To think that women reading erotica, however smutty, is not the same as men watching porn?

Not directly
But literature contributes directly to attitudes and beliefs! And these beliefs DO harm people.

Don't underestimate how words can be damaging in a less direct or obvious way, but more insidious way. The amount of smut around incest and step daughter/daddy themes contributes to the broader narrative that damages women.

No, because no one is harmed by writing or reading erotica

The only similarity I can see is the reason for doing it - both are used for titilation and stimulation - often for masturbation.

The likelihood of desensitisation and addiction however are not the same at all and porn is most definitely more damaging to women generally, but the 50 shades books hardly helped us in that regard! Not to mention GoT ughhh

And calling them "romance novels"?? Come on totally glosses over and diminishes the depravity of the content of erotica - a lot of which have similarly yuk themes as in porn!

I was drafting a post in my mind and then @Wospa wrote it exactly. I gave up filmed porn having developed an occasional habit despite ethical concerns, when I finally saw something that hit my personal limit. I’m very glad that age verification is now better.

I would differentiate between erotica (at least potentially has some literary merit) and written porn (Literotica, old school letters to Forum etc).

There are anti-women forces insisting that women reading written porn is exactly the same as men watching filmed porn; trying to equate women reading it in public with men watching porn in public with a captive unwilling audience, eg on trains. I’d say the former is fine and the latter should get the watcher thrown off the train and eventually prosecuted for public indecency, personally.

I would argue that romance fiction sets wildly unrealistic expectations for relationships that it’s probably had a significantly more detrimental effect overall than erotica.

Yes women like to be sexually dominated by men. Quite a common fantasy, and for many a reality in the bedroom also.

That's not always true. Fanny Hill (John Cleland) is published under Penguin Classics. People have written erotica probably since before the Romans - there's certainly examples in Latin.

Written stuff isn't the same as filmed - there are no real people exploited. I do think it can make certain scenarios and act seem more acceptable, however. Written versions can play down the pain and exploitation that could be involved. So it's not necessarily a force for good, but it is not the same as filmed porn.

I think a major part of the problem with porn is people acting out their fantasies in real life, eg choking. Porn films involve real people at risk, but surely anything stoking violent fantasy risks real life re-enactment? If someone is reading choking erotica, I think there’s just as much risk that they’ll act it out as if they watched porn. And of course given the size/strength differential, it is mainly a problem when it is men trying to re-enact something violent.

I’m not trying to say that porn doesn’t have specific risks to the actors, but a lot of pp have already covered that.

I dont agree with porn male or female. I'm not a hypocrite pretending female version is ok but not male. End of.

No? There are lots of things we do in life that I don't need to read about and be voyeuristic about. I live in reality. I don't need others fiction or imagination.

But how is it disgusting though? If you think words on a page is disgusting, then how are sexual thoughts/fantasies any different?

Do you find sex disgusting too by any chance?

I don’t think I said that.

But if it’s not depicting a romantic relationship with a happy ending, it is not a romance novel. Just like not every book with a murder in it is a murder mystery. There are genre conventions.

Plenty of really great books depict romantic relationships which don’t end well, non-romantic relationships, and sex scenes of all levels of explicitness.

Reading erotica can - does not necessarily, but can - have a negative effect on a real life relationship, in the same way that porn can. Reading romance is, imo, much less likely to have that effect.

How did people manage beforehand?

If you think erotic fiction is disgusting then how did you ever manage to have sex in real life? Never before have I heard of this. No fantasies or desires at all?

So anything depicting sex outside of a loving relationship, even just words, is bad?

What about people, men and women, who choose not to have sex within a loving relationship. Are they bad?

I think your original question about porn v erotic literature has an obvious answer.

I have consumed material for sexual arousal since puberty, and for a long time used porn. But eventually I had enough of cognitive dissonance and switched to erotica. I haven't watched porn in years. I did it for moral reasons because I couldn't guarantee that the actors weren't being coerced or otherwise abused, and the guilt got to me. I have absolutely no such worries with erotica because there are no real people involved. Even though erotica can describe things that couldn't even exist in real life, let alone be filmed, I still think that porn is significantly more harmful.

Porn promotes laziness as well, in that there is no imagination involved.

My masturbation frequency hasn't altered since giving up porn, nor am I any less satisfied. My partnered sex life is better though.

Porn is much worse than erotica in my view. My only concern is that it really isn't difficult at all to find written stories involving incest, children and animals. IMO such things should be banned for obvious reasons.

There are disturbing turns of dark romance. Usually authors have trigger warnings and sometimes I will not read the book or won’t finish the book if it takes a turn for the worst. Generally, an average dark romance can be fun to read between other books - that’s how I read them. For me, I’m not into the supernatural books but I appreciate it is a huge market.

Porn is different, it’s real people performing acts visually in front of an audience whether they (the performers) have signed up for it or not sadly. Reading doesn’t involve anyone in reality acting out the fantasy-written performance.

Never understood why the women in erotic novels are so passive. No-one's forced to read or write them like this, so it must be what people like to read about.