Silk scarves and feathers I can handle, but electrical devices and the insertion of foodstuffs or sex toys cross my line in the sand. Gold isn't the only one with concerns about dildos and anal sex as literary devices. I think they had enjoyed the earlier books because they talked about sex, and that had been missing in popular literature for women, but what they really wanted was the focus on emotion and building of the relationship along with good sex. When they got that, they were ecstatic. And that, most aficionados agree, was when the genre really took off.
People can get pretty touchy about it.
It's not surprising, then, that when religion entered the dispute, the heat flared exponentially. The books in and of themselves may not be pornography but the sex scenes can be called nothing less. That declaration outraged many other participants. Pornography focuses on sex without love and sometimes with violence or degradation. Romance focuses on love and character growth.