Making a case for the use of the term "pure erotica."

[RainyDayPen]

Thanks AG! I didn't actually realize there were different types. I guess I thought of it more as a plot-heavy story versus lighter plot.

If I'm looking to 'enjoy another person's writing' I, to be totally honest, don't think too much about the quality but whether it hits on my kinks and general preferences. They'd have to really screw up for me to think too much about the style. But sometimes I have been reading just for fun and noticed like wow this person really can write. It does help put me more into the world and the headspace.

I'm happy to hear more about the way people word things around here. I'm actually new here and never looked at this site when I was younger. Only found in in the past year. So basically I'm blinding learning my way around, including these phrases that seem to be the local slang.

 

[Paul_Chance]

In my mind's eye the separation is between well-written erotica and poorly written erotica.

In order to be a well-regarded piece of stroke (or whatever term is used) it also has to be well-written.

 

[Bramblethorn]

1. I generally take that phrasing as gentle rubbing/joking. As in "Who here prefers nachos over tacos? Come on, fess up!"

Yep, that's how I read it.

3. It's not the label that makes people see it as lesser, though. It's the style they aren't fond of. A new label won't change that.

This. Not everybody wants the same things out of a story, and a lot of people equate "I don't like" with "this sucks".

With porn, there's that additional stigma that most of us have been conditioned to view masturbation as something vaguely shameful and even people who write stories here haven't necessarily shed that one completely. When authors use "stroke" about their own work I mostly take it as a reclamatory use - "I know people are jerking off to this and I'm not ashamed to own that".

 

[ElectricBlue]

It never crosses my mind that a reader might masturbate. But I write stories that don't attend to character and plot. I think they're well written, and my feedback confirms this.

I've always thought, "That's the highly desirable point of erotica" - arousal, followed by orgasm.

Sure, with shorter stories, that's not going to happen. 750 words, for example, unless you've got the shortest trigger time on the planet, it might be erotic, maybe a little arousing, but it's not going to get a result.

But you get above a Lit page or two, and in my mind, that's where the timing and cadence of the writing becomes important. If you are writing to get someone off, you've got to give them time, time to get aroused, time to enjoy that arousal, then you ramp it up to get them away.

This is where I think all of the advice to edit stories shorter, write lean and concisely, cut things back, misses the point. Erotica/stroke/porn, call it what you will, isn't the same as your "traditional" short story, where brevity is usually deemed a virtue.

In contrast, I say: turn me on, then turn me on some more, keep arousing me till I come. Do your job properly; it's erotica, not a Sunday picnic! And if you write it artfully, beautifully, that's the literary bonus, for those that want that.

People have said of my stories, you give us the slow burn with your slow patience, but you'll then give us a sometimes pornographic finish. Best of both worlds, I reckon. Poetic porn, it's a thing!

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Doesn't every author who writes a sex scene in an erotic author enjoy the idea that the reader might masturbate and achieve orgasm to the story?

Not me.

Sex scenes are integral to the plot and the characters' relationships and serve no other intended function in my stories. Some of my scenes are more graphic and some are more speculative, depending on the mood and tempo that fits the particular story.

"Graphic erotica" and "speculative erotica" are actual terms I have heard agents and publishers use to describe the content that they find acceptable for their particular marketplaces.

 

[AchtungNight]

It never crosses my mind that a reader might masturbate. But I write stories that don't attend to character and plot. I think they're well written, and my feedback confirms this.

I’m glad you have your fans.

My sex scenes come when I’m at peace with the characters and ready to give them some action after resolving plot events. And if they’re not hot enough to make me want to touch myself, they need work.

 

[FeralSmile]

An alternative to "stroke" that I often hear elsewhere is "PWP", which can be taken as either "Porn Without Plot" or "Plot? What Plot?"

I think that's a far better and more helpful label than "pure".

"Pure" is problematic on several levels. First, it's unavoidably a value-laden word, suggesting those stories are better than others. I don't agree that they're better or worse, just different. Second, I don't fundamentally think that PWP stories are any more innately erotic or "pure" than stories with plots and character development. What a reader finds arousing is very much a matter of individual preference, and some readers won't find what you call "pure" erotica at all arousing or interesting; this belies the label. Third, as others have noted, trying to coin a new term for something well-established is challenging at best; the label has to impart something new and helpful in order to replace the other term. In that sense, "PWP" says a lot more than "pure" does, which makes it a better label, and it has the advantage of already being in use.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Now that I've thought about it; pure erotica is a bit much. Stroke stories are the purest form of erotica?

 

[HordHolm]

I don't agree with this, both because I think it's pointless to get hung up on labels for things and because I don't believe there is a meaningful difference between stroke/pure erotica and other types of erotica. Putting a label on something doesn't change what it is.

