erotica and pprnography

[schmerica]

Yesterday fox1013 had a very interesting post about porn and fanfiction and reader response, which you can find here; in the comments to it, though, I kind of went off on a weird tangent about my thoughts on erotica and pornography, which I think I'll elaborate more on here, rather than take up all her space in a digression.

(Note: I'm pretty much speaking about women, here, and both fannish and non-fannish related sexuality.)

Basically, it comes down to the fact that I really dislike the common splitting of sexually explicit material into two distinct groups -- "pornography" at one end, and "erotica" on the other. My objections to this have a couple of different root causes.

1. The distinction between the two is fundamentally meaningless and arbitrary.

Pornography is, notoriously, in the eye of the beholder; the disctinction generally being made between erotica and pornography is generally fuzzy to the point of being frustrating. The criteria being used change depending on the specific point the arguer is trying to make, but I don't believe I've seen one argument that uses a set of guidelines for the difference between the two categories that is clear and non-relative. The inability to distinguish the categories in any definite lessens the *use* of those categories.

2. It encourages a sanitizing and restricting of women's sexuality.

Behind almost every set of definitions I've read for the relationship of "erotica" and "pornography", there's been a fairly clear background message of "porn=bad; erotica=good." Pornography is crude and exploitative and loin-heavy; erotica is thoughtful and emotion-heavy and literary.

Obviously erotica is better than porn. Obviously erotica is what *should* get you off -- or at least, you shouldn't talk about it if you like porn. Obviously women like erotica and not porn; porn is for guys.

Women don't like crudeness or graphicness or raunchiness. Women want to see two people in love making sweet candlelit love and proclaiming devotion and snuggling. Women don't want fucking or hairpulling or spurting or cocksucking.

I was actually reading in somebody's journal a week or two ago when they had casually referred to slash in their post as "gay porn" and someone had commented about how, really, it was erotica, and the slashers who wrote and devoured it wouldn't touch real porn with a ten foot pole.

Which both flabbergasted me and pissed me off in the same way hearing "Women don't get turned on by two guys together" did in freshman women's studies and "Women like words, guys like pictures" does every single time I hear. They're blanket statements that in no way reflect the reality of women's complicated sexuality.

I mean, the fact that I know women who write thoughtful, well-written, sexually explicit material doesn't mean that those same women don't turn around and collect and watch hardcore pornographic videos or troll the Nifty Archive at their leisure.

Bowlderizing sexuality makes things tidy, but it still sucks.

3. I find it aesthetically displeasing.

This, of course, is purely personal. My personal connotations with the word "porn" is sexually explicit material; I think porn and I think of boys having sex and girls having sex and all the slash I've read and sitting around in a room full of women to watch boys fuck onscreen. These are all positive associations for me. (Sometimes there's an extra element of "oh, that's *dirty*", which, frankly, only adds to the appeal.)

"Erotica", on the other hand, almost always strikes me as overly precious. It can come across in two ways: either porn that's afraid to call itself porn, or, more commonly, it makes me think of really pretentious and overwritten stories found in overpriced story collections. It's not a sexy word at all; it sounds too overly distanced from its material.

Of course, on the other hand, we could all just avoid this topic entirely and just use the word "smut", I guess.

Unless it makes you think of plant diseases.

Comments

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

Yesy-yes-yes!

[gloss]

Mostly I just want to say word a lot. I'm glad you decided to expand on your comment(s) to Fox's post, because this is something I've been thinking about a lot, too.

The distinction between porn as what gets you off, you filthy pervert and erotica as what I, a healthy right-thinking woman, find romantic and sexy has bothered me for a long time. I only read fairly recently that the distinction was first(? at least in its current form) made by Steinem in 1978: Erotica is about sexulaity, but pornography is about power and sex-as-weapon, which reads - to me at any rate - as a gender-coding of soft vs. violent, feminine vs. masculing, that doesn't entirely hold up. Mapping gender onto sexuality can be done, but it's never neat, never one-to-one, and usually generates more problems than it solves.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nodding* I think that's a really good concise way of putting it, too.

Feminism and pornography is such an interesting topic, too -- meaty and complicated and mmmm. Which just makes the weird assumptions that come up (like in the comments to Fox's post) about "feminism automatically = antiporn" so strange to me. I mean, I know for a fact that the way I think about sexuality and pornography can definitely be traced right back to high school and my discovery all on my own of third-wave feminism, you know?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

The word "erotica" is just the word "porn" when viewed through soft lighting and vaseline filters. ;)

:wanders off singing 'The Internet is for Porn":

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh. Which is cool, right? Right on with soft lighting and vaseline if you dig them; it's just the valuing of one over the other and the automatic assumptions that are annoying.

