I received a very thoughtful letter from a reader who asked to remain anonymous which asked, in part,
Having spent some time reading erotica, I am curious about its definition and its role as a literary genre. The simplest definition for erotica would probably be something equivalent to pornography: any material intended to create an erotic response in the audience. But stories like yours demonstrate that this erotic response is not necessarily the most important aspect of such stories; therefore, is it even useful to define these stories as "erotic"? After all, plenty of novels include detailed descriptions of sex, sometimes with the intention of creating just such a response -- yet they might only have one or two such descriptions within a totally different structure.
I guess a lot of this depends on your perspective as a writer of erotica and as a writer in general. I've always wondered if serious writers feel constrained by the inherent pressure to come up with some new, unbelievably mind-blowing position/situation/orgasm. Do you start writing a story, and then decide to make it an erotic piece, or do you sit down and decide to write a specifically erotic piece? Do the requirements of erotica constrain the possibilities of a story? Is it possible to add erotic elements to genres such as horror, sci-fi, or the other way around?
(I have permission to paraphrase the letter).
Let me respond as best I can, from my rather limited viewpoint. I'm just one person, and woefully ignorant in terms of literary criticism at that. Other writers work differently.
I'm going to use the word "smut" instead of "pornography" for two reasons: first, it has no legal connotations (although it does have negative connotations), and second, it's much shorter to type.
Right now, I believe that "erotica" is a mood and "smut" is a genre. A mood modifies a piece of fiction and dictates your response to it, while genre defines how the piece of fiction is shaped -- it's a set of conventions and shared assumptions between the reader and the writer. (These are my definitions only; my lit crit books seem to be elsewhere right now.)
"Genre" corresponds pretty closely to "publisher's category." Genres include science fiction, fantasy, Harlequin romance, and mystery. Smut is primarily about sexual activity, and everything else is secondary. Other conventions of the genre include copious lubrication, enormous penises, rampant randiness, and a general disregard for hygienic practices and consequences. :-)
A mood is a modifier that can apply to almost any piece of fiction (except where prohibited by genre). That is "erotica" -- like "horror" and "humour" modify a story which resides in a particular genre. You can have erotic or horrific or funny science fiction or fantasy or Harlequin romances. A mood provokes a particular (usually emotional) response.
Obviously, this is fluid; there are no firm boundaries where one can say "this is a mood" or "this is a genre." As conventions are established, some moods move into the genre category. For example, in recent years, the technothriller has become a little genre of its own. (But notice that it's become a type of thriller -- an emotional response -- with a convention of high tech.)
There have been anthologies that deal with combinations of erotica and other genres -- for example, the Hot Blood series deals with erotic horror. There have been a number of outlets for erotic SF or Fantasy (check out Circlet Press's web page).
My own feeling -- and this is a personal prejudice only; I have no idea if critics and editors in the field feel this way -- is that you have to abide by both sets of rules, because you're writing to the intersection of the two audiences. If you're going to write science fiction erotica (for example), your story must be both erotica and science fiction. It must be arousing and must come about due to some social or technological development that is speculative. (No, I don't want to get into the argument about what science fiction really is.)
If you're a writer, you may be thinking, "Jeez, that's a lot of work, why can't I just say, 'space-car, space-tits, space-cock?'" That leads to the science fiction equivalent of smut, sci-fi. Look at it in reverse: If you were writing a science fiction story, would you want the love scene in it to be poorly handled? Not if you're concerned about what and how you write.
So that means, in our science fictional example, that the story is explicitly sexual and derives from some assumption. Here are some possibilities:
Or, if you want to write fantasy, there are a couple of ideas on my ideas page, or here's one:
I'm not actually sure that I write erotica; I think I write sexually explicit fiction.
When I'm writing erotica, I do set out to write something that will contain explicitly sexual scenes. This means that the sexual act (whichever sexual act or acts which will be featured) is important to the plot: it has consequences that are relevant to the outcome of the story.
I certainly do feel some pressure to touch on aspects of sexuality that I haven't already dealt with, but I write so slowly there's not really going to be a problem with that for a year or so. I think an important part of my approach is avoiding the ultimate-orgasm-every-time.
Does that clear anything up?