court of Thorns and Roses, are not for young teens. 

In addition to teen readers, her books have found a wider audience of women of all ages thanks to reviews on BookTok, where “spicy” romance novels reign supreme. According to one article, “Under the hashtags #smut, #smutbooks, and #spicybooktok, the erotic-romance genre happily found an audience of over 4.8 billion users on TikTok.” This figure should be concerning; erotic-romance is thinly cloaked pornography. Despite this, readers look to the genre as harmless escapism, or even instructional, claiming that it has reinvigorated their sex lives. While this type of literature has been scientifically proven to be arousing, it can undermine healthy sexual relationships. Ultimately, erotic novels benefit the $97 billion dollar porn industry more than they help readers. 

It's to the benefit of the industry if women are looking for satisfaction in fictional characters over working on their relationships with their spouses. Women are busy. How much simpler would it be to escape into the pages of a novel rather than dedicating yourself to uprooting the problems outside the bedroom in order to find connection within it? The porn industry is making money off of band-aids, when what we truly desire is a treatment. 

This past summer, along with their “Summer of Smut” reading guide, The Cut published a piece discussing the dangers of an erotica reading habit: you might find your real-life relationship lackluster in comparison. Though the article laments the lack of men who live up to the standards erotic romance readers have established, I suspect that “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves.” 

Emotional Intimacy as the Key to the Bedroom

In A Court of Thorns and Roses, the highest form of love is an all-consuming romance that inspires the protagonist to kill for her lover - and not in defense. Since when has this been the relationship any of us can (or should) aspire to? What we find attractive in the novel is the ease of the relationship. We idolize their “raw” attraction, celebrate the inevitable happy ending, and revel in our share in the bedroom scenes. But if your own marriage is lacking in physical intimacy, the ease of steamy romance has no answers for you. 

So what is it Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet have that Feyre and Tamlin are lacking? Whether Austen would have termed it as such, they have emotional intimacy - the single best indicator of sexual satisfaction according to a study from the University of Lisbon. Unfortunately, emotional intimacy is not built overnight. In fact, the majority of the work is done outside of the bedroom, and I do mean work. Austen, in her emphasis on strategic thinking, makes room for both of these assertions. 

Her height of intimacy, strategic thinking, takes time and effort to build within relationships. Couples need time with each other, time with friends and family to discuss their romantic partnerships, and time alone to contemplate. The slow burn of her romances illustrates to the reader that a woman’s heart is worthy of being fought for with great effort and strong intention. 

We don’t just love Mr. Darcy because he is dark and churlish, though women do have a thing for that, we love him because he shows his intimate knowledge of Elizabeth’s heart, knowledge that he has obtained with great effort. "In vain I have struggled.” he says. “It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." He shows her love, not lust - the true aim of romantic relationships. 

Though it’s easy to be swept off your feet by a handsome Fae, or seek the distraction of an uncomplicated romance, what you read informs your life. Fantasy and fiction have a place when they are merely make-believe, but physical intimacy is best reserved for the sacred space of your own bedroom. Next time you’re exasperated by something your husband does, read Emma and consider the Mr. Knightley approach, loving kindly and with great understanding.  

But I’ve Read Austen! What’s Next? 

So you’ve been charmed by Emma, schooled in the romances of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and you’re looking for another worthy love to inspire and inform. If you’re on Goodreads, they have a handy clean romance tag that allows you to scan books fellow readers have found to be up to their own standards of closed-door reading. Many publishers, like Penguin Random House, have created lists to show off their own selections. Finally, if you are looking for help in finding or recommending appropriate books for teens, websites like Common Sense Media and Rated Reads have clear, concise rating systems to help you find your next great read.