(I still haven't actually heard any of the songs from Avenue Q, I don't think.)

[lattara.livejournal.com]

See, this is where I can only say a big, hearty word, because people, when they're being this intelligent, simply give me complexes. But yeah. So true.

[rowanfairchild.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to add my "Word McWordy Word" attagirl pat on the back. :-)

I've found the politics behind the fuzzy semantic hairsplitting on this "distinction" to be irksome for a long time now. Mind if I link to this?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Dude, not at all; I'd be flattered by linking.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

*smooches your brain*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

That kind of tickles, honey.

[estrella30.livejournal.com]

Wow - not only are you beautiful and witty? You're freaking brilliant too *g*

*glomps your big brain*

[mosca.livejournal.com]

There was much wank about this at Writercon, with similar conclusions expressed much less eloquently than you've done here, and with the usual foot-stamping declarations of, "I don't write porn! I write erotica! I do!" It's one of those conflicts that makes intelligent people lose all capacity for thoughtful discourse, because the word "porn" produces such a viscerally negative reaction.

As a woman who'd much rather see fucking and cocksucking than cuddling and candlelight, I take offense to a lot of the same blanket statements you do. It's-- hell, it's inspiring to see the argument laid out like this. Thank you.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

Hee! I've always thought the difference in terminology were in usage, not content...

Their smut.
Her porn.
My (beautiful/artful) erotica.

Except for folks who like to be iconoclasts... in which case, it's...

My smut.
Our porn.
Their (dull) erotica.

*scampers away in search of coffee*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting. Do you think a difference in usage like that implies a difference in connotation, though?

[brooklinegirl.livejournal.com]

I think porn and I think of boys having sex and girls having sex and all the slash I've read and sitting around in a room full of women to watch boys fuck onscreen. These are all positive associations for me. (Sometimes there's an extra element of "oh, that's *dirty*", which, frankly, only adds to the appeal.)

God, yes. Perfectly yes. Very much yes. You are wicked. Fucking. Smart. And? Yes. *smooches*

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

Although, I'll admit, I always think of [story] porn as 'a guy thing' -- a subset of badly written smut.

For video fucking, it's all porn whether good or bad. Wierd, huh?

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

*proposes marriage*

[hesychasm]

Word, word, word. Plus also? Word.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

*Yes*. Thank you.

[akite.livejournal.com]

I called my stories smut for years, but since I joined dS fandom, I'm becoming more comfortable about calling porn, porn.

[mollita.livejournal.com]

I am so very in love with you and your brain right now.

[lyra-sena.livejournal.com]

First off, yes to all of this, yes to you, yes yes yes.

Behind almost every set of definitions I've read for the relationship of "erotica" and "pornography", there's been a fairly clear background message of "porn=bad; erotica=good." Pornography is crude and exploitative and loin-heavy; erotica is thoughtful and emotion-heavy and literary.

I recently purchased a book that labeled itself as 'lesbian erotica'. And the truth is, the short stories were in no way thoughtful, emotion-heavy, or anywhere near literary. It was poor writing, poorly done sex, and a big disappointment. The wincingly bad sex scenes made me run to my computer and find some good femslash.

"Erotica", on the other hand, almost always strikes me as overly precious. It can come across in two ways: either porn that's afraid to call itself porn, or, more commonly, it makes me think of really pretentious and overwritten stories found in overpriced story collections.

To go along with my 'lesbian erotica' book -- this says it all. The book was crude and crass -- lots of 'cunt' and 'pussy' and yet, they labeled it 'erotica', which just struck me as amusing. Because this book, in essence, was making a statement that was defining 'erotica' by the stories it included, and that definition strayed far into the accepted realm of 'porn'.

I think the difference between 'porn' and 'erotica' in fictional writing is harder to establish, than say, in a visual art form. Again, though, it's all about personal preference, and how a person views what they are reading/seeing. If you see graphic pictures of naked people, you're likely to say 'porn!', but if you see artistically photographed nudes, a person is more likely to label that 'erotica' or 'art' -- or at least, not porn.

