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Me again:
Ven Porn is not Erotica (but erotica is porn).
How they doth protest. Romance writers who don't write sex, erotica writers who don't write porn; no of course not your mothers raised you properly! And (to focus the rant slightly) why is erotica not porn? Variously because it has a plot line, doesn't use rude words, is written by a woman, is read by a women, is published by a major press, is stocked in a mainstream store, depicts only those in true love or within the bands of wedlock... Well, etc.
Alternatively let us take a side step into the world of Ven diagrams. This is when you draw two sets. Every thing within the set (marked by a line or in this rather ASCII situation, some brackets) has a certain quality. For example you could have the set of sexual activity:
(SEX)
And another set like this for earning a living which might including teaching, dancing, bus driving and so on:
[WORK]
Now imagine these two sets get really close together until they actually overlap? Well, this:
(SEX[prostitution)WORK]
Prostitution fit where the two sets overlap because it is both sex and work. But please note, this does not mean sex is prostitution, or even that work is prostitution (in the literal sense of the word). Is that patronising enough for you? Good, I'll move on.
Let's try another.
(PORN)
This is the activity of writing about people having sex, and:
[LITERATURE]
This is a fictional narrative with either narrative structure (i.e. a plot) or artistic expression (i.e. pretty words)—or if you are truly lucky, it might even have both. Now try this:
(PORN[erotica)LITERATURE]
Now isn't that cosy? Now we can get past the problem that really stops the erotic writer being a proud pornographer. That is the idea that if erotica is porn, porn is erotica. After all if A=B doesn't B, by definition, equal A. And therefore what we do is not any different from some sweaty old man cataloging his stolen knicker collection and writing yet another letter that even Penthouse won't print. But look again. That activity is not in the literature section. There is a nice strong bracket between you and him! See!
(PORN[erotica)LITERATURE]
Erotic is writing about sex, it is in the set 'porn' (and in the set of literature). But porn is not in the erotica set. Much of porn is not erotica therefore it is factually incorrect to say 'porn is erotica'. So my argument is this. If you write erotica and somebody asks if you write porn the answer may be:
a) Yes! What of it? or,
b) Hand me a pen and paper I need to draw you a diagram (heh, imagine what they'll be thinking).
If you still have a c) none of the above, do please let me know.
Ven Porn is not Erotica (but erotica is porn).
How they doth protest. Romance writers who don't write sex, erotica writers who don't write porn; no of course not your mothers raised you properly! And (to focus the rant slightly) why is erotica not porn? Variously because it has a plot line, doesn't use rude words, is written by a woman, is read by a women, is published by a major press, is stocked in a mainstream store, depicts only those in true love or within the bands of wedlock... Well, etc.
Alternatively let us take a side step into the world of Ven diagrams. This is when you draw two sets. Every thing within the set (marked by a line or in this rather ASCII situation, some brackets) has a certain quality. For example you could have the set of sexual activity:
(SEX)
And another set like this for earning a living which might including teaching, dancing, bus driving and so on:
[WORK]
Now imagine these two sets get really close together until they actually overlap? Well, this:
(SEX[prostitution)WORK]
Prostitution fit where the two sets overlap because it is both sex and work. But please note, this does not mean sex is prostitution, or even that work is prostitution (in the literal sense of the word). Is that patronising enough for you? Good, I'll move on.
Let's try another.
(PORN)
This is the activity of writing about people having sex, and:
[LITERATURE]
This is a fictional narrative with either narrative structure (i.e. a plot) or artistic expression (i.e. pretty words)—or if you are truly lucky, it might even have both. Now try this:
(PORN[erotica)LITERATURE]
Now isn't that cosy? Now we can get past the problem that really stops the erotic writer being a proud pornographer. That is the idea that if erotica is porn, porn is erotica. After all if A=B doesn't B, by definition, equal A. And therefore what we do is not any different from some sweaty old man cataloging his stolen knicker collection and writing yet another letter that even Penthouse won't print. But look again. That activity is not in the literature section. There is a nice strong bracket between you and him! See!
(PORN[erotica)LITERATURE]
Erotic is writing about sex, it is in the set 'porn' (and in the set of literature). But porn is not in the erotica set. Much of porn is not erotica therefore it is factually incorrect to say 'porn is erotica'. So my argument is this. If you write erotica and somebody asks if you write porn the answer may be:
a) Yes! What of it? or,
b) Hand me a pen and paper I need to draw you a diagram (heh, imagine what they'll be thinking).
If you still have a c) none of the above, do please let me know.
