No, It's NOT All Porn. Really.

I followed a link on Dear Author to a conversation from a few weeks ago and came across a comment I posted over there back in August. I decided to repost it here (with a bit of editing so it'll make sense as a stand-alone) because no matter how often we say it, there are still people who don't get it. Some of them are actually working in our end of the industry, which is just sad. And frustrating.

Erotica and porn are not the same thing. I agree that neither erotica nor porn are bad, but beyond that they're distinct genres which just happen to contain some of the same kinds of subject matter.

And erotic romance is another beast entirely. One of the main issues I think is hurting the erotica/romance industry is that too many publishers try to pretend that erotic romance is the same as erotica or porn, tossing all their books with explicit sex into the same bin and leaving it to the readers, who might prefer one flavor or another, to sort it out at random. Personally, if I’m looking for an erotic romance and I spend money on a book that turns out to be erotica, or even porn, I feel cheated and am much less likely to spend money with that writer or publisher again.

Porn — sex for the sake of sex. The whole point of its existence is the “Yay, sex!” factor. And no, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Erotica — sex with plot, but the point is still the sex. No need for an HEA or even for the characters to know one another’s names. More than a fuck scene (or just a string of fuck scenes, if it’s a novel) but without romance’s boundaries and conventions.

Erotic romance — this is a romance, with the usual genre conventions, but focusing heavily on the sex. A good erotic romance will make sure the sex scenes all pull their weight as elements of the story, but the sex and eroticism feature heavily in the storyline itself, allowing or even requiring quite a lot of sex because the story demands it.

And that’s not even considering “regular” romances which happen to have explicit sex.

There are differences, and it’s not fair (or smart, in the long run) for a publisher to try to pretend otherwise. By labelling each story clearly, they can appeal to the audience which wants that sort of story. Lumping all three under one label is like selling vegetables in opaque plastic bags all labelled “CUCUMBERS” when actually the customer might be buying carrots or zucchini or potatoes or celery or kale, depending on which bag they pick up out of the bin. It’s ridiculous and it leads to annoyed customers.

It might work sometimes, if a store actually carries only yams and its regular customers like yams and learn that if they buy what the store calls cucumbers they’ll get the yams they want. But yam-lovers who don’t know the code won’t buy them, and cucumber-lovers who hate yams will spend their money and be annoyed with what they get. This is a crazed way to do business and the fact that there are publishers who operate this way and do make money because they have a pool of readers who happen to like what they’re offering and have broken the code, doesn’t make it any less crazed.

Angie