Modern romance novels reveal the disturbing truth about what turns women on. Heaving bosoms not included

By: Joe Queenan

One of my female friends maintains that you can't understand women without reading romance novels, just as you can't understand men without watching porn. Romance novels, she says, embody the hopes, dreams, and fantasies of many--though not all--women, just as porn embodies the hopes, dreams, and fantasies of many--though not all--men. (Right, all men; what was she thinking?) But then my friend told me that, in contemporary romantic fiction, oral sex and even a smidgen of good-natured lesbianism are increasingly common. It seems porn and romance novels are converging.

That got my attention.