Defining the differences between romance, steamy romance, erotic romance, and erotica

Those look about right to me. The best way I've heard erotic romance described is, "If you take the sex out of the story, does the plot fall apart? Then it's erotic romance." The character's or characters' sexual journey(s) tie into the emotional journey.

Hmm, I would say Steamy Romance is Erotic Romance mild. All romance, to me, has a HEA or HFN ending. Most importantly, it concerns a couple and their journey.

Erotica, in contrast, does not necessarily have to be about a couple. It can be a solo journey, or a journey with many sex partners, and that journey does not have to end with the main character partnered up.

Cobalt Jade said:

Hmm, I would say Steamy Romance is Erotic Romance mild. All romance, to me, has a HEA or HFN ending. Most importantly, it concerns a couple and their journey.

Erotica, in contrast, does not necessarily have to be about a couple. It can be a solo journey, or a journey with many sex partners, and that journey does not have to end with the main character partnered up.

Click to expand...

I'd say that this is a pretty good definition. Erotica isn't about sex as a representation of love or personal relationship; it's about sex per se.

Peeking in at this thread - it's interesting even though I have no intention (or probably ability) to write these sorts of works. I had to look up what HEA and HFN means. My wife likes to read what she calls 'zany girl adventures' (she's not very politically correct), and prefers the comedy aspect the characters get into over the bedroom stuff (her words).
Anyway - this thread is an interesting read for me. Thanks.

If I write a memoir which is like and Erotic Romance (sex drives the plot, but love also a big issue, with HFN ending) - is it an erotic romance memoir, or is it just memoir?

Can an Erotic Romance (or erotic romance memoir) contain sex that is bad/boring occasionally or do all the sex scenes have to be titillating?

blackcat777 said:

Then I read some other people ranting about how, at least for anything linked to romance, sex = must equal pleasure = must equal goodness

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I've read a few sex scenes, in romance, that at least one participant didn't enjoy.

That said, if the main characters of a romance consistently have dissatisfying sex, I'd say there's a problem, both for them and for the readers.

Marian Perera said:

Not necessarily. I've read a few sex scenes, in romance, that at least one participant didn't enjoy.

That said, if the main characters of a romance consistently have dissatisfying sex, I'd say there's a problem, both for them and for the readers.

Click to expand...

This. I just finished a book yesterday where my characters try to have sex, but stop halfway through because some emotional baggage gets in the way. I've written and read a few where characters don't finish, or their heart isn't in it for some reason, etc. Sex scenes are great places for some heavy emotional development -- especially for emotions characters have been trying to hide or ignore to come to the surface -- so they're definitely not always about pleasure.