And I'm rambling now, but my point is that it's all a matter of the person's view. Arguments for 'erotica' being a higher art form than porn and how women like it better just perpetuate this ridiculous gender-coding notion that women don't like to see cock. Dammit! Give me cock!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*gives lyra_sena cock*

[askye.livejournal.com]

There was a discussion somewhere else about what the difference between the terms smut, porn, and erotica were. Personally smut and porn are the same thing. Although if I pressed I'd say smut isn't quite as explicit as porn. Erotica seems more...literary and if pressed I'd have to say that smut and porn sound like they are fun and erotica sounds kinda..boring.

But that's only if you really want me to make a distinction. otherwise -- smut = porn = erotica = YAY!!!

Unless it's characters I don't want to see having sex. Then I'll take a pass.

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

Fabulous, fabulous breakdown. The distinction that people try to make has always seemed hazy to me, but mostly I just don't understand the problem that so many people have with simply classifying things as "porn."

You're fab. :-D

Contrasting Opinion

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I, uh--well, call me a rebel, but I disagree. Not with the point you're making about value judgments (there are some attached to these words, yeah, and I agree that that's wrong) and not with the idea that women really like carnal visual pornography, because I think lots do, but with this:

I was actually reading in somebody's journal a week or two ago when they had casually referred to slash in their post as "gay porn" and someone had commented about how, really, it was erotica, and the slashers who wrote and devoured it wouldn't touch real porn with a ten foot pole.

I don't think that slash is either "gay" (by which I'm assuming people mean "gay male")or "porn" even though many women who enjoy slash may themselves be queer or have gay male friends or enjoy porn when they're not reading slash. Do you see what I mean? Sure, women who enjoy slash may also enjoy porn (of which a subset is gay porn) but I don't think that that means slash = porn or slash=gay porn. Why do I argue this? Well, mainly because I don't like the idea that this homegrown female storytelling movement just gets lumped into the category of "gay male porn" which was not created by and is largely not marketed to us (however much it may actually be consumed by us).

It's a radical feminist thang. *G*

Now, one can surely argue that slash and porn and gay porn can be used for a similar purpose--orgasm!--and I would say yay to that and amen. Orgasms are good, and I never fail to hope that I get people off even despite my penchant for clowns, mimes, etc. On the other hands, vibrators are also used to produce orgasm but slash is not therefore a vibrator. Similarly, you can read slash for other things but you can not, to my knowledge, read a vibrator, except maybe for the really small print on the side telling you how and where to change the battery.

You take my point.

In fact, I might go so far as to argue that porn isn't a thing but a methodology. By which I mean, you can--and should!--use things pornographically; you should, in fact, masturbate to innocuous things as well as carnal ones, to hard core porn and passages of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita and to slash and to Justin Timberlake's smile. To Spock's ears, to Rob Lowe's haircut, to algebraic formulas if you like math. And women should definitely do this, and they want to do it, and I agree that they've often been slandered as not wanting to. BUT---the fact that one can use things erotically does not mean that they have only this use; hell, even hard core porn is now being studied by filmmakers for it's aesthetics, and they don't mean the cocks. And women sometimes also use porn to bond with friends where the point is NOT erotic but communitarian . So just because a thing has a pornographic use, that doens't mean it's "only" pornography--and in this way, even pornography is not only pornography. Justin Timberlake's smile is also good for other things, like selling soda pop, etc.

Anyway, just a differing opinion for, you know, contrast. *g*

Addendum

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Oh, and by the way, I meant to add--yeah, for some women, slash and other kinds of pornography are contiguous pleasures, and for some women they're not, right? I mean, I don't think we want to pathologize the women for whom these are not analagous pleasures, right? I mean, some people don't even enjoy slash if it's not in their fandom, or doesn't feature their BSO or their type of BSO--they aren't interested if it loses even that much specificity. So I mean, the transfer from fannish to not, word to image--there might be a spectrum of contiguous pleasures, sure, but logically, there are going be people who lose interest somewhere along there too and again, I'm suspicious of any attempt to pathologize them just as I'm suspicious of the people who claim that NO slasher in their right mind would touch pornography. Some would, some wouldn't, no?

Re: Addendum

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

No, yeah, I agree completely; seriously, the last thing I meant to do with this post was to say one thing is good and another is bad, to imply that there's one way of relating to sexuality that we should all follow. I was writing in defensive manner, I think, so that may have affected how well I expressed that.

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[persian-slipper.livejournal.com]

Dude, if all my professors explained things like that, I would be *way* more interested in fem/gen studies, semantics, and jargon.

