His basic argument holds truth though, there are pornographic elements in most created works, i.e. elements created strictly to gratify or comfort the reader in some specific way. This is why we instinctually pigeonhole and look down upon genre fiction writers, because their primary task is to comfort the reader, not to challenge or engage in a dialogue with him.

Let's break down the different genre's and see what belief systems they seek to gratify. Feel free to add your own:

1. Detective Novels - Sherlock Holmes is fun to read because his adventures take place in an environment in which the details of a man's appearance, speech etc. can predict with 100% accuracy his psychology and plans.

2. Horror novels - Many horror novels play on our desire to believe that we can overcome "the other" through some human act. In Dracula, for instance, the vampire is defeated by meticulous planning, organizing, and above all else, the sharing of information. Modernity vanquishes the old world scourge. For people who get off on organization, that novel tweaks your pleasure sensors left and right.

3. Science Fiction - Depends a bit on the sub-genre. Hard science fiction offers scenarios in which numbers and logic reign supreme. Softer science fiction, a la Star Wars, is often really just fantasy in another cloak...

4. Fantasy - Fantasy gratifies our desire to believe that those passing, semi-eccentric thoughts we all harbor from time to time, are really the laws that govern the world. Wish-fulfillment narratives are really just the exploration of ideas that pop into everyone's head from time to time.

To put it in hacker terms, works of genre fiction create systems where the requirements never change. Much like video games, the rules are set in place early on and strictly adhered to. This is immensely comforting. On a personal note: it's also fairly disturbing. For about 20 years now, my mother has more or less read a book a day or so, from cover to cover. She has a full-time job (teacher) and was always around to do mom stuff when I was a kid, but she spends her nights up reading. One could argue that this is awesome, but it's not. Because she's reading genre fiction.

She gets the latest romance novels every Wednesday and has them finished by Sunday. That leaves her two days to work through other genres. A few years back, her Monday-Tuesday books were gay Vampire romance novels. Before that it was detective novels. Every time I visit, it's some new sub-genre I've never heard of.

We're all entitled to our quirks and interests, but I would argue that what she is doing is self-medicative and produces no other value. She never has anything to SAY about these books. They prompt no insights into life. She never wants to talk about them with us when we try to engage.

And I think that's what this article is getting at, tracing out this masturbatory impulse in an oft-praised work. We need to be aware of this stuff so we can appreciate and steer clear of it when we don't want it.

Now, I would argue that the best genre fiction can and often does create social good beyond medicating sad, frustrated people. The Harry Potter books created community and sparked copycats. That's more or less good. The Star Wars films stoked a lot of imaginative response and prompted a lot of people to make interesting films. That's good too. The trouble is the books that are meant to be held in.