Defining Erotica

This has been a very exciting week on the blogsphere.  Oh Get A Grip has had a week of posts from the members of their group on defining erotica. And Catherine Leary went on to respond to this in her own inimitable way. One of the proclamations that came up over and over again was that, in order for something to be 'erotica', it has to turn you on. Oh, wait – it has to turn YOU on? Or ME? Or Harry over there? So we're predicating the identity of a whole genre of literature – my genre – on the the individual sexual response of any given reader? Fuck! No wonder this genre is so maligned and disrespected and derided! We are all suffering from severe identity confusion here. I'm an erotica writer if this particular story turns your crank, but tomorrow I could just be bad pulp because you're not feeling inclined to be horny. There is a difference between any given piece that may or may not be 'erotic' to a given reader, and whether that piece of fiction contains the conventions associated with erotica as a genre. Just as there might be novels within the 'Thriller' [...]