I think I get what Eva is asking. I don't know of porn novels, but I do know of erotic fiction that isn't romance: Tiffany Reisz's THE SIREN. Suzanne Forster's TEASE. Erica Jong's FEAR OF FLYING. Is what I call "erotic fiction" what Eva calls "erotica"? Possibly. But I really can't think of any "porn" novels - at least not from any of the Big Four (or whatever number it is now) publishers.
My way to delineate is each genre/subgenre is about a character's...
Erotic romance: Relationship with another character.
Erotic fiction/erotica: Relationship with self.
Porn: Relationship with reader. (More about titillating the reader than interpersonal or self relationships.)
Just came up with this on the spot, so feel free to correct.
This is super interesting, thank you! I think this is where my own reading deficiencies come in, so I'm grateful to have fabulous readers who can chime in and give their two cents on the areas I'm less familiar with!
Hi. First, thanks Jennifer for the response. (Enjoy your posts, especially your reading list.) I'm Ema, BTW, not Eva. As to whether a story is porn or erotica to me comes down to the depth of content beyond explicit sex. To use an old school cliche set-up, midnight pizza delivery guy has sex with aa woman suffering from insomnia: porn. Same pizza guy turns out to be sleepless woman's long lost first love who never got over losing her and with each "future delivery" they think about how their lives could have been different if they stayed together: erotica.
I think I get what Eva is asking. I don't know of porn novels, but I do know of erotic fiction that isn't romance: Tiffany Reisz's THE SIREN. Suzanne Forster's TEASE. Erica Jong's FEAR OF FLYING. Is what I call "erotic fiction" what Eva calls "erotica"? Possibly. But I really can't think of any "porn" novels - at least not from any of the Big Four (or whatever number it is now) publishers.
My way to delineate is each genre/subgenre is about a character's...
Erotic romance: Relationship with another character.
Erotic fiction/erotica: Relationship with self.
Porn: Relationship with reader. (More about titillating the reader than interpersonal or self relationships.)
Just came up with this on the spot, so feel free to correct.
This is super interesting, thank you! I think this is where my own reading deficiencies come in, so I'm grateful to have fabulous readers who can chime in and give their two cents on the areas I'm less familiar with!
Hi. First, thanks Jennifer for the response. (Enjoy your posts, especially your reading list.) I'm Ema, BTW, not Eva. As to whether a story is porn or erotica to me comes down to the depth of content beyond explicit sex. To use an old school cliche set-up, midnight pizza delivery guy has sex with aa woman suffering from insomnia: porn. Same pizza guy turns out to be sleepless woman's long lost first love who never got over losing her and with each "future delivery" they think about how their lives could have been different if they stayed together: erotica.
That's a great way of putting it - and my apologies for getting your name wrong! I'll fix it in the post.