: Re: In this day and age should the definition / categorisation of erotica be revised? My experience tells me that a disproportionate number of wannabe writers are prudes. I recently wrote a scene

@Caterina108

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It seems this is less a question of being prude and more a question of mismatched expectations.

Erotica comes in different forms - same as porn - as soft romantic form and hard pornographic form. If your book mixes extremes of both forms that easily triggers frustrations in either target group.

If you even go so far to put explicit scenes into otherwise non-erotic genres this can be even more surprising and shock an audience. That has nothing to do with being prude, and everything to do with expectations. If you read a novel, sci-fi or fantasy you typically do not expect explicit (hard) sex scenes (unless perhaps it is a fanfiction or a book of a particular mixed sub-genre).

Sex happening can in principle be an important element of a story, but then it mostly suffices to know that it happened. Scenes that illicit arousal serve a different more self-serving function of sexual fantasizing and masturbation inspiration. If placed in the middle of a book that otherwise is driven by story telling, deep characters, intellectual challenges etc. then for most people who like to read such books, this is an annoying distraction at best and likely offensive. Sex is still an intimate topic, even if it were not - most delicacies are way more enjoyable when they are properly introduced and not stuffed into your head when you least expect it. Too much erotic writing in an otherwise dry intellectual story can be like a fat soaked big burger presented as the desert of an exquisite five course menu in a five-star restaurant.

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