Erotica and pornography: Is there a difference?

[polynices]

I know this is a hoary chestnut, but is there really a difference between erotica and pornography? I tend to think not - my personal definition of both is 'writing or images designed to cause sexual arousal'. However, I'm very open to counter-arguments. A lot of people seem to make a distinction between the two - both here on Literotica and in the world at large - and the supposed difference is obviously important for some. That makes me curious.

Here are a few thoughts about possible definitions - but I stress that they're very tentative and by no means definitive. (And there are contradictions between them as well.)

1. Pornography and erotica are essentially the same. However, the term 'pornography' is pejorative, while 'erotica' is either neutral or celebratory.

2. Pornography is failed sex art, while erotica is successful sex art. (Of course, I'm using 'art' in a very general sense here, so it would include writing.)

3. It's all a matter of taste - one person's porn is another person's erotica. If you liked it, it was erotica. If you hated it, it was porn.

4. It depends on how you feel afterwards. If you felt good or uplifted after reading, looking at or watching it, it was erotica. If you felt bad, it was porn.

5. There's a spectrum between the two poles: clear cases of erotica are at one end; obvious pornography is at the other. However, it's difficult to tell the difference near the middle.

6. There's an absolute difference between the two. Porn crosses a line of acceptability and damns itself as a result. (This is a counter-position to 5, above, of course. )

7. There's no difference at all. It's just a pseudo-distinction made by people who can't bring themselves to admit that they really, really like porn.

8. Pornography is unrealistic, impossible fantasy; erotica is somehow (however tenuously) rooted in the real world.

9. Pornography is erotica without feeling.

10. Pornography is always, in some sense, sadistic; erotica is always about love.

11. This century's erotica was last century's pornography. That is, standards and attitudes change continually.

(As I said earlier, these are all tentative moves towards definition. There are several contradictions in the list and none of the positions I've sketched seems fully adequate to me.)

- polynices

 

[OnlyByMoonlight]

Pornography is flat and has one purpose/meaning: to sexually arouse

Erotica is round and can have multiple meanings, be symbolic and allegorical as well as sexually arouse

 

[Wyldfire]

Not really. Porn is the every man's enjoyment. Erotica is the snobbish uppercrust's answer to the every man. Both are smut at the core. You can dress a pig in silk but in the end it's still a pig.

That's all the difference there is between porn and erotica.

 

[LaRocha]

1. Pornography and erotica are essentially the same. However, the term 'pornography' is pejorative, while 'erotica' is either neutral or celebratory.

Pornography and erotica are often given as synonyms, doesn't mean there's not a marked difference between the two aside from porn having a dirtier connotation in common usage.

2. Pornography is failed sex art, while erotica is successful sex art. (Of course, I'm using 'art' in a very general sense here, so it would include writing.)

Pornography isn't an attempt at art, it's highly commercial, it's an attempt at arousing an audience to make money, providing a product in hopes someone will pay money. There's such a thing as pornographic writing vs. erotic writing and it follows the same lines as porn film vs. erotic film.

3. It's all a matter of taste - one person's porn is another person's erotica. If you liked it, it was erotica. If you hated it, it was porn.

Erotica is highly sensual, pornography is highly mechanical. There's a difference between the porn you like and the erotica you enjoy, there's objectivity.

4. It depends on how you feel afterwards. If you felt good or uplifted after reading, looking at or watching it, it was erotica. If you felt bad, it was porn.

Highly Catholic definition of Sin, just turn the good and bad around. Don't really want to touch this one.

5. There's a spectrum between the two poles: clear cases of erotica are at one end; obvious pornography is at the other. However, it's difficult to tell the difference near the middle.

You'd have to give examples at each end and in the middle. I think it's fairly clear cut, whereas erotica deals with sensuality and intimacy. Pornography merely describes or displays the acts of sex, the performance of sex instead of the experience.

6. There's an absolute difference between the two. Porn crosses a line of acceptability and damns itself as a result. (This is a counter-position to 5, above, of course. )

Porn is highly acceptable, as pornography makes up the majority of the content on the Internet.

7. There's no difference at all. It's just a pseudo-distinction made by people who can't bring themselves to admit that they really, really like porn.

That doesn't have much to do with the discussion.

8. Pornography is unrealistic, impossible fantasy; erotica is somehow (however tenuously) rooted in the real world.

Both are rooted in the real world and fantasy world. It's just a matter of porn explores and displays sex mindlessly, while erotica explores sexuality via the mind and sense experience, emotions etc. Not that there can't be some dirty erotica where there's very little intimacy or emotion exchanged...

9. Pornography is erotica without feeling.

More or less, yes.

10. Pornography is always, in some sense, sadistic; erotica is always about love.

I think people would disagree with this statement the most, I'll just leave it.

11. This century's erotica was last century's pornography. That is, standards and attitudes change continually.

19th Century pornography is this century's pornography. Pornography and erotica have been around for thousands of years. I'll give examples of each from the past if anyone's interested.

