Erotica, Porn or Smut?

If you listen to the mainstream media, you'd hear that romance is the most popular genre in fiction. However, some are finally beginning to be more honest (and maybe get over their Puritanical leanings) and admit that erotica is more popular. In fact, one publication stated it is 4,000% more popular than regular literature.

Face it, we like sex.

Although some of my books include sex between characters, I don't write erotica. However, in the past I did write some short stories that some would call Porn. The really strait-laced might call some of those stories “smut.” I enjoyed writing these, almost as much as the satirical stories I've written. Hey, I'm a guy and it's sex.

It also didn't hurt that it paid well. The majority of short stories I’ve had published were in literary magazines and they typically only paid in copies of the magazine. Porn paid even for really short stories that they could publish as letters. Yes, I used a pseudonym to author those stories, but getting acclaim wasn't the aim (like the literary ones). For a poor, struggling writer porn meant being able to buy a few more table scraps to survive on for the month.

So what is the difference between erotica, porn and smut. Well, I'd say the main difference is the audience. Here's my overly simplified definition. Erotica is female sex, porn is sex aimed at men, and smut, well, that is male sex that some might say is overly inappropriate. Notice that I did not use the typical word “dirty” in any of those definitions. Be sure and review my “dirty blog” to understand why.

So erotica would be a young woman goes to this rich man's house to interview him for a story and her heart nearly bursts when she meets him, instantly falling for him although she had previously sworn off relationships. He takes her to bed and he worships her body, caressing her gently while exciting her more until he slowly brings her to the most intense orgasm in her life. In porn, when the male takes her to bed he reveals his enormous schlong to her surprise and enjoyment and takes her with wild, savage thrusts until they fall exhausted to sleep. In smut, after the previous wild love session the man falls asleep, so she ties him to the bed and pegs him unmercifully and then rides his face for an hour before calling her lesbian friend to come over and enjoy her new found sex slave.

Well, of course, all of the above examples would have more description to play out each scene and to entice the reader to look for more by said author so they could be stimulated again on the next reading adventure. I also tamed it down so that the censors would not flag my blog and banish me to some sexless environment.

Someplace like writing blurbs for the DMV.

So which of the examples stimulated you the most? Or more likely, which one would you actually read. My guess it's based on the target audience. But who knows? There's always some crossover.

 

Ahhh, James Thurber

The Thurber Brigade apologizes if you found this blog too stimulating and steamy. We decided to go down this slippery road because, well, we like sex. Plus, there may have been some mumblings about too many political blogs and not enough about the core idea of "The War Between Men and Women" (relationships). So we thrust forward and pounded the subject to maybe tie some people back to the blog. We'll calm down next time.