Erotic litterature - What do you think?

[RestingUnderTheSun]

Not usually posting on here but I always enjoy reading posts in this section so wanted your pov on that.

I have noticed recently that you can find more and more erotic literature on the bookshelves next to more 'classic' literature. So it seems to become a very 'acceptable' thing.

But is it OK on a feminism pov or just as bad as porn (albeit it's only words on paper not real people)?

There's nothing wrong with visual porn in itself as far as I'm concerned - the problem is with the porn industry and its treatment of the people within it (drugs, coercion etc) Going from that viewpoint I can't see how erotic literature can be any better or worse than any other form of literature as a genre. As an avid reader of specific types of 'erotic literature' I'm probably biased though, so I'm quite interested to hear any other viewpoints.

I have been wondering about what sort if image it can send. Some of them are very much the Alpha male and the poor little woman who can't possibly resist him...

I don't think it's as bad as porn because there's not the same exploitation of actual people. However, depending on the 'novel' they may or may not be a great example for teenagers to read depending how the women are portrayed. I'm also wondering if it's just more explicitly sexual these days, and these books always existed. I read lots of erotic fiction, e.g. Lace, as a teenager, my Mum had no idea what it was about until she picked it up. She was shocked at how explicit it was but didn't stop me reading it because she went to a boarding school that distributed lists of banned books, not surprisingly the girls all tried to get hold of all the books on the list.

I think you can definitely find specific examples of 'bad' erotica, but you can do that with regular literature as well. Most pieces of Classic literature would have women in a subordinate (non sexual) role.

IDK. It's a tightrope I think. WRT the scenario you mentioned; do you belittle women who may want to read that kind of erotica by assuming they can't tell the difference between fiction or reality? Or is it protecting people who may take the wrong lessons from it? Do you censor 'for the general good'? What people like to read for kicks isn't a mirror of their real life.

There can be ethical issues with any kind of media. I don't think sexually explicit material which doesn't involve actual people, be it written or visual, has the same issues as that which does involve actual people.

The range of sexually explicit written material is huge. I don't think it is just based on one trope.

I used to write erotica and I am a feminist. I don't see an incompatibility between writing it or enjoying it and being a feminist.

However, yeah, some of it is a bit off (I'm thinking of 50 shades of course).

There's plenty of decent erotic literature out there's written by women for women.
There's nothing erotic about badly written erotica but no I don't think it's exploitative in the same way that porn is. It's just peoples fantasies at the end of the day.

I don't think erotica is wrong, no. But like other posters have mentioned it can be as exploitative as women as other kinds of printed non sexual media. Depends on what people are reading, good erotica could probably be a really good thing for teenagers to read.

So big production company (the vet the women) or owner produced is okay??

What would you say is good erotica? Could you give me an example?

It's funny I was expecting lots of people coming in and saying they were all depicting women as being feeble, unable to take decisions etc... I must have come across the wrong ones lol. (not my usual reading as you can guess)

Okay. I think it's a bit difficult tbh. I can't stand badly written anything, that's what I'd call 'bad' erotica, I guess you're referring to subject matter, which is very... subjective

If you like reading trashy novels with big Alpha men and swooning women, then you're not going to see it as bad,. 50 Shades isn't bad because it's a D/s novel with tropey male/female roles (haven't read more than a few pages so apologies if that's a wrong assumption) it's bad because it's badly written and just bad. There's an internet acronym, YKINMK (Your Kink Is Not My Kink) which works here.

I guess what you want is more realistic erotica, with strong independent female characters giving as good as they get? Hopefully someone will suggest something. If I buy books like that it tends to be in the Urban Fantasy range, so fair amount of sex but a lot more Vampires/Werewolves/Witches and actual plot than most people want!

(If I read porn for porns sake, it'll be something fan written from an internet site)

Totally consensual? Women really enjoying it? And yes to well written.

I agree with others - the ethical issues are different from porn, and can be avoided, because it doesn't involve abusing someone else's body.

I have issues with crap like 50 Shades the same way I have issue with beautifully written novels like Lolita (which I can't and won't finish so this is not a deep interpretation of the whole text). I think there's something sick about literature that makes something attractive out of something abusive.

But it isn't the same as actual abuse.

I think it's very telling that there are huuuuge reams of free erotic lit on the net, and, relative to this, the erotic lit marked that's paid for is small.

With porn it's the other way around, and I'm dubious about how 'free' some supposedly amateur porn is anyway.

I think that says something about how we're being manipulated in the porn industry.

Read Anais Nin for some well written stuff.

LRD 'making something attractive out of something abusive' is exactly the feeling I came out with the couple of books I've read.
Some parts just made me think about some threads on the relationship board, except that here the women are supported from abusive partners whereas in the book, it was shown as something how ever so lovely .

But I also get that not erotica is like this so I will now have to hunt down the 'good' ones.

Yes, it gives me the shudders sometimes. Especially because of course sexy writing is actually sexy (or can be, god knows 50 shades makes my ladybits want to retreat into my larynx, but still ...), so it feels a bit grubby to read. For me, at least.

Agree with others that there are not the same concerns because it's not real actual people doing stuff.

I read a lot of fanfic much of which contains explicit sex / is no more than porn. The situations and people who get put together is a much wider range than the "mainstream" stuff you mention - much of it is miles away from the dominant man / passive woman idea you talk about (not least because a large amount of it is male/male).

I am not opposed to erotica, either visual or literary.

However most of the erotic literature out there be it the Mills and Boon novels, Harlequin romances, or the more racy Fifty Shades of Crap are so immersed in traditional gender stereotypes that I want to vomit.

I disagree that most erotic literature is immersed in gender stereotypes. I agree with NiceTabard that the range is very wide. OP, I don't think it is possible to say what good erotic fiction is because tastes vary widely and female interests tend to cluster around a number of quite specific tropes which usually don't have equivalents in sexual content made for men. I assume that most women who read erotic fiction read fan fiction (there seems to be huge quantities of it compared to anything else). The biggest source of such fiction (erotic or general) is archive of our own:

archiveofourown.org/

Coo, feel like I'm in a parallel universe fan-ficcers anon meeting: "Hello, my name's lurcio and I like erotic fanfic."

Bugger, can't spell "occasionally"! This is why I write using a word processor with a spell checker. :-)

A freind of mine gave me a copy of her favourite erotic novel which I felt was a bit anyway - I didn't need to know what gets her off!

But the book kicks off with the handsome prince spotting the beautiful princess asleep/unconscious and choosing to fuck her awake! It was so gross and rapey, not arousing at all. My bits want to shrivel up and die when I read stuff like that.

When I see it I think

That is neither erotic or literature.

It should be on a shelf marked Wank Pulp in Waterstones.

GreenSkittles - I've come across amateur fics like that where I want to shake the author and say "you do realise that's rape, don't you?" To give a charitable reading, in some cases in amateur fics, it's a complete failure of imagination - because the author thinks "well they love each other/are destined to fall in love, I as author know that," they can't step back and say "but hang on a minute, at this stage in the story, the characters don't know that." But sadly I think more often it's because the authors have internalised all sorts of rape myths and don't even realise they've described a rape. Grim. The bad fanfics out there really depress me because they're written by women who think this way, not by cynical writers of pulp fiction out to exploit the market place. Somehow that's even sadder.