Podcast Summary: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey

Ep 1240 | TikTok’s Spicy Novels Are Warping Women’s Minds
Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Allie Beth Stuckey (Blaze Podcast Network)

Overview of the Episode

Allie Beth Stuckey unpacks the cultural, psychological, and spiritual implications of the rising trend of “spicy” and dark romance novels, particularly those gaining popularity on TikTok’s “BookTok.” She argues that this phenomenon is not just a trivial or silly trend, but one that is deeply affecting women—emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and even politically. Through a Christian, conservative lens, Allie investigates the content of these novels, the industry’s staggering success, and their impact on female readers, especially young women.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to the Dark Romance Trend

• Allie opens the show by warning that the content will be PG-13 due to explicit subject matter.
• She flags a book called Morning Glory Milking Farm as an example of extreme content, involving human-animal romance and explicit themes.
  • “This author is apparently a bestselling author, which is disturbing in and of itself.” [03:00]
• Allie explains the rise of “monster bait romance” and the proliferation of such themes across BookTok and Reddit.

2. Evolution from Fifty Shades of Grey to BookTok’s Current Obsessions

• Allie connects the success of Fifty Shades of Grey to the explosion of increasingly dark, explicit romance fiction.
  • “In 2015...Fifty Shades of Grey was published, that it made so much money, that it sold so many books, that it grew so much at the box office...tapping into a desire that many women had...” [10:00]
• She highlights the lack of content regulation in the book industry compared to visual media.
  • “The mental picture that is being put in people’s minds by this literature is...just as powerful, just as brain chemistry-altering as watching pornography.” [17:10]

3. Sampling the Most Popular Dark Romance Series

• Allie lists several bestselling titles and their disturbing themes:
  • The Lord Series (Chantel Tessier): Male domination, emotional abuse, secret societies.
  • Highest Bidder Series: Auctioning women, extreme control.
  • Chicago Ruthless Series: Mafia, violence, unhealthy possessiveness.
  • Den of Vipers: Reverse harem, villain protagonists, graphic violence.
  • The Loser Series: Polyamory and BDSM.
  • Chokehold (Lee Rivers): Incestuous themes, gay romance.
• “You understand, there’s violence, there’s domination, there’s possessiveness, there’s BDSM...it changes what you desire. It changes what satisfies you in a way that can lead you toward the path of the demonic.” [26:44]

4. Monster, Alien, and Demonic Romance—A New Genre

• Allie is stunned by the popularity of “monster smut”:
  • Strange Love (Anne Aguirre): Human/alien relationships with explicit sexual overtones.
  • That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon and other similar books.
• Allie connects these fantasy trends to cultural confusion regarding good and evil, warning that such literature normalizes dangerous naiveté toward evil (including criminals and demonic figures).
  • “Is that why they vote for these social justice soft on crime policies? Because they’re reading books that make it seem like the bad guy, deep down inside, is good and sacrificial...” [37:00]

5. From ‘Spice’ to ‘Smut’: How Explicit is “Spicy” Fiction?

• Explanation of “spice” in romance fiction—a term for levels of sexual explicitness (rated 1–5).
  • “The descriptor of spice makes it seem like it is not bad or explicit, but that’s not necessarily true...That’s not better, especially for the Christian.” [47:25]
• BookTok clips discussed:
  • Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover is considered “vanilla” compared to what many readers want.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses and Onyx Storm highlighted as examples of highly explicit and dominant/possessive male characters.

6. Psychological and Cultural Consequences for Women

• Allie draws parallels between female romance novel consumption and male pornography addiction.
  • “Reading pornography is no less sinful than watching pornography.” [59:12]
• Escaping into these fictional worlds leads to discontentment and unhealthy expectations in real relationships, especially marriage.
• BookTok contributes to the spread of increasingly extreme content, especially among Gen Z.

