Why True Erotica in Literature is not Porn

I remember seeing a meme sometime ago that succinctly presents the issues and the often contradictory attitudes when it comes to what defines porn and how it is markedly different to erotica. I have reproduced it here and before I say any more I must openly admit that I have not read nor watched any of the 50 Shades stuff and as thus I cannot judge it.
One of the things I absolutely refuse to do is to read within the genre that I write in. This keeps my ideas and perspectives fresh. This may change as time goes on as it is more than a possibility that the subject matter that I write about will diversify. Only time will tell.
So, coming back to 50 Shades, I only have a perception based on popular opinion, and that includes that it is full of typos (the bane of any author’s life – I too am to some extent guilty of this in The Confession despite my best and most earnest attempts to avoid them) and one expressed view that I came across that it is only about male ego (presumably Christian’s – I don’t even know the girl’s name).
So with this confusion abounding I will attempt in my own meek way to express my view and help the reader draw their own conclusions.
Porn can be defined as any media that has the purpose of – and consequently leads to – the reader becoming sexually stimulated. Magazines and films in particular are often seen as an aid to self-stimulation and masturbation (even if more occasionally they are used as a source of ideas for sharing or for shared stimulation). Strictly speaking if this applies to visual images then it must also apply to the crafted words of an erotic novel that have the same result?
If reading such material amounts to a different means to the same end, then indeed it is porn and is no different to the smutty stories submitted by readers to the plethora of publications available on any top shelf.
However, erotica often goes beyond that and I am going to use Ania the protagonist of my debut novel The Confession (as already stated I am not exactly in a position to quote other sources) to illustrate what I mean while acknowledging that elements of my writing still retain my above definition of porn.
At all times I use erotic content to drive the story forwards but also to aid the reader in understanding the character arc. Please skip the bullet points if you want to avoid any spoilers and pick up my writing from below there.
• Ania is deeply insecure and feeling neglected when she embarks on her affair that was more of a short fling. In the text she describes in great detail how she got to the point when she cheated and then the sex with her lover is vividly described to capture the passion she felt and with it the deviancy that went with it. There are hints of where this deviancy came from that will be picked up on in subsequent novels. Towards the end of the fling, Ania’s need for such self-destructive deviancy as an anchor in her life becomes ever more apparent.
• Ania sees sexual submission as a way to restore her relationship and is only stopped by the one constant friend she feels that she has left. Again while this part of the story may be stimulating, it more than amply illustrates the lens through which Ania interprets herself and is vital in further understanding her.
• While there is no sexual content in the section leading up to her owning up to her affair the previously described sex is used as a catalyst to drive her self-analysis and the condemnation that naturally follows. This section would not have been so powerful without the previously described sex and particularly the latter part which is not only selfish but almost goes too far.
• Towards the end of the novel, sex is treated as the judgment that she feels well deserving of after the way she’s behaved and while the sex is intense and right on the edge, it serves to provide a platform for her inner turmoil that leads to complete brokenness, which in the end gives her a way back.
So while some of what I have written may indeed have the same effect as porn – to be honest I found my writing stimulating as I initially wrote it and then returned to it to make countless revisions – the overall purpose is to drive Ania’s character arc forward and to bring her to where she needed to be at the end of the novel.
So in the end my view is that true erotica is sexual content within a novel that serves to drive the story forwards and / or add something of value to the characters. So again, using my work as a casing point, on one very superficial level it could be described as porn, but I would like to think that in writing as I do I am trying to achieve a lot more than just plain smut.
Another indicator could be the proportion of sexual content. I have not counted the pages / words, but I estimate that in The Confession the sexual content amounts to just over a third – in other words there is plenty more to say. At the risk of sounding boastful I believe that there is a literery quality to my writing. I have just finished reading the bestselling follow up to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey and I found the writing was simplistic and lacked depth even if the storytelling was adequate. At the risk of sounding arrogant I feel my writing is on another level.
Incidentally, I am not “protesting too much” that I don’t write porn. There is an end point to what I hope to become an “Ania trilogy” and when you get there with me you will see that porn is the last thing on my mind. I don’t want to say to much at this point. There may be an additional two books in the making revolving around Ania too – so I guess that will be a “fivology” or “pentology”.
Just to quickly illustrate my point, in my forthcoming follow-up novel “The Hard Road Back” the fact is that I hold back. There is one particular 4-day experience in which I get Ania to only describe the “highlights”. I could have written so much more, but it wouldn’t have added to her character nor the story – in which case such an inclusion would (by my definition at the very least) become porn.
Thus true erotica, if befitting of the descriptions I have provided above, is not porn.

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