This. I would add that it's all too easy to get hung up and over-think all of this. I mean, fine if someone wants to split ever finer hairs, but personally my life is too short to worry about it or get precious.

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

I don't believe there is a meaningful difference between stroke/pure erotica and other types of erotica. I think it's more meaningful to talk about the elements of a story in a meaningful way

Yes. The problem with labels like "porn", "erotica", "stroke" etc. is not the words themselves, nor even the meanings they are trying to convey (which may sometimes be useful, if one can ever agree what they mean), but the attitudes which some readers, writers and (in Another Place) judges bring to the stories. Artistic snobbery, whether in music, art, literature or "erotica", is rarely informative or helpful; it's just plain snobbery, and no amount of tweaking of vocabulary is going to stop some people being snobbish.

 

[NoTalentHack]

This is retarded.

I don't mean that in the slur sense of the word--although I'll admit I wanted to encourage that association--but in how that term changed, became offensive, and got replaced.

When I was a kid, "retarded" was an insult among kids but not really adults yet. Eventually, it got replaced in official usage with "special," then "special needs," then... hell, I don't even know now. Each time, it turned into an insult by kids, then adults. The same thing happened with a slew of words before it, each of which occupied, at one time, the same "gentle" space that retarded had: idiot, imbecile, feebleminded, slow, and on and on.

The problem wasn't the words. It was never the words. It was the lack of respect and the lack of understanding. Changing the words just let adults feel like they'd made a meaningful contribution when they hadn't; what changed was when school administrators started treating the kids with respect and not splitting them out from classes unless they absolutely had to, because it forced the other kids to see that the differences didn't matter nearly as much as the similarities.

Now, with the new integration of classrooms, most of the kids are taken out for classes to help them with the specific things they need help with, but they spend most of their school day with their same-age peers. Autistic kids and ADHD kids are no longer "spazzes," as they were when we were in school. They're autistic, or they have ADHD. Kids with Down syndrome have Down syndrome. Kids with dyslexia have dyslexia.

The other kids aren't taught polite euphemisms that they can turn into insults. They're taught the actual, specific, clinical words. The meaner ones still try, sometimes, but it's a lot harder to make a medical diagnosis into a stigma, as opposed to a "polite" word intended to allow people to mentally avert their eyes or pat themselves on the back. A euphemism can be turned into anything the person saying it wants to turn it into; a clinical diagnosis, not so much.

I saw a neurodivergent acquaintance (an umbrella term that originated in the ND community, instead of being assigned outside it) with a button that said "Autistic as fuck" the other day. You can't turn it into a slur if a person bears the term with pride. You just look like an asshole.

Let's be clear: we write smut. We all write smut. We can put all the nice terms on it we want: erotica, erotic literature, stroker, pure erotica, spicy romance, whatever other polite terms you want. But when it comes down to it, we write smut. Fucking own it, and stop running away from it. Stop asking other people to give you respect, to use a polite term they're only going to turn into an insult later. Take a cue from the ND community. Or the LGBTQ+ one; it's only relatively recently that Q became de rigeur, as younger queer kids realized plenty of them fell under that umbrella term and chose to reclaim a slur that had been forced on their ancestors.

What we do isn't respectable. It should be; human sexuality should be as openly talked about as any other subject, warts and all. But it's not, and all the obfuscation in the world isn't going to make it more respectable.

Stop trying to make it respectable. Make it a fact instead, like autism, or ADHD, or queer. Respectability politics, trying to pretend "no, we're actually some of the good ones," will never get you what you want; it'll only make people who shouldn't be comfortable in their bigotry feel better.

You write smut. You want to make things better? Own that shit. Take a term of disdain and make them fucking respect it by not hiding from it. Politeness towards undeserved disrespect is for suckers.

 

[StillStunned]

Let's be clear: we write smut. We all write smut. We can put all the nice terms on it we want: erotica, erotic literature, stroker, pure erotica, spicy romance, whatever other polite terms you want. But when it comes down to it, we write smut. Fucking own it, and stop running away from it. Stop asking other people to give you respect, to use a polite term they're only going to turn into an insult later.

You write smut. You want to make things better? Own that shit. Take a term of disdain and make them fucking respect it by not hiding from it. Politeness towards undeserved disrespect is for suckers.

I don't think that's the issue with this thread. The issue isn't one of perception among the general public, but among fellow smut writers. Smutteteers. Smutsmiths. Anyway, the perception that there should be a distinction between stories *with* smut and stories *about* smut.

My very first story here attracted one comment: "This is just smut. No conflict, no story. There has to be more." That came as a surprise to me, having been a reader on LitE for perhaps two decades, and not once having thought to look for more than a few minutes of arousing reading.

There are writers who humblebrag that they can't write a "simple stroker", that they keep adding character and story and background. Now I'm not telling anyone what to write, and what not to write, but try setting yourself a challenge.

