Under the burning gaze of a man sprouting black wings from his back, a couple with pointed ears waltzes to the sound of cellos. Reclined on a bed, a young woman turns her head away from a bare-chested Adonis kneeling before her. Armed with a bow, a figure slips through a forest populated with magical creatures. From sequences like this, made with the aid of artificial intelligence, a unique form of eroticism has emerged, a kind of Fifty Shades of Grey in the land of the Lord of the Rings.
On TikTok, these short video animations have proliferated under the hashtag #acotar. For die-hard fans, Acotar is the acronym for A Court of Thorns and Roses, a five-volume series published in 2015 by American writer Sarah J. Maas. Translated as Un palais d'épines et de roses, the saga tells the story of Feyre, a young huntress sequestered in Prythian, a fairy kingdom, where she falls in love with a nobleman.
A smash hit in YA (Young Adult) literature, Acotar belongs to "romantic fantasy" or "romantasy," a sub-genre of fantasy, written mainly by women for women, mixing fantasy, love and self-discovery. Since the late 2010s, this style has been invading bookshops, but above all, online platforms. On TikTok, people exchange advice on how to make shimmering wings or filters that enhance your face with angular features. On the r/acotar forum at Reddit or the private Facebook group all things Acotar, female readers share fan art, analyze their favorite character's personal transformation and speculate on when the next books will be released. Occasionally, one of them wonders: Is it appropriate to call Acotar "fairy porn"?
Fairy porn or fairy smut is the affectionate nickname given by romance fans to the "spicier" novels. On TikTok, followers have claimed the label and displayed their love of the genre. And there's something for everyone, between slow burn ("slow combustion") romances − an accepted expression to describe stories in which the feelings and attraction between characters build gradually − and those that are regularly punctuated by graphic sex scenes, such as Jennifer L. Armentrout's Blood and Ash (2021), or Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing (2023).
"The phrase 'fairy porn' is something of a banner for our community. Yet many romantasy books don't have that much sex in them; above all, there's a lot of waiting, a long build-up to intensity. In that respect, it's the opposite of porn," said Aliza, 34, an avid reader and director in Chicago. For Francesca (first name changed), a legal expert from Grenoble who is well-versed in the literary fantasies of Tolkien and George R. R. Martin, romance has more to offer than steamy encounters in summer lodges. "The genre combines a lot of things: self-discovery, immersive escape into rich imaginary worlds, and love and sexual relationships where the question of consent and pleasure for women is omnipresent. It's a world where I can have it all," she said.
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