Huh?

He has also either forgotten the meaning of the word ‘romance’ or didn’t look it up.  It’s the wee hours of the morning as I type and I didn’t feel like going downstairs to my reference books, so here’s the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary’s definition (the italics are mine):

Romance Function: noun  Date: 14th century

1 a (1) : a medieval tale based on legend, chivalric love and adventure, or the supernatural (2) : a prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious (3) : a love story especially in the form of a novel b : a class of such literature 2 : something (as an extravagant story or account) that lacks basis in fact  3 : an emotional attraction or aura belonging to an especially heroic era, adventure, or activity.

Most readers of the genre know perfectly well that sex and love are two different things.  These days, a good romance of any genre depicts the development of an intimate relationship, physically and emotionally.  The level of physical intimacy varies greatly from inspirational to erotic romance, but the emotional connection between the hero and heroine must be there.

Mr. Elsner doesn’t say in the article what books he based his observations on.  If they were straight-forward erotica (a venerable literary genre, but not romance), that might explain his claim that in romance novels “love is expressed through sex and only through sex”.  Or he might have been reading through testosterone-colored glasses and not registered the emotional content.  He does assert that “love takes place in the mind where it has to fight for its existence against all the other challenges presented by life.”  Maybe for him that’s true, but it isn’t for me.  Loving my husband was not a rational choice on my part.  (I would never have deliberately chosen a man who thinks I should enjoy housework.)  It just happened.  After experiencing “an immediate and powerful mutual attraction”, I might add!