Smut Report

Let’s just say it.

There’s a certain kind of book that millions of people love, devour, re-read, and then quietly slide face-down on the nightstand when someone walks in. You know the one – spicy romance, adult romance, or, as most of us affectionately call it: smut.

It’s super popular with our community who’ve also told us they sometimes get judged for it or nervous to share it. So we polled over 2,000 Galatea readers and their friends around the globe about how much they read it, who they tell, and how they feel about a billion-dollar genre that still sometimes gets treated like a dirty secret. What we found is a community that’s overwhelmingly proud yet still does a lot of its reading with the screen tilted away. 

At Galatea, we live for romance in all forms and want to stop the stigma once and for all.

Do we have your attention yet? Keep reading to hear what we learned.

So… what is “smut,” anyway?

"Smut" – also called spicy romance, adult romance, or just "spice" – is romance fiction with explicit sexual content on a spectrum from closed-door, fade-to-black moments to scenes that leave very little to the imagination. 

The part some people miss? At its core, smut is romance: real characters, an emotional arc, a relationship you’re rooting for, a hard-won happy ending – with the heat woven throughout. 

What is Galatea?

If you don’t know us already, hello hello. Galatea is a romance-first reading app, and a huge share of what our readers love is smut. So normalizing it and helping it feel as ordinary to talk about as any other book on the shelf isn’t a side quest for us... it’s the whole point.

Who did we talk to?

For this survey we spoke to 2,000+ respondents. 97% identify as women across every adult age bracket, with the largest group being 45 and up (proving, delightfully, that smut is not just a young person’s game). About 60% were based in the U.S.-based and 40% elsewhere, spread across the globe.

And these were serious readers: 94% said they read fiction every day or several times a week, 99% read explicit content in some form, and 85% read it regularly. 

Turns out, we’re not dabbling. We’re devoted.

If there’s one myth this survey demolishes, it’s the idea that smut is a  detour from "real" reading. Nearly half polled (49%) spend 7 or more hours a week on it, and almost a third (31%) clock 10+ – that’s a hobby, fully committed. And it’s no fling: more than a third (36%) have been reading smut for over a decade, and two-thirds (67%) for 3 years or more.

And taste is both wide and specific. Paranormal and shifter romance stories (82%) lead the pack, followed by enemies-to-lovers and billionaire romance (tied at 73%), dark romance (70%), and fantasy romance (65%). Mafia romance, second-chance love, and reverse harem all pulled in big numbers too. The takeaway: smut readers aren’t reading one thing – they’re building entire diverse libraries of it.

Most popular sub-genres

82%

73%

73%

70%

65%

Important note: it’s not just about sex.

Ask a non-reader to picture smut and they’ll imagine 300 pages of explicit scenes. Ask someone who actually reads it and you’ll hear something else. What keeps them up until 2 a.m. is the slow burn, the banter, the world-building, the devotion, and the occasional emotional gut-punch. The genre sometimes gets treated as second-class precisely because it centers on feelings – which, to our readers, is exactly backwards. The feelings are the point. As one of the readers surveyed put it:

“I think it’s also the unknown. People having an idea what it could be, but not every story is just about sex. Yes it’s great when there is spice, but the character’s growth and having someone so committed to you that they move mountains is what appeals to me.”

So...what is it about? 

Short answer: it makes people feel good. Realllllly good. When asked how reading smut makes them feel, the smut readers we surveyed led with entertained (78%), aroused (60%), and transported (50%). The why is warmer still: 83% read for the fun, 82% to escape daily stress, and 77% for the love story – and more than half use it as self-care (56%) or a safe space to explore fantasies (51%).

“What you read isn’t always equal to what you like in real life. For example, do I want to be drugged by a mafia prince and held hostage with dubious consent play. No. Do I want to read about it? Absolutely.”

More good news: only 13% feel "slightly guilty," dropping to 9% after reading – against the 76% who come away entertained. For nearly all, smut isn’t a vice to recover from – it’s a reset button that leaves them feeling refilled. And when asked how important it is to their wellbeing (1 = not important, 5 = very important), the average was 3.44, with roughly half rating it a 4 or 5! They aren’t reading to tune out – they’re reading because it’s good for them, and if you ask us that tips smut-reading into self-care.

