- I now have a page to list my writing projects, both completed and incomplete. The page itself is incomplete because reasons.
- I finally got around to adding a summary for my novel Drops of Life!
- Still seeking beta readers, as well.
Alright then. Let’s get to it. This is a modified version of something I hastily composed for some forums.
Porn vs Erotica (A writer’s take)
I think there are many opinions on this because there may be definitions but we all hate rules and definitions. We’re writers. We murder rules and definitions.
1. Pornographic writing:
Porn tends to be all about the sex. Written porn is a lot like your average porn movie–a vague transparent story that results in naked people somehow via delivery man or sexy boss or a maid… anyhow.
In a writing setting, you see the fucking and you get to read how it feels. Not emotionally, but physically. You get into the headspace of feeling the touches, the wetness, the sensation of being filled and stretched… you get the picture. It’s carnal and it’s all driven by the characters being horny. It’s not about a serious connection. It may not even be about sexual chemistry.
Porn is about feeding a fantasy that is purely primal. You read it when you just want to get turned on and not worry about emotions, relationships, or plots that would disrupt the scene. If you’ve read romance, you’ll notice that sometimes the plot will literally interfere with a makeout or foreplay scene. This doesn’t fly in porn, unless that interruption will turn the scene into a three-way or such.
2. Erotica
Erotica tends to follow a sort of sexual journey. You won’t just feel the sex, and notice I said ‘sex’ not ‘fucking’ because there IS a difference. You’ll get the tumultuous emotions that come from the actions. Maybe there’s a spiritual component. Erotica tends to be open to interpretation, and sometimes there’s a focus on the actual writing, not just the scene described.
Erotica can be nothing but euphemisms or it could be filthy words, incest or questionable consent, but it is written in a way that leaves no doubt that you should be feeling some heat from it. You may walk away thinking:
What the fuck did I just read and why did it turn me on?
How do I feel about that?
Who am I now?
Erotica can have a literary component. This comes in when the writing transcends the actions. The words and possibly the sex or sensual scenes described can be aesthetically pleasing so that your mind and body are stimulated together. Erotica is a different type of fantasy where sexuality is something to be explored, questioned, and evaluated. Usually, the characters grow substantially in how their sexuality awakens.
Sadly, there are readers AND writers out there that judge anything with written sex (as opposed to an inference and fade-to-black) as porn. These tend to be the same people that judge romance as fluff. The truth is that if anything, these labels are subjective. Some think that vanilla sex is fine, but polyamory or anything that could be labeled as a kink or fetish is ‘porn.’ Others misunderstand erotica and think it’s the hardcore version of romance.
In the end, they are just labels. The genres that exist to push marketing are infuriating boundaries to most writers, and I’m sure readers are confused as well. There are books labeled as plain fiction with more gratuitous sex than some romance and erotica novels, after all.
Dirty Reblogs, Secluded Haystack