WARNING: ADULT CONTENT; NOT INTENDED FOR THOSE UNDER 18 OR THOSE EASILY OFFENDED
On Sunday, Laura asked: Is the intention to titillate, unmitigated by anything else, what distinguishes porn from erotic romance? Or is erotic romance never intended to titillate at all?
I'd like to start a dialogue on that question this evening. I may have to settle for just beginning the conversation because I have a birthday cake to bake tonight. But, if there's interest, we can continue tomorrow.
When Passionate Ink (PI), the erotic romance chapter of RWA started in May of 2005, we had a lot of discussion about what erotic romance is. It ended with the following definitions, which you can find on our website here:
Porn: stories written for the express purpose of causing sexual titillation. Plot, character development, and romance are NOT primary to these stories. They are designed to sexually arouse the reader and nothing else.
Erotica: stories written about the sexual journey of the characters and how this impacts them as individuals. Emotion and character growth are important facets of a true erotic story. However, erotica is NOT designed to show the development of a romantic relationship, although it’s not prohibited if the author chooses to explore romance. Happily Ever Afters (HEA) are NOT an intrinsic part of erotica, though they can be included.
Erotic Romance: stories written about the development of a romantic relationship through sexual interaction. The sex is an inherent part of the story, character growth, and relationship development, and couldn’t be removed without damaging the storyline. Happily Ever After is a REQUIREMENT to be an erotic romance.
Laura's comment was prompted by my statement that porn is a male genre while erotic romance is a woman's genre. She correctly pointed out that women can write porn while men do write erotic romance.
Having said that, I still think that my statement probably holds true for most men and women. Men use porn as an aid to masturbation. The stories tend to be short (fifteen minutes, anyone?), not focused on plot or character development. The sexual fantasy is the main thrust (no pun intended) of the story. Porn films and porn magazines with photos are perennial favorites since visual stimulation is helpful in achieving climax.
At the other end of the continuum is erotic romance, where the relationship is key. When the members of PI tried to define erotic romance, there was general agreement that the relationship did not have to be between a man or a woman. It could be between two men or even between two men and a woman so long as the result was a HEA.
Erotica occupies the gray area between porn and eroromance. Erotica DOES share plot and character development with erotic romance, but also shares porn's focus on sexual fantasy. The erotica protagonist embarks on a sexual journey, which may or may not end in a committed relationship.
Many of the PI members who began by writing erotic romance are drifting across the line into erotica these days.
Angela Knight, one of the most popular erotic romance authors and a founder of PI (see her website here), said something over a year ago that I've never forgotten. It has been very helpful to me in understanding and writing erotic romance.
Angela pointed out that most romance is driven by the question of whether the hero and heroine will ever sleep together. The sexual tension is frequently high.
However, in erotic romance, the question of whether the hero and heroine will ever sleep together is answered early on in the story. Eroromance is, therefore, forced to develop a different question in order to generate tension: Will the hero and heroine live happily ever after?
If you think about this, it's a paradox of sorts. Romance is driven by sexual tension. Erotic romance can't depend totally on sexual tension and is thus more driven by romantic tension.
I've interpreted this to mean that plotting is particularly important in an erotic romance since the writer cannot rely on sexual tension to carry the novel.
Let me stop here and see if you have any thoughts on the subject. I'm wide open to any input.
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2 comments:
So erotica is about exploring sexuality, erotic romance is about exploring both sexuality and the development of long-term romantic relationships, and porn is just written to create arousal in the reader?
I suppose what might blur the lines is how well the author writes and how focused she/he stays, because if someone's trying to write erotica but isn't very good at conveying the characters' emotions, it might come across as porn. Or some erotic romance might feel like erotica with a HEA slapped on the end if the focus has been mostly on the exploration of sexuality.
Romance is driven by sexual tension. Erotic romance can't depend totally on sexual tension and is thus more driven by romantic tension.
That's interesting, and I think she makes a good point which does apply to many romances.
There's a blog post today on Romancing the Blog about 'sweet' romances. It makes the point that you can have non-erotic, non-sexually-explicit stories where the tension is created by the relationship growth.
Apart from the problem mentioned by Wendy in the RTB post, about romances where sex is dropped into a story in a way which doesn't fit, I think there can be a bit of a problem in some non-erotic romances when the sexual tension is taken to an extreme and almost takes on the role of the antagonist. Overwhelming and inescapable lust/irresistible attraction may drive a story as the characters struggle to work out what to do about this force that seems to have taken over their bodies, but a plot like that doesn't necessarily do much to convince you that the characters' relationship would last in the long-term. I'm not saying that these stories won't have lots of happy readers, just that I don't think they're going to give readers a detailed exploration of the development of a relationship.
It's not that different a problem from the one that you'd get in an erotic romance if all the characters did was explore each other's bodies repeatedly, but there was no character development.
Hmm. So basically I'm saying that I think romance novels (whether erotic romance or any other sort of romance) need characterisation and relationship building. Not a very innovative suggestion from me, I'm afraid. ;-)
Laura: You've made my brain run in a couple of directions. I think I'll extend this conversation into another post tonight.
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