Blurred lines: The difference between porn, erotica, romance, and erotic romance

Back in the old days (sometime after dinosaurs roamed the earth, but before Amazon had a stranglehold on the book selling market—back when I was a teenager, in other words), the difference between porn, erotica, romance and romantic erotica was vividly clear. Erotica was relegated to a tiny back corner of the local indie bookstore, while porn inhabited a small little back corner of the Books and Company (my medium-sized town’s only mainstream bookstore). Meanwhile, romance took up half of both stores.

​But today, the lines between porn, erotica, romance, and romantic erotica are so blurred that it’s nearly impossible to separate the categories on Amazon. Folks looking for good old-fashioned romance have to sort through page after page of misclassified porn and erotica to find it, and folks looking for porn and erotica have to filter out all the romance to find what they want. It’s frustrating and confusing, and readers everywhere are asking, what’s the difference? What constitutes porn, erotica, romance, and romantic erotica? We’re glad you asked. Here’s our take on it.

via GIPHY

Porn
Porn in writing is just what you think it is: writing meant to cause sexual arousal. That’s it. It’s spank-bank material. Now, some people will argue that any book with detailed, graphic sex scenes is porn. But making that kind of sweeping generalization is way over simplifying matters. In my reading experience, I’ve found that in romance, erotica, and romantic erotica, the sex scenes have a purpose based on the plot and characters. Meanwhile, any plot or storyline you might find in porn exists only for the purpose of giving characters a reason to have sex.

via GIPHY

Erotica  
This one isn’t as clear cut. And don’t bother checking Merriam Webster for a definition. I kid you not, the definition there includes the word erotic. But for the purposes of today’s discussion, erotica is writing that includes explicit, titilating sex scenes, but may or may not include romance. Happy endings aren’t guaranteed, and neither is OTP (One True Pairing). In today’s erotica, you’ll find lots of menage action that may or may not ever culminate in monogamy. Sex is also often the main conflict in the story. In other words, the way you can determine if a story is erotica is if it would be severely impacted (or decimated) if you were to remove all the sex scenes.

via GIPHY

Romance
Heat levels in romance novels vary widely. Some romance novels have no sex. In some romance novels, readers are told that the characters had sex, but all the action happens offscreen. (Or, off the page, as the case may be) Other romances are super steamy and include explicit sex scenes. But it’s not the sex that sets a romance novel apart from an erotic novel—it’s  the focus of the story. In a romance, the story revolves around two people falling in love, and eventually having some sort of HEA or HFN in a committed, monogamous relationship. If you were to remove all the sex scenes from a romance novel, the story should stand alone nicely. If you’re reading a story that doesn’t focus on two people falling in love, chances are you’re not reading a romance novel.

via GIPHY

Erotic Romance
As the name would suggest, romantic erotica is the bastard love child of romance and erotica. Romances with high steam factor (i.e.: many explicit sex scenes) can fall into this category. But the overall focus of an erotic romance is still the story of how the main characters fall in love.

What’s it all mean?
In our humble opinion, there are a bunch of posers on Amazon who claim their story is an erotic romance, when in actuality, it’s erotica, or even porn. Now, don’t get us wrong, we don’t think there’s anything wrong with porn, romance, erotica, or erotic romance. We’re firm believers in the “read whatever you want to read” policy. But what we DO object to is an erotica novel (or porn) that an author has slapped a HEA on just so that he/she can market it as a romance or erotic romance, which opens up a larger reading audience for them. As readers, all we can do is pay careful attention to cover art, marketing categories on Amazon, and book blurbs in the hopes that we can determine whether or not what we’re 1-clicking is actually what we want to read. But for all the authors out there, I would urge you to figure out what category your book belongs in, and market it appropriately. Whatever you write, write it and market if proudly. Don’t try to mask it as something it’s not.

What about y’all? Anything you’d like to add? Let’s discuss.

---