I'm going to say no, mostly because "reading" this kind of material is likely to not engage the mind in anyway -- we emphasize on reading as a positive activity because of the social conditioning around it, but this type of material provides no more intellectual stimulation than reality T.V. I have ghost-written an erotic ebook series before; looks like they sold well but honestly it took me one month of writing every other evening or so while wine-drunk and we're talking 125k words here. And I think it matches James' work in quality. I did it cause I was poor and it seemed like an easy 1000 dollars, which is exactly what it was and I felt like I lost some I.Q. points by the end of the process... I can't imagine how anyone who read it didn't experience the same. This is all to say, some reading is not necessarily better than no reading depending on what you are reading.
I'm going to say no, mostly because "reading" this kind of material is likely to not engage the mind in anyway -- we emphasize on reading as a positive activity because of the social conditioning around it, but this type of material provides no more intellectual stimulation than reality T.V. I have ghost-written an erotic ebook series before; looks like they sold well but honestly it took me one month of writing every other evening or so while wine-drunk and we're talking 125k words here. And I think it matches James' work in quality. I did it cause I was poor and it seemed like an easy 1000 dollars, which is exactly what it was and I felt like I lost some I.Q. points by the end of the process... I can't imagine how anyone who read it didn't experience the same. This is all to say, some reading is not necessarily better than no reading depending on what you are reading.