So, what is erotica?

When you look at genres as their most basic elements, it is easier to understand. Horror’s focus is something scary. A mystery’s focus is something mysterious that someone has to figure out. Romance is about the romantic relationship between people.

Erotica is about sexual relationships with other people or even the character’s own private relationship with sex. You can have erotica with no explicit sex scenes in it at all. Being “about” sex and being filled with sex are different things. A horror book is not about a monster, it’s about how that monster terrifies people.

I have seen some writers refer to what they write as smut (and some readers too). Smut, other than the word uptight people use trying to insult romance writers, is stuff written to titillate only. They’re masturbatory aids. Smut is erotica, but not all erotica is smut. It’s like squares and rectangles.

Do I write erotica?

Yes, I do. Mostly I write erotic romance if I’m delving into sex at all, but sometimes the whole, long relationship and happily ever after may not happen.

I think sex can include just as much a personal characteristic and journey as romance does. Sexuality is a large part of most people’s lives. Not only if they are “getting some,” but also how they identify, what urges they might have when they meet someone new, and how they fantasize and fulfill themselves when they’re alone.

The whole host of human emotion goes into my stories. I want readers to feel right along with my characters and always try to portray things accurately. Even the fantasy or paranormal aspects of my stories have real reactions, thought processes, and feelings at their core. They just also have shapeshifters or dragons.

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According to the most recent polls (Nielson) I could find, 16% of romance readers are men.  Or at least 16% are men who were comfortable enough admitting that they liked reading romance. As with all studies, the numbers can be skewed based on willingness to answer honestly. RWA says its closer to 6%, so I’ll take the average for the duration.

Since romance is by far the biggest fiction umbrella genre both for number of books published and sales, that 12% is really a large number of actual men who sit down with a book to read about love between two people. Kinda warms the heart, actually.

I think the stigma that might stop a guy from browsing the romance shelves, or at least the romance pages at Amazon. These books are women’s stuff! They’re the pink toy aisle little boys refused to go down when they were young. They’re scented skin cream and scarves when it’s not cold out. Despite the fact that most romance fiction is heterosexual, reading something so girly and full of feeeeelings might make someone question their manliness.

Of course I, and that 12%, don’t believe any of this. And of course, most of the other guys who don’t read romance probably don’t’ think this either. They just like other things.

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