And it can be a challenge. Write one scene, no more than one LitE page. In just a few lines, make the characters compelling, make the sex compelling. Make the reader become engaged, want to read more, remember your short and simple stroker.

I'd argue that this can be as difficult as writing a "real" narrative.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I don't think that's the issue with this thread. The issue isn't one of perception among the general public, but among fellow smut writers. Smutteteers. Smutsmiths. Anyway, the perception that there should be a distinction between stories *with* smut and stories *about* smut.

My very first story here attracted one comment: "This is just smut. No conflict, no story. There has to be more." That came as a surprise to me, having been a reader on LitE for perhaps two decades, and not once having thought to look for more than a few minutes of arousing reading.

There are writers who humblebrag that they can't write a "simple stroker", that they keep adding character and story and background. Now I'm not telling anyone what to write, and what not to write, but try setting yourself a challenge.

And it can be a challenge. Write one scene, no more than one LitE page. In just a few lines, make the characters compelling, make the sex compelling. Make the reader become engaged, want to read more, remember your short and simple stroker.

I'd argue that this can be as difficult as writing a "real" narrative.

No argument there. I did a few 100 word things that are story-lite, and they're remarkably freeing, but also very difficult in their own way.

And what I said applies doubly to in-community shade. It's why neurodivergent has become a rallying cry; we're all in this together, and that's a step towards recognizing it. It's a problem in the LGBTQ+ community right now, too, although it has been for a while: the L & G often try to separate themselves from the B, which try to separate themselves from the T. "We're more respectable than them," says each group higher up the chain, the ones whose existence is less tenuous in cishet society. And the queer millennial and zoomer kids put their foot down and said, "No, we're all in this together. The folks that would persecute trans folks today will do it to bi folks next, and they won't stop there."

"We must all hang together, or we will all surely hang separately."

 

[Rob_Royale]

I don't think that's the issue with this thread. The issue isn't one of perception among the general public, but among fellow smut writers. Smutteteers. Smutsmiths.

I'd wear that T-shirt. The Author's Hangout Smuteteers, brought to you by Literotica. It's got a nice ring to it.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

No argument there. I did a few 100 word things that are story-lite, and they're remarkably freeing, but also very difficult in their own way.

And what I said applies doubly to in-community shade. It's why neurodivergent has become a rallying cry; we're all in this together, and that's a step towards recognizing it. It's a problem in the LGBTQ+ community right now, too, although it has been for a while: the L & G often try to separate themselves from the B, which try to separate themselves from the T. "We're more respectable than them," says each group higher up the chain, the ones whose existence is less tenuous in cishet society. And the queer millennial and zoomer kids put their foot down and said, "No, we're all in this together. The folks that would persecute trans folks today will do it to bi folks next, and they won't stop there."

"We must all hang together, or we will all surely hang separately."

The bis have been getting that smoke. From the infighting and the straights. So have the pans.

 

[SimonDoom]

Having read or scanned some of the stories listed in AG31's original post (it helps to look at the data), I have a better understanding of what AG31 is getting at. I think he is very clear what he means, even if many others aren't.

He's talking about stories that plunge immediately into a sexual encounter or experience without buildup. There's little plot or character development, unless it can be woven into the narrative of the encounter. The stories tend to be short. Most of those he cited are less than one Lit page (<3750 words).

I'm not sure if "pure erotica" is the right term for it, but I understand better now what he means. I might call it "sex-only erotica." That term is purely descriptive, and doesn't imply any value judgments or speculations about the intent of the author, as the terms "pure" and "stroke" do.

Obviously, there's a readership for these stories, but one notices right away that while some of these stories do well, they're not at the tops of either most-read lists or highest-scoring lists.

The only stories of mine that sort of fit into this category are my 750-word stories, like California Dogging or Wandering Hands. The word constraints make it impossible to have much buildup. But even in those stories I try to provide some background, some character motivation, and some setting description. So, they're not really my cup of tea, but that's fine. It's purely a matter of taste, not value judgment.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I thought I'd add a couple of things:

When it comes to smut, pure erotica, or strokers, whatever we call them, quality of writing still matters. A tight, well-written piece of basic fuck-fiction is simply better than some rambling piece that is filled with impossible physicality, bad descriptions and bad dialogue. From the line to the paragraph, to the scene, to the story - whether it is short or it is long, quality matters.

I have a bias when it comes to reading online*. I like short stories, get in, tell the tale, get out. The advice to edit ruthlessly, to cut everything out of your story that doesn't compell the story forward, comes primarily from the short story world, anywhere from two to ten thousand worlds. You have more leeway to productively ramble through your story in a novella, even more in a novel.

