on erotica – part one

You know, a lot of people say that erotica and porn are all pretty much the same thing. And depending on the shape and size of their ruler, it could be they’re right, but I tend to disagree.

Ray Gordon, for those of you who know him, writes porn. In my opinion. His character development is nil, his plots are thin on purpose – it’s like reading the written equivalent of most mainstream het porn. The boys are always randy and so are the girls, and everyone just gets down to the nastiest sex imaginable with very little foreplay much less conversation. And reality takes a dump here; like the action movie star whose gun magically sprays out hundreds of bullets without needing to change the clip, his male and female characters alike are capable of hundreds of orgasms a day with different partners without needing to clean up the sticky mess or recharge the batteries.

Heh. Okay, rant over.

On the other end of the spectrum we have erotic short story collections. Gay anthologies tend to race out of the gate much like Ray Gordon’s books do, above. Het anthologies, however, tend to feel like trying to read fiction by a Canadian author – painful, and more about the literary splendour of the short story rather than good old fashioned sex. Edgy. But not necessarily sexy.

Somewhere in the middle we have online stories found at places like Literotica, ASSTR, BDSM Library. Many different styles here, but most fall closer to Ray Gordon’s style than that of the erotica story collections.

We also have short stories at places like Clean Sheets and Nerve which swing back towards the latter.

Honestly, this is why I read Black Lace books. It’s a nice middle road to take. There’s good old sex and plenty of it without the edgy literary quality of “good” (I use that moniker lightly) erotica but with enough plot and character development that I don’t feel like my intelligence is being insulted. 🙂

Sadly, to digress for a moment here, it’s starting to get very difficult to find the damn books, as a lot of retailers and secondhand shops are getting rid of their erotica sections. Grr. Thank goodness for online shopping!

In part two: why romance writers (or readers) write the best erotica…