Robin Ellert, 52, was sitting in her cubicle in the Army office where she worked when the disaster happened.
Her wired headphones caught on the doorknob next to her desk, ripping them out of her phone, causing a “very explicit sex scene” from an audiobook to play for anyone nearby to hear.
Ellert has been reading romance novels for four decades—she told Business Insider she read her first pulp novel when she was a teenager—and she listens to three to four audiobooks a week, so she wasn’t thrown off by the content of each chapter.
“It’s just another story,” she told BI. “I can understand that someone who hasn’t been exposed to this material in a graphic way might find it problematic. But it doesn’t bother me.”
Of course, the timing could have been better, because Ellert’s boss was walking right behind her when the sound from her phone started blaring.
“The word horrified describes the look on his face,” Ellert said. “It was one of those things where we both knew it happened and then we just pretended it didn’t happen.”
Ellert said her boss gently advised her to “think about the material” she reads during work hours, but she never faced any real consequences at work. She also has no plans to change her reading habits.
Ellert is not alone. Romance novel readers across the country listen to dirty movies at work – and their coworkers have no idea.
Kliterature at work
Ellert told BI that she brought her love of graphic novels—which you may have seen referred to on BookTok as “smut,” “spicy books,” or “cliterature”—to the office in 2017 when she moved from a client-facing job to a more office-focused role.
“When I’m sitting in my office mindlessly filling out Excel spreadsheets or just processing data, I can listen to a book alongside my active work without it causing any conflict,” Ellert said.
Another reader, who works in corporate social responsibility and wishes to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, told BI that she has been listening to engaging audiobooks at work every day since she started reading them in 2019. She said that audiobooks have been beneficial to her as a person with ADHD.
“Audiobooks came into my life when I needed another way to occupy my mind,” she said.
Some people find listening to romance audiobooks makes them more productive. Stefan Tomic/Getty Images
She has an office so she can listen to her audiobooks directly from her phone without having to use headphones. She told BI that listening to saucy romance novels sometimes makes her more productive.
“It’s a kind of reward tactic that I use to get myself to do things that I don’t necessarily want to do,” she said.
A 27-year-old prosecutor, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her job, also uses romance novels to motivate herself during work hours. She told BI that audiobooks became part of her work routine when she read “Fourth Wing” in 2023 – a novel that, while saucy, would probably be boring to most porn fans.
“I read it and then I thought, ‘I can’t put it down,'” she said. “So I had Alexa read it to me in the car and then I went to work and I thought, ‘No, but I’m not finished yet. I have to keep listening.'”
Romance audiobooks, including some of the more saucy reads, have now become the medium of choice for lawyers to complete “tedious and repetitive” tasks such as filling out forms.
“Honestly, I feel like I can sit and concentrate longer when I’m listening to something,” she said. “I get less bored and less nervous.”
Romance is everywhere
Work is just one of the places where these readers make filth the soundtrack of their lives.
“At the gym, at the grocery store, just walking,” Ellert said. “If you see me in public and I’m wearing earplugs, I’m usually listening to something raunchy.”
But it’s not about sex – or at least not all about sex.
“The sex scenes in the books I read are very explicit, but they serve the story,” Ellert said. “They’re not just there to simulate the person listening to them.”
Instead, readers say they keep returning to romance novels because it is comforting to know that amidst the chaos of real life, there will be some kind of happy ending.
“I love a happy ending. I love knowing what I’m getting into,” the lawyer told BI. “I love knowing what’s going to happen when they check into a hotel and there’s only one bed. I love the predictability because I’m still blown away every time.”
Given the surge in sales of this genre in recent years, it was probably only a matter of time before romance novels found their way into the workplace.
Circana Bookscan found that romance novel sales rose from 18 million in 2020 to 36 million in 2023, and Bloomsbury posted its highest-grossing year ever from 2023 to 2024, thanks to romance novelist and reigning queen of faerie smut Sarah J. Maas. The corporate responsibility associate BI spoke to said she recently mentioned during a get-to-know-you exercise at work that she was a fan of Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series.
Likewise, the Audio Publishers Association’s annual survey found that audiobook sales have steadily increased over the past eleven years and that romance novels are among the most popular genres among listeners.
Is a sex scene worse than a true crime?
All three readers BI spoke to said they started listening to interesting books at work in part because they knew their colleagues were also listening to their favorite media at work.
“My bosses watch TV at their desks while they work,” the lawyer told BI. “I don’t think there’s anything different.”
“There are so many girls out there listening to murder podcasts,” the corporate responsibility official said. “It’s another extreme, but some people might think that’s inappropriate.”
The smut also doesn’t impact others, not only because readers listen in private but also because they don’t listen with the intention of getting aroused at work, readers said. They focus on the stories they’re hearing as a whole, which happens to include sex.
Romance novels are more popular than ever. IsabelPavia/Getty Images
Every reader has their own limits when it comes to the books they choose for work. Ellert said she occasionally pauses a story if the sexual content distracts her, and the other readers BI spoke to said they save their spiciest books for after work. As an example of a book she wouldn’t read at the office, the lawyer cited Ana Huang’s “Twisted” series, which has a permanent place in the erotica section of The Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn.
However, the corporate responsibility officer said that she did not think it was a problem to listen to explicit stories while at work.
“You’re at work all day, and if listening to an audiobook with a juicy love story makes your life a little easier, then do it,” she said.
Dr. Erika Evans, a sexologist and relationship and sex therapist with 20 years of practice, agreed.
Spicy books can be beneficial for individuals and couples
Evans advocates for people to explore their sexuality through erotic content, whether watching porn or reading romance novels, both alone and with a partner.
“I’m a big proponent of reading it together as a couple and as an individual,” she told BI. “It stimulates conversation and imagination, and sex is all about creativity.”
“So many couples get frustrated and come to therapy later because they say, ‘We’re doing the same thing and I’m sick of it,'” she added. “And I’ll ask, ‘Have you read a book together?’ Because maybe that’s the first step to spice things up because it helps broaden your perspective.”
Reading romance novels together can be good for a couple. Prasit Photo/Getty Images
Evans is currently writing a romance novel with work questions to help readers explore their sexuality, called The Secret Life of a Sex Therapist. She adds that she finds reading erotic novels better than watching porn because there is less pressure on the viewer.
“The consumer does not have to deal with unrealistic beauty ideals or even unrealistic long-term expectations of sex,” she said. “The consumer becomes the director of the scene and that provides an authenticity that watching erotic films can never offer.”
Evans says the only potential problem she sees with listening to raunchy romance novels at work is if the music distracts her from her work.
“If you’re at work and you’re clearly and obviously aroused, that’s a problem,” she said, adding that erotic podcasts from platforms like Dipsea or Quinn may be more distracting than an entire novel because they’re designed specifically for that purpose.
“Your answer isn’t even wrong,” Evans said. “It just means your workplace isn’t the best place for it.”
Overall, Evans hopes that more people will become interested in racy books and use them to figure out what they want from their own sex lives.
And if you’re embarrassed about listening to dirty stuff at work, according to readers BI spoke to, remember that you’re just one of millions of people who enjoy the genre.
“There’s probably someone in your office doing this right now,” one said.
