The three you mention — Goodkind, Martin, Bakker — all use the "gritty" elements as you say, and there probably are fans who would like all three of them simply because of that. But there has to be something more to it. For example, I detest Goodkind but enjoy both Martin and Bakker. So the inclusion of grittiness can't be the only thing the books offer.

You mentioned three different types of gritty. Violence, sexuality, and profanity. Of those, I never mind profanity personally. While it can definitely be overdone, I can take a fair bit of it in a book.

The other two are the tricky ones. I'm not big on either violence or sexuality in stories. They're not the reasons why I read books or watch movies/shows. But if I enjoy the characters and story, then the inclusion of violence or sexuality doesn't bother me. That's why I like Martin.

Bakker is a tougher kettle of fish. Women really don't do well in his world at all, in any fashion, whereas in Martin at least you have important female characters such as Dany, Arya, Catelyn, Cersei, Breanne, etc. In Bakker there are only three important female characters, and all of them have it pretty rough in different ways. In fairness, one of them gains a sort of upper hand over men by the end of the fifth book, but all in all Bakker does not treat his female characters well (though in fairness again, he makes it pretty plain that the men who abuse them are more like animals than men).

I enjoy his series, but his treatment of women is something I have to work through, and I wouldn't really recommend the series to others unless I knew they could take the good while understanding and moving past the bad.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that there's more to some gritty fantasies than just the gritty. If there weren't, I doubt they would have nearly so many fans. At least, I hope not. Maybe I'm giving people too much benefit of the doubt there. :p

But I'm also curious. If we're defining what makes a fantasy story gritty, does it need all three of those things? Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora books contain a lot of profanity, but very littly sexuality and only a normal level of fantasy violence. Would they count as gritty? Carey's Kushiel books contain a lot of sexuality, but not profanity or excessive violence. I'm curious where one would draw the line, if there is a line.

Personally I'm not sure a line is needed. I prefer to divide books by "good story/writing/characters" and "bad story/writing/characters". The grittiness is essentially incidental to me. I like good stories with it, and I like good stories without it. But I see from your response that not everyone feels that way, since to you it appears that the whole gritty aspect turns you away regardless of whatever else is going on in the story. Where would you draw the line?