7. Industry Boom & Reader Demographics

• Stats: Romance novels generated $1.44 billion in revenue (2022–23); sales doubled over three years.
  • Women are 84% of the genre's readers.
  • Shift seen toward darker, more violent, and demonic themes.
  • “That book Onyx Storm...sold faster in its first week than any other adult book in 20 years.” [1:11:00]

8. Psychological Mechanisms: Women Chasing “Cheap Dopamine”

• Explains how romance novels trigger oxytocin, dopamine, and norepinephrine—chemicals associated with bonding, pleasure, and craving more.
  • “According to Psychology Today, romantic stories trigger a cascade of neurochemicals and hormones that make our brains very happy.” [1:18:00]
• Dr. Anna Lembke (Stanford): Discusses her own addiction to romance novels and equates it to socialized pornography for women.
  • Quote: "I was embarrassed, so I would hide that I was reading them. And that gets into the whole double life of addiction..." [1:25:00]

9. Link Between Romance Reading, Social Media, and Mental Health

• Gen Z women have highest rates of anxiety, stress, loneliness, and depression globally.
  • High social media use correlated with increased loneliness and depression.
  • Allie attributes at least part of this to the escapism offered by these books, plus their addictive, dopamine-driven nature.

10. Biblical Perspective & Pastoral Advice

• Christian writers and thinkers weigh in:
  • Katherine Butler (Gospel Coalition): “Women are hungrier than ever to fill that Jesus-shaped hole in their heart.”
  • Focus on the Family: Erotica exploits women’s God-given longings for love, protection, meaning, and escape—but distorts them.
  • Felicia Masonheimer: “There will be people in your life who will tell you it’s not that big of a deal...But that is never a measurement of what is good for us.” [1:42:30]
• Scriptural exhortations:
  • Philippians 4:8—Think on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable.
  • 1 Corinthians 6:18–20—Flee sexual immorality.
• “The heart is the primary seat of holiness, and the ear is as good a pathway of corruption as the eye. So that means audiobooks are also off-limits when it comes to this smut.” [1:49:00]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You need to know what is going into their mind, the input that is going in that might be affecting the output.” [02:11]
• “This is just as sexual, just as graphic, explicit as any man who is addicted to watching pornography.” [25:10]
• “Whether or not a woman is reading these dark, demonic, violent books, still escaping to this fantasy fictional world…is always going to lead to discontentment. It is always going to hamper your sanctification. It is always going to inhibit the God-ordained intimacy that you have with your marriage.” [29:35]
• Dr. Anna Lembke: “I would hide that I was reading them...It interfered with her life, with her roles as parent and doctor, turning a pleasurable escape into a dopamine fueled compulsion.” [1:25:00]
• “Even if reading makes you smart, sin makes you stupid.” [1:35:00]
• “You don’t have to give up your love for reading and your love for creativity and good writing, because God created these things…He actually ordained His word to be written down and to be read. So we know that words are really important.” [1:36:00]
• “And with our eyes on Heaven, we forego all of the sin that wants to hinder us and hold us back. Remember, it goes all the way back to Satan tempting Eve: Did God really say…” [1:53:20]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:01–06:00: Intro, content warning, Morning Glory Milking Farm example.
• 07:30–17:30: Fifty Shades of Grey, sexual revolution, lack of book regulation.
• 18:00–29:30: Overview of major dark romance series; themes of domination and violence.
• 30:00–43:00: “Monster smut” genre, normalizing evil/criminality via fantasy.
• 47:30–53:30: “Spice” rating of books—BookTok “filthiest” challenges.
• 55:00–1:00:00: Impact on Christian women, marriage, expectations.
• 1:08:00–1:14:00: Industry statistics; market trends.
• 1:15:00–1:33:00: Neuroscience of reading romance; dopamine addiction; Dr. Anna Lembke’s testimony.
• 1:34:00–1:51:00: Biblical arguments; calls for discernment; suggested alternate reading.

Tone & Language

Allie’s tone is earnest, energetic, and concerned, blending humor and cultural critique with a clear biblical worldview. She often uses rhetorical questions, irony, and direct admonition, especially when addressing Christian parents, women, and church communities.

Summary / Takeaway

Allie Beth Stuckey issues a sobering challenge to her audience: the massive popularity of dark romance and “spicy” novels—propelled by TikTok and a lack of publishing constraints—is molding young women’s minds, values, desires, and even policies they support. The addictive nature of these books, the explicit and often violent or demonic themes, and the resulting discontentment and expectation gaps are likened to the social/relational damage caused by pornography consumption among men. Allie calls for Christians to apply biblical wisdom and discernment to their reading, focus on “what is pure and lovely,” and to see these trends as serious spiritual concerns worthy of conversation, prayer, and active resistance.