Sep 24 2008
Erotica vs. Porn – Grudge Match!
So, I’ve smirkingly said in the past that erotica is nothing more than socially acceptable porn. I was pondering this a few days ago with one of my Friend-With-Benefits types (well, okay – he’s the only one currently that fits that category) when I thought about what kinds of differences there really are between the two. I can’t be the only person out there wondering about it, so I thought I’d do some research, and write a handy guide to help my fair readers discern whether they’re jerking off to porn or masturbating to erotica.
Erotica comes from people with names like Anne Roquelare, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Lisbet Sarai. Porn comes from people with names like Seymore Butts, Sledge Hammer, and Alexis Texas.
Erotica uses words like “mons”, “cleavage”, and “penis”. Porn uses words like “man meat”, “jizz”, and “cum dumpster”.
Erotica has themes like sex with a stranger, surprise threeways, and sex in the woods. Porn has themes like MILFs, Amateurs, and biracial orgies.
Erotica is generally sold with a very softcore image of a scantily or provocatively clad woman. Porn is generally sold with a very hardcore image of a woman whose genitals are as air conditioned as a summer house in Georgia.
Erotica often has twenty minutes of erotic tension before the first sex scene. Porn often has twenty minutes of advertisements before the first sex scene.
Erotica has titles like “Her Surrender”, “On The Balcony”, and “A Date with Destiny”. Porn has titles like “Young, Dumb, and Full of Cum”, “British Older Amateur Housewives #1″, and “Little Red Rides The Hood”.
When you’re reading erotica, you feel “aroused”, “titillated”, and “swollen”. When you read porn, you’re just plain ol’ horny.
One does not “masturbate” to porn – one jerks off, or double clicks the mouse, or shoots a wad. One, also, doesn’t “milk the weasel” to erotica – one performs self loving, or strokes oneself, or in a fit of arousal one might even “ejaculate”.
One’s mother might not turn as bright a shade of red if she happens upon your copy of “Macho Sluts” as if she were to happen upon your copy of “Debbie Does Dildos”.
Erotica is not sold behind the counter in your shady neighborhood convenience store. Porn is not sold in Borders.
Finally, erotica writers get reviewed using comments like “his grasp of the feminine sensibilities of this character makes his story a tour de force of passion and lust”. Porn writers get reviewed using comments like “I give this story three cum shots!”.
Me, I don’t care so much whether what I write is called erotica, or porn, as long as it gets me more sex.
September 24th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Very amusing, although I have always thought, myself, of erotica as printed and porn as everything else. Or perhaps it’s only my conservative sensibilities talking when I find myself drawn to erotica instead of porn and labeling those types I choose to consume accordingly?
September 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
For years I had to endure the abundance of “erotica” for women, while men got the real porn. Fuck that! I’ve been frustrated with “erotica” for years. I’m a female pornographer, and proud of it. I don’t like to mince words, and that’s a mission, for me: keeping it dirty.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:12 am
To me its a difference of traditions. Classifications of this kind (as in art of all kinds)are exceptionally difficult as the names we give aren’t to the products themselves, per se, but to the culture from which they are produced. For example, we have no problem saying some food is “french” or “italian” without an absolute definition of what makes them such besides the culinary traditions from which they were inspired, but when it comes to “porn” vs. “erotica” we ignore the traditions which produced them and look at a video box (or magazine, or live show, or anything else) in isolation from its influences and references in order to classify it with what we approve of or not. Porn often deliberately uses language to elicit taboo ideas about the body, whether they are objectification, animalization, or simply a highlighting of the parts of us that society often claims to be “dirty.” Erotica, on the other hand, focuses on narratives that often fit into a structure we can understand from within a social context and allows us to experience the sex act without challenging much of what mainstream society deems as “base” or “dirty” about sex. Of course this is a generalization, like any others; like I said before, these are traditions, not categories. And these are my perspectives as someone who does not have extensive knowledge but likes to pull pseudo-intellectual cultural studies rants out of his ass.
Thank you and goodnight.
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