Defining erotica

[dr_mabeuse]

[...cut...]

It seems that juries have been inclined to throw out prosecutions for obscenity, in these cases, and that the law has fallen into disuse; although it has not been repealed; in line with changes with public attitudes.

Occasional cases are still being brought before the courts (see my post, above, re the 'Girls Aloud' verdict) to test the relevance of the law to electronic publishing on the internet, in extreme cases of fantasised rape and murder, but courts are even reluctant to prosecute cases like these, nowadays.

Which makes me wonder if there is any meaningful, difference between what is erotic and what is pornographic in published adult written material any more? [--my emph. DrM]

Legally, there might not be. The law's never been very good at making objective standards for subjective judgments. And etymologically there isn't, at least as far as I can tell. All the dictionaries I looked at make no distinction between pornography and erotica.

But from a literary and aesthetic standpoint I think there's a world of difference and that it's very significant. Porn is aimed at the genitals; erotica is aimed at the mind. Porn deals with concrete sex while erotica deals with the abstract of sexuality. The fact that we've lost sight of this distinction for the last 200 years or so is the reason why we have next to no serious sexual literature in the West to this very day (though things have gotten better over the last 20-30 years or so). It's also one of the main reasons we live in such a puritanical and sexophobic society, because the erotic has become so tightly associated with the obscene.

A man and a woman meeting for coffee has no pornographic content. A man and a woman meeting for coffee does have a huge erotic content, though, and a good artist can bring that out and make us see how it works. And that's the point of literature (or one of them, anyhow): to reveal the world to us and help us see things we wouldn't notice on our own.

To the Greeks, Eros was a powerful force, and didn't just rule things sexual. You had an erotic relationship with anything you were attached to deeply and viscerally--a place, a person, even an object--and even patriotism was considered an emotion rooted in eroticism.

Eventually the Philosophers--Plato, chiefly--decided the erotic way of knowing the world was inferior to the intellectual methods they favored, and the seeds of the exaggerated mind-body dualism that would infect early Christianity were sewn, based on the supposed superiority of spirit over matter (intellect over emotion). But eroticism as a way of relating to the world was rediscovered and embraced with a vengeance by the neo-Platonists of the Italian Renaissance, which is one of the reasons for all those chubby Cupids in Italian art. They represent eroticism, sexual feelings without the sex.

Today we still live in a very anti-erotic culture. It's very sexual, but not very erotic. The great authors we think of as treating with sex in their works--Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence, Erica Jong--really just titillate rather than examine. Anais Nin maybe comes closest to capturing the real spirit of eroticism that infuses our lives, and she's considered a pornographer. I think Pauline Reage ("Story of O") is up there too, though not many people are comfortable with her brand of eroticism.

So that's my take on it. We all fuck, we all have sex, and anyone with at least some literary ability can describe a sexual act and voila! -- they're a porn author. But to discern the threads of eroticism that run through our lives, to be able to know them when you see them, to understand how sexual feelings are generalized and applied to the mundane, how we apply them in our relations with ourselves... That takes a special kind of talent and perception.

 

[Little Bird]

German law defines pornogrphy as "descriptions or representations of sexual activies that appear to exlusively or predominantly aim of the sexual arrousal of the audience".

The only aplication of this legal definities applies to wether or not something can be shown, advertised, and sold in the presence of minors (under 18 years). As usual with these restriction, parents or legal guardians are free to grant access to minors in their care.

A man and a woman meeting for coffee has no pornographic content. A man and a woman meeting for coffee does have a huge erotic content, though, and a good artist can bring that out and make us see how it works.

"In this picture, everything - but the cat - points towards sex."


The bird motive used to be the standard symbol to identify a building as a brothel. The needles on the left are hairpins that are used by prostitutes as an identification mark. The vew outside the window strongly hints that is the time of a certain festival, during which it was okay to visit brothels during daytime. The bowl and the cloth are for cleaning up.

 

[LingerieRobot]

The only convincing distinction I've heard is that porn is what turns you on and erotica is what turns me on.

A more interesting question to me is the line between "porn with plot" and "plot with porn", or when a story turns from erotica into a regular story with sex scenes added in. There are quite a few stories on this site that I think fit the latter category, and it's always a narrow rope to walk. We can always say that erotica is fiction that's meant to titillate, but defining something based off authorial intent is a very treacherous path indeed.

 

[favoritesgoddess]

So that's my take on it. We all fuck, we all have sex, and anyone with at least some literary ability can describe a sexual act and voila! -- they're a porn author. But to discern the threads of eroticism that run through our lives, to be able to know them when you see them, to understand how sexual feelings are generalized and applied to the mundane, how we apply them in our relations with ourselves... That takes a special kind of talent and perception.

I hope you don't mind, but I've printed this out and taped it to my computer. That talent and perception you speak of what I strive for, and the way you describe erotica is exactly why this genre more than any other speaks to me as a writer. I've just never been able to put it into words.

I've tried to describe to friends who ask why I don't write "mainstream" works about erotica's appeal and the best I could come up with is that when I look at a given situation (like two people having coffee), I can see the thread of eroticism in it. And I've been dismissed with a laugh as "Well, you're just a pervert," or just left with the somewhat dismissive attitude that erotica is the red-headed stepchild of literature.

So thank you. Thank you for these words. I am inspired.

 

[Newstart]

The only convincing distinction I've heard is that porn is what turns you on and erotica is what turns me on.

A more interesting question to me is the line between "porn with plot" and "plot with porn", or when a story turns from erotica into a regular story with sex scenes added in. There are quite a few stories on this site that I think fit the latter category, and it's always a narrow rope to walk. We can always say that erotica is fiction that's meant to titillate, but defining something based off authorial intent is a very treacherous path indeed.

There's a parallel here between porn films and the classic MGM musicals.
The musicals had relatively weak plots enhanced or even rescued by superlative musical scores and similarly, porn films usually have very weak plots rescued sometimes by sex scenes of a very variable standard.
The same it true for porn writing.

Erotica though is a different genre and on a higer plane, more akin to opera, and consequently far more demanding and difficult to write.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Within literature sex is incidental; porn is pure wank.

 

[sr71plt]

Within literature sex is incidental; porn is pure wank.

Erotica is what fits between that, I think. It's still literary but the sex (which doesn't have to be graphic) isn't incidental.

 

[MikeIvy]

Isn't the diference between porn and erotica mostly in the eyes and mind of the reader? Just as what I do behind my closed doors may seem "preverted" to someone that only makes love with the lights off and in one position?

 

[davidharley8]

Porn is not beautiful, but rough sex thrown in your face. This is not to be beautiful, and Frank uses language and images to get away. Erotica is not only engage the minds, but it has shades of sensuality. While sex is the driving force behind what eroticism is more evocative of a tool that was designed and perfected to engage the reader to look at sex, not only for instant gratification, but sex as a spirit all and experience of the whole body.