What is the difference between erotica and porn?
It has been suggested that the difference between Erotica and Porn is similar to the difference between alcohol and marijuana.
Both Alcohol and Marijuana are drugs, but only alcohol can have an aesthetic pleasure that extends beyond the effects of a drug.
In a similar way, it is suggested that while the erotic may turn you on, it doesn’t have to. Pornography hasn’t done its job if it didn’t turn you on.
The erotic represents a style of beauty or a reach for meaning around sensory pleasures.
Pornography doesn’t represent a style of beauty, nor does it examine the human condition from an aesthetic perspective.
But is this true?
What is erotica?
Erotica is seen to be elevating human sexuality to enquiry while pornography reduces human sexuality to a base drive that feeds the notion that sex is an animalistic action.
The erotic is defined by beauty. Beauty is subjective. Therefore, the definition of erotic is subjective.
Erotica is making an appeal to the intellect. It seeks a two-way conversation with its viewer/reader/listener.
However, Flaubert would argue that erotic romance can be the destruction of a human by distorting their perception of reality. He created Madame Bovary to describe this problem.
But the millions of people who read erotic romance would argue their erotica stimulates freedom of thought, relaxation and a fantasy that encourages readers to examine their sexuality in a joyful happy way.
What is porn?
It’s often argued that pornography strips a deep and complex action to its most simplistic which means it robs the user of a more complex and mentally stimulating experience.
If erotic is an inquiry into that which excites us, pornography is the gratification without question.
But what of history and nostalgia?
Pornography has been developing its own history, its own politics, and its own antagonists.
It can no longer be reduced to what we see on the screen.
Watching / not watching pornography has become a political act.
Like fast food, pop music, and ready-to-wear fashion, what pornography means for us has become something more complex.
Pornography no longer fairly represented by whatever clip you choose on Porn Hub. Your mindless choosing is already complicating things.
In an age of modern art, pop art, and philosophical deconstruction, a phenomenon the entire world engages in cannot be judged purely on surface impressions.
Don’t dismiss porn or erotica
Having pornography readily available is largely seen as a negative issue for society by most cultures.
However, if there are any advantages to our suddenly making so much pornography available (such as a pendulum swing to normalize once we get over the early stages of proliferation) we won’t know them for a long time.
Like many things, what seems dangerous and abnormal at first lessons its grip on society when it is normalized.
In the meantime, we should engage in more erotica that might be examining these subjects in a meaningful way.
What we do:
Ajax Books publishes delightfully naughty porny books designed to titillate the reader and encourage their sexual activity. Call it porn or erotica, We believe in your right to a delightful stress-relieving orgasm. Our books are here to help.
