> My girlfriend's mother and father read romances and westerns, respectively. At least they read.

Good point.

> And to be honest, not all romances are bad and trashy.

Also true. I've had limited experience with romance novels, but I do understand that some of them are at least of acceptable quality. And a lot of others are junk. Just like any other genre. It does seem, however, that the romance genre tends to attract a higher percentage of junk work due to the manner in which they are churned out and the purpose for which they are used, and that bothers me even more than their usual moral character. I can't stand artistic ignorance. I hate it when I see people enjoying -- and therefore supporting -- brainless works of any medium (television being the biggest but hardly the only offender). I do think those who are artistically ignorant are the worse for it, but I concede that the fact that it bothers *me* is my own problem.

> I can't tell you how many people have told me I shouldn't read that "trashy fantasy and sci-fi stuff".

It's funny how certain people condemn entire genres. I don't care what specific genre you're talking about, if you say something that indicates all works of some genre are "trashy" (or "good," for that matter), then you've lost all credibility in my mind. There can be genres that *tend* to be good or bad (romance books and horror movies both seem to have that tendency), but there are always exceptions ("Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell; "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock) that make people who condemn them on the basis of their genre alone look foolish.

But Ghost's post seemed to be looking more for advice on human relations than artistic criticism, hence why I responded as I did.