Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Porn vs. Erotic Literature. Is there really a difference?

Being a romance author, I get this question a lot. I mean, I write romance with sex---so it's porn, right?

Wrong.

First of all, let's tackle the whole 'mommy porn' label. I hate it. At best, it's disrespectful. Most adult books on the market today have sex in them. Why? Because the characters are adults and adults, on the whole, have sex. It's quite the concept, I know. Adults having sex? What is the world coming to?

So why is it that when a sci-fi or fantasy book contains graphic sex no one blinks an eye, yet if it's a book primarily marketed to women (aka. romance) then it's suddenly porn? It's a complete double standard and goes back to the view that we don't like to think of women as sexual beings with needs and wants of our own. Women have desires, too. They may not always be the same as those men have, but they are just as relevant.

That leads us back to what is the difference between porn and erotic literature.

Porn is sex. It doesn't get more basic than that. In porn the goal of the 'story' is for the people involved to get it on. Everything else that happens is window dressing.

Erotic literature is exactly what it claims to be. It's literature that contains erotic elements. Doesn't matter if it's romance or mystery or any other genre. Calling it porn is short sited and dismissive.

Do you read erotic literature? What are some of your favorites?


Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

4 comments:

  1. soFebruary 5, 2015 at 12:46 PM

    Porn is just a bunch of words haphazardly strewn together to sell something to bored and horny housewives -in other words MOMMY PORN!. You know, the type of women that call strong, confident, and/or sexually liberated women sluts...(meanwhile saying nothing or cheering on about the men that behave in much worse behavior!)

    Erotic literature is for those of us who are actually READERS and prefer an in depth artistic use for the flair of language, and those of us who had a sex life and were comfortable with our own sexuality LONG BEFORE 50 shades came out...

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 6, 2015 at 8:20 AM

    Short and succinct. I love it! I love erotic literature too, for me it's more about the emotions and the journey of the characters that led them to a highly sexual relationship than the sex itself. My favorite right now is Tiffany Reisz, I love the mix of humor and smexy in her books.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownFebruary 7, 2015 at 4:41 PM

    ABIGAIL'S BLOOD PASSION is about a vampire who uses her pheromones to her survival advantage. That said, I like to think that my writing transcends a lot of descriptions by being utterly sensual--erotic or pornographic, depending on the scene.

    ReplyDelete
  4. kitchenbullFebruary 8, 2015 at 4:03 PM

    I guess it would depend on how much you want to show or tell. Like prince charming sweeping the princess off her feet to the princess running around the castle in her birthday suit flashing the court jester to the prince banging two princesses and getting them off in glorified detail.Love to hard core sex but if you want a middle ground you have to put up with the people that label you with one or the other. I like holding hands. I like seeing naked bodies too.but if i can touch ,smell, taste, hear and see sex in all its magnificent wonder i will not care how it is labeled. sex is in romance, maybe not in the way you see it. sex is in porn,you might not see it for what it is. Now as for sci-fi we all know where baby godzillas come from but if we witness an alien getting freaky with a nuclear reactor or that giant magical stork bringing down a little bundle joy to wipe mankind off the face of the earth we won't really care.we want a Arnold Swartzenegger (lol) to blow them up real good

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)