At the end of March, 2006, I attended the Celebrate Romance conference in Long Beach, California, a small, intimate conference of romance readers and authors.

On Saturday afternoon, Harlequin Spice author Jina Bacarr and I led a discussion on Erotic Romance. One of the questions we were asked is what is the difference between erotica and pornography. Jina said erotica was more sophisticated. I said that erotica has more literary merit, in the sense of having a plot beyond the sexual activities, character development, etc. And romantic erotica often has the obligatory happily-ever-after (HEA) ending romance readers have come to expect.

Not completely satisfied with our answers, I did a little research yesterday. I discovered that the word pornography literally means "writing about prostitutes", and in the 19th century, it was used for factual reports about prostitution.

Erotica, on the other hand, comes from Eros, the Greek god of love. So a literal definition might be that pornography is solely about the lusts of the body, while erotica is about the longings of the heart as well. In practical terms, the definition is always somewhat subjective. As Tom Lehrer said in his brilliant satirical song, Smut:

All books can be indecent books,
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth, I'm glad to say,
Is in the mind of the beholder.

Ribaldry is as old as humanity, as Jina pointed out when she suggested we start our presentation by reciting some lines from Lysistrata, written by Greek playwritght Aristophanes in 411 BC. Set during the Peloponnesian Wars, Lysistrata tells how the women of Greece ended the war by refusing to have sex with their husbands and lovers until they laid down their swords. Not a bad idea when you think of it. The play is still performed today.

Ancient societies were more matter-of-fact in their attitudes toward sex than Western society has been. Ancient art depicts nude fertility goddesses and men and women engaged in sexual activity. Check out the wall paintings in Pompeii, for instance. India has the Kama Sutra, and the Japanese their "pillow books" which are often given to young couples on their wedding night.

During the Dark Ages and into the Middle Ages, learning was kept alive by the Catholic Church, which censored anything considered blasphemous or pornographic. The invention of the printing press took publication out of religious hands, and opened things up both politically and culturally.

In 1524, Italian poet Pietro Aretino published a book of sonnets, Sonnetti Lussuriosi, containing illustrations of sixteen sexual positions drawn by Giuliano Romano, a pupil of Raphael. Casanova mentions the book in his memoirs. Its publication caused such a controversy, Aretino had to flee and the Church burned the books. No complete copy survived, unless there is one in the Vatican's secret archives. However the sonnets did, as well as engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi based on Romano's drawings.

Fanny Hill or The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland is widely regarded as the first erotic novel. First published in 1749, it depicted the life of a young courtesan with more detail than seen before. More scandalous, perhaps, is the fact that Fanny is "of a warm nature" and doesn't seem to mind being a woman of pleasure. The most shocking scene for the time is one in which Fanny observes the activities of two gay men, a scene Cleland swore he did not write, but which he claimed was inserted later in a pirated edition.

Both author and publisher were arrested for "corrupting the King's subjects", but were cleared and released. Fanny Hill was banned in the United States in 1821 and not cleared until 1966 when the Supreme Court decided it did not meet the standard for obscenity, i.e. "without redeeming social importance".

By today's standards, Fanny Hill seems fairly tame. The sex scenes are full of florid language and the kind of euphemisms that are so often criticized in historical romances, but there's never any question of who is doing what to whom. It can also be viewed as a romance, since Fanny's true love returns at the end to marry her, giving her the obligatory HEA ending, and redeeming her in society's eyes.

When I was thinking about trying my hand at erotica, I talked to my friend Caitlyn Willows about it. She said writing erotica was freeing, and she was right. It's a license to be naughty, and at my age, those opportunities don't come along very often.

Lyndi

Where to Find Romantic Erotica on the Internet:

Amber Quill Press
Aphrodite Unlaced
Changeling Press
Ellora's Cave
eXtasy Books
Fictionwise
Liquid Silver Press
Loose Id
New Concepts Publishing
Ocean's Mist Press
Phaze
Samhain Publishing
Siren Publishing
Torquere Press (gay and lesbian fiction)
Whiskey Creek Press Torrid Romance