*Reading online is it's own beast, in terms of length and graphic layout. Most of the consumers of online fiction are reading in short bursts of less than fifteen minutes and they're often reading on mobile devices. That makes the short story a powerful medium for story telling.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Smutteteers. Smutsmiths.

I'm a Smutista.

Pure or impure, high brow, low brow, plotless vignettes or intricately plotted stories, it's all smut to me.
I also like the word smut.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm a Smutista.

Pure or impure, high brow, low brow, plotless vignettes or intricately plotted stories, it's all smut to me.
I also like the word smut.

I like the way you think. I think the same way.

It's like with music. Whether you're listening to Metallica or Mozart, it's just music. People like to put music in boxes, and they think, "I have to appreciate this music in this way, and that music in that way." But it's better un-boxed. While heavy metal and classical are different in many ways, you can listen to them in the same way--as sources of sheer pleasure.

Not all smut is equal. There's good smut and bad smut, but it's all smut, thank goodness.

 

[KeithD]

I do unabashedly write a few stroke stories--all heat, nothing included that doesn't serve the sexual heat. They don't require any more character development than to establish the characters are aroused by each other; they don't bother to justify anything. Sexual satisfaction is the goal. I wrote one such vignette (not enough plot to be a story) yesterday. I do, though, usually provide context, if not plot, for these works. (Yesterday, it was a good performance on the soccer field justifying an extra-attentive massage afterward. Providing that context didn't require more than a phrase at the beginning and some sort of connection at the end.)

 

[AG31]

FeralSmile is referring to a suggestion by @Bramblethorn about using "PWP," porn without plot.

I think that's a far better and more helpful label than "pure".

"Pure" is problematic on several levels. First, it's unavoidably a value-laden word, suggesting those stories are better than others.

Yes, I agree. I wish I could think of a more neutral word, because I sure don't want to claim that one type is better than the other. But for me, "porn" is even more value laden than "stroke." I just did a Google search on "thesaurus pure." How about "unalloyed?" I just did a search on "thesaurus unalloyed." How about "simple erotica?" I think there may be some hope in that.

And then "without plot" is very helpful. But a lot of people put a high value on character development, and I don't want to suggest that the type of story I'm talking about has vivid characters.

I don't agree that they're better or worse, just different. Second, I don't fundamentally think that PWP stories are any more innately erotic or "pure" than stories with plots and character development. What a reader finds arousing is very much a matter of individual preference, and some readers won't find what you call "pure" erotica at all arousing or interesting

Absolutely. See above. There's a vast world of different things that push people's arousal buttons. That's why I'm not dismayed that my following is small. I'm just glad there are some like minded people. But check out the stories I listed. Some of those authors are wildly popular.

; this belies the label. Third, as others have noted, trying to coin a new term for something well-established is challenging at best; the label has to impart something new and helpful in order to replace the other term. In that sense, "PWP" says a lot more than "pure" does, which makes it a better label, and it has the advantage of already being in use.

Well, I agree that in some ways it is a better label. What do you think about "simple erotica?"

@electricblue66

 

[AG31]

You called my story “Sisters Next Door” an example of “insert tab a into slot b”. I don’t mean to disrespect you, but that is what many of us mean by stroke stories or “pwp”. It seems even you would dis these stories a bit. At least you get the concept, I’ll give you that.

And my point is call Military Intelligence a compliment or an oxymoron, it’s still the same thing. Beauty in the eye of the Beholder, often one of the most depraved creatures in a fantasy realm.

I guess I'm trying to make a case for the notion that there can be degrees of quality in "PWP" stories. See my list of examples of good quality writing without plot or character.

 

[AG31]

I do unabashedly write a few stroke stories--all heat, nothing included that doesn't serve the sexual heat. They don't require any more character development than to establish the characters are aroused by each other; they don't bother to justify anything. Sexual satisfaction is the goal. I wrote one such vignette (not enough plot to be a story) yesterday. I do, though, usually provide context, if not plot, for these works. (Yesterday, it was a good performance on the soccer field justifying an extra-attentive massage afterward. Providing that context didn't require more than a phrase at the beginning and some sort of connection at the end.)

Excellent description of what I'm talking about. And I bet your attempted to make it something beyond "tab A into slot B."

 

[AG31]

In my mind's eye the separation is between well-written erotica and poorly written erotica.

In order to be a well-regarded piece of stroke (or whatever term is used) it also has to be well-written.

I couldn't agree more. I was only prompted to post this message because there's an assumption that stories that don't attend to plot and character can't be well written. If no one talked about the need for those things for writing to be consider quality, then I wouldn't feel the need to argue back.

 

[KeithD]

Excellent description of what I'm talking about. And I bet your attempted to make it something beyond "tab A into slot B."

How you get there--or at least how I try to get there--is to include showing the emotions in response to the scene by one or more of the characters.