 

[oggbashan]

11. This century's erotica was last century's pornography. That is, standards and attitudes change continually.

19th Century pornography is this century's pornography. Pornography and erotica have been around for thousands of years. I'll give examples of each from the past if anyone's interested.

Ovid wrote erotica. The Roman emperors, Tiberius and Caligula, preferred pornography.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its the old question of: Is manure shit? Is a diamond coal? Is water ice?

Maybe the correct answer is: What's the outcome you want?

 

[Handley_Page]

Not really. Porn is the every man's enjoyment. Erotica is the snobbish uppercrust's answer to the every man. Both are smut at the core. You can dress a pig in silk but in the end it's still a pig.

That's all the difference there is between porn and erotica.

Sorry.
How wrong can you be ?

To my mind, pornography is a sort of "in your face" artificial sex. It does not represent anything; it has no artistic merit (usually). When you've seen one you've seen them all (mostly). No sane person has sex that way anyway (as illustrated in too many films).

Erotica is the 'suggestion' of pornography; a light shining down a path that leads to sex in one form or another.

It's the difference between a very short skirt (thus having the capacity to reveal), and stark naked.

 

[Verdad]

I don't believe a hard line can be drawn between porn and erotica, with the entire production of sexually explicit materials falling neatly on one or the other side, but as a possible description, I think there's some insight in this point:

4. It depends on how you feel afterwards. If you felt good or uplifted after reading, looking at or watching it, it was erotica. If you felt bad, it was porn.

Granted, I am not sure what you mean by "feeling bad". If it's supposed to connote sexual guilt, I can't say it applies to me, nor is it likely to apply to anyone who doesn't already approach the material with a guilty attitude. However, if it's supposed to connote a lack of satisfaction, a feeling akin, perhaps, to eating something that does stop the stomach from rumbling but neither invigorates nor leaves a memory of a fine taste, then I'd say it's a very apt description of consuming porn.

Erotica, or at least a better class of porn, engages imagination. The feeling of "being uplifted" is to my mind pretty much the same as what we get from other enjoyable fiction. We get an escapist ride through a life unlived, or get to see the familiar in a new light, or both. There's something to take away from the experience, there's a charge to one's erotic imagination, and possibly a desire to reread.

By contrast, crude porn does nothing of a kind. I primarily, but not exclusively, mean porn with live actors here. It doesn't necessitate engagement—in fact, I'd almost say it makes engagement impossible—provoking the response it does through sheer biology, as if by pressing a button. A male friend of mine likens the experience to being attached to an electro-ejaculator, a device used on cattle, and if not for the different equipment, I'd describe it the same way. Provided, of course, it even does as much—a lot of visual porn doesn't do even that for women, but that's a discussion we've had many times before. The "feeling bad" afterwards thus makes sense to me if it refers to a lack of emotional satisfaction.

Somewhat pertinent is a humorous definition I've read somewhere that went like this: If you go from being intensely interested in a picture, video, or a piece of writing to losing all interest in it the moment you've had an orgasm, it's porn.

In short, I'd say erotica enriches one's erotic imagination while porn dulls it, but I'll repeat it couldn't stand as something definitional but merely as a reflection.

 

[3113]

Somewhat pertinent is a humorous definition I've read somewhere that went like this: If you go from being intensely interested in a picture, video, or a piece of writing to losing all interest in it the moment you've had an orgasm, it's porn.

In short, I'd say erotica enriches one's erotic imagination while porn dulls it, but I'll repeat it couldn't stand as something definitional but merely as a reflection.

Great definitions! We should ensconce them somewhere and trot them out whenever this question gets asked

 

[The_Fool]

They are both the same and if you read, write or rub either one of them all over your body, sweating copiously in the process, you are going to HELL.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

They are both the same and if you read, write or rub either one of them all over your body, sweating copiously in the process, you are going to HELL.

If Hell has endless rubbing of bodies together, endless coupling, endless orgasm, endless sensual delights then I for one will not mind being there, if such a place exists.

 

[CharleyH]

I know this is a hoary chestnut, but is there really a difference between erotica and pornography? I tend to think not - my personal definition of both is 'writing or images designed to cause sexual arousal'. However, I'm very open to counter-arguments. A lot of people seem to make a distinction between the two - both here on Literotica and in the world at large - and the supposed difference is obviously important for some. That makes me curious.

Here are a few thoughts about possible definitions - but I stress that they're very tentative and by no means definitive. (And there are contradictions between them as well.)

1. Pornography and erotica are essentially the same. However, the term 'pornography' is pejorative, while 'erotica' is either neutral or celebratory.

2. Pornography is failed sex art, while erotica is successful sex art. (Of course, I'm using 'art' in a very general sense here, so it would include writing.)

3. It's all a matter of taste - one person's porn is another person's erotica. If you liked it, it was erotica. If you hated it, it was porn.

4. It depends on how you feel afterwards. If you felt good or uplifted after reading, looking at or watching it, it was erotica. If you felt bad, it was porn.

