Erotica or Porn

I haven’t been writing for a couple of weeks and the reason for that is I have been getting ready for winter. Summer clothes have been going into boxes and taken to my storage unit and there I picked up the winter clothes and brought them back home.

I live in a small apartment overlooking the ocean making it quite cold this time of year. I suppose when they built the building they thought it would be used by summer vacationers instead of struggling authors so the windows are not double glazed and there are spaces between windows and walls half an inch wide.

Anyway, on my last visit to the storage I decided to clean out a bit and I found a small box with various photos from way back when. In there was a picture of an ex boyfriend of mine, we dated for about half a year back in the 90’s, we are talking last millennium now, that far back. This guy used to buy Playboy and sometimes Hustler once a month. It never bothered me and I actually had a look at them a few times, and read some of the short stories.

I never felt that those stories were pornographic; sure there were some very detailed descriptions of things going in, and liquids coming out. One night I had a girlfriend come by for dinner and girl talk and apparently I had forgotten to put away one of these magazines and she saw it. While I was pouring wine she had a read, and when I came in with the glasses she asked me, ‘who is reading this smut?’

I told her it was my boyfriends and I didn’t think it was smutty at all. She asked if it didn’t bother me that he read it, and if her boyfriend would read such magazines she would either throw him or the magazines out, his choice.

The point of this is, what is smut and what is Erotica?

I think it depends on the reader more than on the author. Some readers like it more detailed, and other like less, so how do we as authors know what readers we have? If they write a review and comment we know at least a little, but most of the times we don’t. Some might argue that if the book is returned then it was too smutty, but I disagree. People might return the book for another reason, maybe it wasn’t the genre they were looking for or maybe they just clicked the wrong button.

Whatever the reason, I think we as authors have to put the “smut filter” on, and decide what we find acceptable, if people like it, great, if not there are thousands of other writers who might be more suitable.