ABSTRACT
Sociologist Shayne Lee calls Zane an erotic revolutionary, someone who challenges "traditional scripts that offer men greater space to indulge in a fuller range of sexual expression." Yet although, as Lee asserts, "Zane arguably has more impact on black sexual politics than any other figure in contemporary American culture," she is not an obvious choice for an essay on black popular romance. By reading Addicted as romance rather than erotica, we find that Zane reframes black female sexuality as a space for emotional satisfaction rather than a space defined by physical and emotional oppression. Emotional satisfaction for Zane, as it turns out, looks a lot like the emotional satisfaction favored by most romance readers and writers. In prioritizing and narrating black women's desire and desirability, Zane and other authors of black popular romance and erotica provide a space for black women to reimagine themselves and the world in which they live and love.