Plus, the benefits don’t always stop when they close the book. Readers told us smut helps them understand their own desires, feel more confident, and – more often than you might think – bring a spark back to their real-life relationships. More than one described it as a safer, healthier way to explore their sexuality than porn.

““My husband gets more in real life 'spicy time’ when I do read smut...It allows me to indulge in the dynamics I don’t get to enjoy in real life.””

There's a twist.

The heart of the report is a contradiction. Ask these readers whether there’s anything wrong with reading smut and the answer is emphatic: no. A combined 87% say the stigma isn’t fair – 55% see nothing wrong with it, and another 32% say "mostly no, even if I understand where it comes from." Just 2% think the stigma makes any sense at all.

“Others like to make you feel shame for enjoying yourselves/bodies/sexual experiences. But you shouldn’t.”

Yet ask how comfortable they are telling people, and the confidence quiets a bit. About half (52%) are comfortable – mostly with close friends and partners, far less with family or coworkers, and 13% have told no one at all. The quiet shows in behavior, too: about half have taken at least one step to hide their reading – not posting on social, hiding the screen, sometimes fibbing about it – and nearly half (49%) have felt embarrassed or judged at least once.

“Women are judged relentlessly on everything from the clothes we wear to how highly we prioritize our work or parent our children. It’s no surprise that women choose to keep their reading preferences private when it seems like both "smut" & Fantasy readers are constantly being ridiculed online. I think for many people, that privacy is somewhat of a defense mechanism.”

“I’m a writer myself but I don’t feel comfortable sharing my own novel. So it must mean something”

The most telling stat of all? The single most-selected thought was "this is my secret guilty pleasure" (46%). So here’s a community that knows the stigma is nonsense, reads constantly, feels great about it – and still tilts the screen away. We think it’s time we tilt the screen straight on.

There's also a lag at play.

Our take: smut readers love it and are clearly proud, and if they're keeping it quiet, it may be because the broader culture just hasn't caught up yet. 

By every commercial measure, smut and spicy romance are not niche. Romance was the leading growth category for the entire U.S. print book market heading into 2025 – print romance up 24% year-over-year, with more than 51 million units sold in a single 12-month stretch (Circana BookScan). Romantasy alone generated an estimated $610 million in U.S. sales in 2024 (Bloomberg), and BookTok keeps pouring on fuel. 

And still, cultural acceptance lags the sales. The genre – written largely by women, for women, and read by an audience estimated to be around 84% women – can get labeled as something to be embarrassed or ashamed about.  

“I don’t share it because of the Stigma…….It is seen as porn…and I will be seen as dirty and trashy….I’ve seen the feedback….its not cute.”

So, what would make us share more?

We think pride and privacy can live in the same person and the single biggest unlock for sharing smut might just be knowing you’re not the only one. When asked what would open the door to make sharing smut easier, the #1 thing we heard was: "if I had a friend who I knew was also into it" (48%). After that came less social stigma, the option to share privately or anonymously, and simply knowing they wouldn’t be judged when they did. 

“I would love to be open about my reading preferences, but only with others who read the same.”

As for the people who do share already, they do it in person: 60% talk face-to-face with friends about it, while their sharing on public platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Goodreads is infrequent if at all. 42% have already introduced at least one friend to smut, and when they hesitate, it’s rarely fear of judgment – it’s more of an "I didn’t think they’d be interested" (52%) scenario. 

What did we learn?

Smut readers are some of the most devoted, joyful, self-aware readers out there – they read constantly, they’ve done it for years, and they know exactly why they love it. And yet, not everyone has landed in the same place in terms of comfortability. For a lot of readers, the shame is nonexistent already (which we love!) and for others there's still opportunity to stop or lessen the stigma. 

“People shouldn’t feel guilty about reading what they like, the people who judge should, who are they to tell someone what to and not to read or like? It’s 2026 for god sake, get over it.”

At Galatea, we're here to celebrate the readers who are comfortable sharing openly, and make it easier for anyone still on the fence or challenging their nervousness to do the same.   To us, the opportunity isn’t to convince readers smut is good (we already know it is!) but to build a place where your smut reading feels as ordinary to talk about as any other book you love, for all 2,000+ readers who took this survey, and the millions more out there - including your friend, your neighbor, your doctor, your mom and beyond.