Mormon Women Should Read Romance Novels, Avoid Sherlock Holmes

I came upon two fascinating articles related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the LDS Church or the Mormons, this week. First, in the course of researching an educational topic, I came across this Salt Lake Tribune article. Written by Peggy Fletcher Stack, the article titled "Romance novels may lead to better sex for Mormon women" was first published August 5, 2011. It begins, "LDS leaders have condemned romance novels as 'soft porn,' and literary critics have long railed against these fictional yarns as 'dope for dupes.'"

Come on, leaders, you say "soft porn" like it's a bad thing! Critics, the readers of romance novels are not stupid. Of course we're not stupid. We're reading, not watching Jersey Shore reruns or playing XBox. (Not that I judge you if you enjoy those things.)

Once you get past that opening sentence, though, the article is pro-romance novels. Even with the explicit erotica, these books still tend to promote monogamy and child-rearing, Fletcher Stack states. Forty percent of the Mormon women surveyed, all of whom were romance readers, said the books made their sex lives more fulfilling. Although 55% said they thought the novels were a form of pornography, 80% thought the books were not harming their spiritual lives.

University of Utah literature professor Margaret Toscano is quoted as saying, "Romance writers and readers today do not like weak heroines; they do not like submissive or manipulative little doormats who give over their identity to men and subordinate their wills in order to get a husband. Heroines can be plain, they can be beautiful; they can be innocent or the soiled dove; they can be anti-heroines or kick-ass alpha heroines; they can be feminine or tomboys. But they cannot be stupid or utterly dependent, or women readers will reject them."

Toscano then says, "“For her spiritual well-being, happiness and personal growth, every Mormon woman should read at least one good romance — filled with lots of good sex — at least once a year.”

Yay! Go literature! Go erotic romance! Spirituality and sexuality are far from incompatible, but are rather two good and life-affirming things that very much belong together.

Meanwhile, a middle school in Virginia (U.S.A.) has banned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet for its 6th graders for the book's anti-Mormom bias. In a brief report for New York Magazine's online edition, Adam K. Raymond cites Sherlock Holmes' statement that marrying a Mormon is "a shame and a disgrace" as the reason for the ban. He notes the irony of banning just this one Holmes title when, in other books, Sherlock Holmes is seen injecting cocaine.

Commentators on Raymond's article have noted that anti-Mormom bias in the novel is blatant. "They're likened to a cult," said one reader, "and the cult leader threatens to murder a young girl unless she consents to marry an elder's daughter, and then there is lynching and murdering. It's not the most loving portrayal."

Given the recent conviction of Warren Jeffs, leader of a polygamist offshoot of the mainstream LDS church, it's up for the reader to decide how this portrayal should be viewed in modern times.

Image Attribution:
Painting of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith by unknown artist - public domain in the U.S.
Study in Scarlet illustration by David Henry Friston - public domain in the U.S.

About the Contributor: Erin O'Riordan lives in the U.S. and writes erotic romance novels and short stories, as well as sex-positive nonfiction. She's a student of many world spiritual traditions. Her work can be viewed on Amazon.com.