What women really want

Regency soft porn has pulses racing, dodgy S&M books are flying off the shelves and sex toy sales are booming. Does the craze for passionate pop culture hint at the real-life desires of modern women?

- SUSAN HORSBURGH

The premise of the book is problematic at best: a sociopathic, albeit handsome, Sicilian crime boss, with a penchant for throat-clutching sex play, kidnaps a “feisty” hotel sales exec and gives her 365 days to fall in love with him. Inexplicably, she does – and a UTIinducing amount of aggressive sexual congress ensues.

Dubbed the Polish Fifty Shades of Grey, 365 Days is the first instalment in a controversial erotic trilogy by Blanka Lipiska, revolving around a swarthy alpha male called Massimo, who racks up his first sexual assault on page two. Granted, he’s not your garden-variety dreamboat. Still, 365 Days has become a global sensation. The novel has sold more than 1.5 million copies in Poland, and the English translation has recently arrived in New Zealand, hot on the heels of the hit Netflix movie that premiered last year to howls of protest. Critics blasted the film for romanticising sexual violence, while Welsh singer Duffy – herself a survivor of abduction and rape – called on the streaming platform to ban it.

There’s no doubt 365 Days is ideologically on the nose and, with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 0%, it’s cinematically not much chop either – Variety has called the “dumber-than-hair” movie “a thoroughly terrible, politically objectionable, occasionally hilarious Polish humpathon” – yet there are women who are lapping it up. One Twitter user seemed to speak for millions when she posted her video reaction to the orgasmic yacht scene: “This is disgusting,” she scoffed. “Give it to me now!”