::loves Speranza's exceedingly cool academic brain::

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I didn't mean, necessarily, to imply that slash does equal porn. I think describing slash with "gay porn" shorthand really is overly simplistic for a complicated form -- which most of us are writing for different reasons and getting very different things out of. It's easier to say "gay porn" than it is to get into the history of fandom and feminism and sexuality and relationships and psychology, but it does lose a *lot* in accuracy.

But, of course, that's not to say slash *isn't* pornographic, either. And really, what I was trying to respond to there was that same assumption that things that we like *aren't* porn, because if they *were*, we wouldn't like it -- really, the automatic dismissal there of "smart or educated or [insert slasher persona cliche] here don't like pornography; if it was really pornography, they wouldn't like it." I wasn't specifically responding to the denial of slash as gay porn as such.

In fact, I might go so far as to argue that porn isn't a thing but a methodology.

I find this whole paragraph really fascinating, actually; I was really glad to read your whole comment.

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

And actually, I agree with your entire clarification, so look! Synthesis! *G*

Seriously--I'm obviously with you in disliking the idea that "good girls don't"--what you're calling the "smart or educated or [insert slasher persona cliche] here don't like pornography; if it was really pornography, they wouldn't like it."

OTOH, I'm more and more interested in these terminology debates--erotica vs gay porn (neither accurate, imo), or even recuperating WNGWJLEO as a kind of groping toward something, a way of talking about some complicated literary-televisual-sexual pleasure that doesn't have a name. And I'm suspicious when other names-"gay" "porn" "erotica"--slide onto what we're doing.

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*Jumps up and down flailing and going YES! YES! Only SHE explains it SO MUCH BETTER!*

The icon expresses my latest approach to the problem.

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[lyssabard.livejournal.com]

Dear god, you're fabulous. :)

Now, I wish all of you were around when I was attacked for calling someone's "erotic roleply" on a messageboard "smut", as in, "Wow, what wonderful smut, good job! Well done!"

I am so in agreement.

Re: Contrasting Opinion

[wemblee.livejournal.com]

or even recuperating WNGWJLEO as a kind of groping toward something, a way of talking about some complicated literary-televisual-sexual pleasure that doesn't have a name.

Have you talked about this elsewhere? Or, if not, do you plan to? Also, may I worship your brain?

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I have a less "word"y response to your positive view of the word porn (mine is very mixed, because to me "porn" in the sense of slash is very different from the mainstream porn I've seen, which I did frankly find both degrading and dull), but I am running out the door, so I will try to respond later.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Well, my third point is very subjective -- I do admit that I happen to have very positive assocations with porn; I certainly don't expect everyone else to share them, nor I expect anyone else to just randomly dislike the word erotica. But my main point is less "yay, porn! all porn rocks!" than the first two things: that there's no consistent and determinable criteria for the dichotomy often presented between the two, and -- mostly this one -- that I don't get the vast generalizations stating sexuality and responses to sexual material as if they were flat-out *true*, that that's how things are, and the inability it gives to maneuver other reactions and feelings.

I mean, I'm not saying mainstream porn can't be gross. Because, yeah.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Nono, I agree on the whole. But I can also understand where the view that Porn Is Degrading comes from. It's like why I have incredibly mixed feelings about strippers -- sure, more power to them, but they did choose a job that makes them an object rather than a job that requires brains or personality or specialized skills.

A friend of a friend got offered a Playboy shoot -- if she got implants first. In my worldview, that's degrading. Of course not all porn is like that. But enough of what most people think of when they hear "porn" is that the tendency to not want to call things we like "porn" doesn't surprise me a whole lot. People want to draw a line between things they like and things that disturb them. But with something as subjective as sexuality, that doesn't work terribly well.

Or something.

I kind of like "smut", myself, the plant-disease thing aside. But I use "porn", too, and very rarely erotica. I think my personal association with erotica tends to be that it's very stylized, but in a different direction than porn; much more about mood and setting in some ways. Very subjective definition.

*shrug* I'm rather incoherent and haven't thought about this recently, so apologizes if it makes as much sense as a weasel on crack.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

No, I think you're making sense -- I definitely see where you're coming from.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Hi, here via metablog.

I've always interpreted the distinction between porn and erotica as being mostly about sexual vs sensual. People actually having sex, being represented for the titillation of whoever? Yay porn. Art that is also sensual or even sexual in nature, but is art? Erotica. Yes, there are many things that blur the boundary, but mostly it's about intent.