5. There's a spectrum between the two poles: clear cases of erotica are at one end; obvious pornography is at the other. However, it's difficult to tell the difference near the middle.

6. There's an absolute difference between the two. Porn crosses a line of acceptability and damns itself as a result. (This is a counter-position to 5, above, of course. )

7. There's no difference at all. It's just a pseudo-distinction made by people who can't bring themselves to admit that they really, really like porn.

8. Pornography is unrealistic, impossible fantasy; erotica is somehow (however tenuously) rooted in the real world.

9. Pornography is erotica without feeling.

10. Pornography is always, in some sense, sadistic; erotica is always about love.

11. This century's erotica was last century's pornography. That is, standards and attitudes change continually.

(As I said earlier, these are all tentative moves towards definition. There are several contradictions in the list and none of the positions I've sketched seems fully adequate to me.)

- polynices

Pornography is a word defined in relatively modern times. It's a word that was not broadly used, in the way we do today, until the Victorian era. Prior to that, it was (if I recall off the top of my head) spelled pornographe, and it referenced studies on prostitutes. I think if one bothered to look up the history and evolution of the word (of what is pornography) then one would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that porn is bluntly unapologetic and erotica is teasingly apologetic. Both induce sexual arousal, the writers of such just choose to do it in different ways. Oh, btw, my husband says that the distinction (similar to your #9) is that Erotica is Pornography without the balls.

Much luck with your query.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think erotica needs a real plot. Porn doesn't.

 

[ketalia]

I don't think that there's a hard and fast line for me either. My personal definition is this: If the story is sufficiently interesting to me that I would read it again, even if it had less (or even no) dependence on the sex than it is erotica. If the story resonates only with my nether regions, then it's porn. Take two "classics" for example.... I love Fanny Hill and have read the whole book too many times to count. I have read all of Lady Chatterley's Lover once and it was a hard slog. But there are two scenes in Lady Chatterley's Lover that I've read so many times that my copy of the book falls open to those two sections. So in my perverse little world, Fanny Hill is erotica and Lady Chatterley is porn.

 

[CharleyH]

I think erotica needs a real plot. Porn doesn't.

How is that different from porn being unapologetic and erotica being apologetic?

 

[3113]

How is that different from porn being unapologetic and erotica being apologetic?

You've got it backwards, Charley. Erotica is unapologetically demanding a story, sex isn't enough for it. It's porn that apologetically, timidly, sadly says, "My audience will vanish if I put in a story; all they want is the sex...sorry!"

All how you look at it, Charley. All how you look at it.

 

[rgraham666]

It's like beauty. Different things for different people.

 

[Verdad]

How is that different from porn being unapologetic and erotica being apologetic?

You tease. I gotta agree with 3113, though. I don't see the story as an excuse for sex; I see it as what makes the sex interesting, or at any rate, more interesting.

But the main point remains: as soon as we move away from the crudest vids of spurting dicks, I see no way of firmly separating porn and erotica in a meaningful way and no need for it either. The classic fence-straddling cases like say, Story of O, could have us arguing for hours, but ultimately, it's a piece of fiction, there's sex in it, and one either liked it or didn't. If some kind of consensus were to put it in one category instead of the other, it would still be the same story.

 

[CharleyH]

You've got it backwards, Charley. Erotica is unapologetically demanding a story, sex isn't enough for it. It's porn that apologetically, timidly, sadly says, "My audience will vanish if I put in a story; all they want is the sex...sorry!"

All how you look at it, Charley. All how you look at it.

lol - funny, 3113.

 

[CharleyH]

You tease. I gotta agree with 3113, though. I don't see the story as an excuse for sex; I see it as what makes the sex interesting, or at any rate, more interesting.

But the main point remains: as soon as we move away from the crudest vids of spurting dicks, I see no way of firmly separating porn and erotica in a meaningful way and no need for it either. The classic fence-straddling cases like say, Story of O, could have us arguing for hours, but ultimately, it's a piece of fiction, there's sex in it, and one either liked it or didn't. If some kind of consensus were to put it in one category instead of the other, it would still be the same story.

Obviously you and 3113 have read my post wrong, or perhaps I didn't word it concisely enough. Let me reword it.

Erotica is the story of sex. Porn is the sex.

 

[The_Fool]

Obviously you and 3113 have read my post wrong, or perhaps I didn't word it concisely enough. Let me reword it.

Erotica is the story of sex. Porn is the sex.

Erotica is the story of sex, porn is the exaggeration and/or exploitation of sex, sex is sex.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Erotica is the story of sex, porn is the exaggeration and/or exploitation of sex, sex is sex.

*nods sagely in agreement*

 

[Lisa Summers]

Erotica sometimes gets an "E."

Porn doesn't.

I won't comment on which one gets the "H."

 

[Wyldfire]

Polish a turd and it's still a turd.

 

[3113]

Polish a turd and it's still a turd.

But a diamond in the rough is not worth wearing in public. The polished diamond is.