What makes a book erotica and what makes it porn?

1. 81

   Danette Wattposted 11 years ago

   What makes a book erotica and what makes it porn?
   
   With all the hubbub about 50 Shades of Gray and it's sequels, I'm curious about this. I've read "hot" books and some of them involved BSM themes but I always considered them porn. Does love have to be an aspect of the story to make it erotica? What do you think?

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2. 61

   SteveSpencerposted 11 years ago

   Erotica describes it; porn shows it.
   
   Erotica is word pictures; porn is visual pictures.

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3. 82

   jadesmgposted 11 years ago

   ye, agree. surely porn is photographic while erotica is just words with imagination.

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4. 69

   glenn wallaceposted 11 years ago

   There's no clear dividing line.
   The super simple definitions would be: Art showing sex is erotica. Sex shown through an art form is porn.
   
   To be a bit clearer, I say that if the person writing the story/shooting the picture/making the video is aspiring to actually make something sexy that strives to be artistic, then you could call it erotica.
   If the person is just trying to make something titalating, or just flat out document sex, then it's porn.
   
   Like I said, there's no clear line though. If you were to come up with a sliding scale for writing, you'd put stuff like the letters column in Hustler at the extreme 'Porn' end of the scale, and Lady Chatterley's Lover on the extreme 'Erotic' end.   
   
   Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because there are BDSM elements in a story that it should automatically be moved further toward the 'Porn' end of the spectrum. Some of the most respected erotic novels out there deal with those subjects. Case in point: Story of O.

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5. 78

   bernard.sinaiposted 11 years ago

   I guess erotica would be subtle, more like impressions of sex and sexual acts. The acts and emotions are then described using clever comparisons to everyday objects. 
   
   Pornography would go one step further – more explicit. The description would be graphic and details making it less imaginative.
   
   This is what I think anyway.

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