I think the problem creeps in by those established concepts: porn is bad and icky and is a male thing, erotica is refined and the sort of thing that women can like and still be respectable. So they call porn erotica, just like censorship crusaders often label erotica porn.

Me, I think that erotica and pornography are very different things that serve very different purposes, and it's only mishandling by silly people of both terms that makes the distinction border on useless. I've seen very little erotic fanfic in my time, although I've seen a little; most fanfic runs along the continuum of romance-porn rather than erotica-porn.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I've always interpreted the distinction between porn and erotica as being mostly about sexual vs sensual. People actually having sex, being represented for the titillation of whoever? Yay porn. Art that is also sensual or even sexual in nature, but is art? Erotica. Yes, there are many things that blur the boundary, but mostly it's about intent.

Hmmm. See, I'm not so sure I agree. Even using these definitions, it seems less like setting up porn and erotica as two different things than as erotica being one specific *subset* of the larger range of pornography. Otherwise you seem to be forced to define pornography by what it isn't -- that is, the fact that it's not art. Because if it's that if it's art, then it's erotica, and if it's titillating and sexual, it's porn -- well. That immediately raises the question of why something *can't* be both.

*grins* Not to mention the Question That Never Dies of what exactly counts as art anyway, right?

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Okay, the point I would have made better, but I was hurrying because I had to get to work: there *is* no clear distinction, that I can see, because it's entirely subjective. It can be both - I saw an incredibly artsy gay porn film noir that took a very elegant approach to its video of guys fucking each other's brains out.

I don't see erotica as a subset of porn. I see erotica and porn as being two sets with substantial overlap - think Venn diagram.

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

Some time back on a list I frequent some one said that all slash was gay porn - a point you allude to. I remember thinking I don't write gay porn I write stories about two guys who happen to be in, or are getting towards, a sexual relationship - porn doesn't come into it. Contemplating the thought some months later I wrote an essay for my site called Is Slash Gay Porn? setting forth my argument. I also asked my beta to read it and was very intrigued by his comments. I've left my essay as it was written, although I'd say that my views have changed a bit since I wrote it, particularly in the light of David's comments. What he said that is perhaps pertinent to your comments is:

No matter how well written a slash story is I read it for the pleasure of reading a story. I read/view gay porn to masturbate and get off, either alone or with somebody else. It's as simple as that.

I would say that the intentions and desires of the reader is the reference for whether something is seen as porn or not. I would also tend to agree that when it comes down to splitting hairs over erotica and porn that there is very little in it, other than the fact that porn tends to be used pejoratively while erotica is viewed as nicely dressed up and literate.

I hope that made some sense. *g*

came here via four_lobsters

[daliahellyes.livejournal.com]

the disctinction generally being made between erotica and pornography is generally fuzzy to the point of being frustrating.

Yeeesss. I've had this discussion before, though it was with someone who didn't even make ANY distinction and it was painfully frustrating. In my mind for years, this is what is the default interpretation; erotica and porn are similar obviously, but erotica is more vanilla? Erotica is sensual, blah blah etc. Porn is down to the simplistic acts of sex as they are. Sex. No frills , no shit just sex. Visual, up close sex. I don't get OFF on erotica, I enjoy it and I can get aroused. I do get off on porn. I like porn. I like watching dirty dirty fucking and oh my I'm a WOMAN.

And now for the obligatory dictionary definitions:

e·rot·i·ca

1. Literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire.

por·nog·ra·phy

1. Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.

One's goal is to arouse desire, one's goal is to CAUSE arousal. But really, the lines between that are so blurred. Ok now I'm back where I started. ARGH. lol

The Erotic and the Pornographic

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

Coming here from Metablog:

I guess the distinction for me has always been rather simple:

The pornographic is about sex.

The erotic is about sex ... and something else.

Here from metablog . . .

[cyanidefish.livejournal.com]

Amazing the places LiveJournal can lead you. I'd just like to say that your rant made me want to stand on a chair and cry "YES! I'm NOT the only one who thinks this way! Screw the academic feminists and their neo-Victorianism!"

I have the sudden urge to sing Tom Lehrer . . .

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut,
If it's uncut,
and unsubt- le.

I've never quibbled
If it was ribald,
I would devour where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he
acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.

(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties,
samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers,
Lurid, licentious, and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
(Let's face it, I love slime.)

All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan,
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will,
If it is swill
And really fil
thy.

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all
away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words,

Smut! (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut,
I don't know what
Compares with smut.

Hip hip hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!

Heck with erotica, give me SMUT!