This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Victoria will give one randomly chosen commenter a download of her first erotic historical romance A Breach of Promise. Click on the tour banner above to see the other stops on the tour.
By
Victoria Vane
As an author of steamy/erotic historical romance, I am often asked what distinguishes what I write from erotica or pornography. And while this post is perhaps a more scholarly approach than readers might expect, I hope it will serve to clearly differentiate these three genres that have become so blurred in recent years.
Pornography according to MirriamWebster is : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornography involves the graphic depiction of sexual acts. It's all about the physical act for the sole purpose of inciting quick intense reactions. It's also important to distinguish between hardcore and softcore pornography as softcore is more suggestive, often involving simulation of intercourse, whereas hardcore pornography sensationalizes penetration and other very explicit sexual acts. Works of pornography consist of sexual acts without a plot line.
While Erotica and pornography are often used interchangeably, the object of erotica, whether painting, sculpture, photograph, dramatic arts, film, music or literature, is artistic in nature; whereas the object of commercial pornography is only to incite sexual arousal.
Erotic literature is meant to enlighten, entertain, and titillate and can be found in the form of novels, short stories, poetry, diaries and memoirs, and sex manuals, with sexual fantasy being a predominate theme. Early examples are erotic poems from ancient Greece. Other classic erotica from the Ancient World includes the Song of Songs from the Old Testament and the Roman Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. Even Shakespeare authored "erotic" works. The following lines from his Venus and Adonis clearly depict sexual excitement:
(Venus) "seizeth on his sweating palm"
"Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust"
"Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face,"
"Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight."
Erotica in the form of poetry and epistolary novels abounded in the 17th and 18th centuries. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was notorious for his lewd and obscene poetry, some of which was censored from collections of Rochester's work as late as 1953.
One of his most famed lewd poems A Satyre on Charles II got him banished from court:
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
---Nor are his high desires above his strength
His scepter and his prick are of a length;
And she may sway the one who plays with th' other,
And make him little wiser than his brother.
Poor prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court,
Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.
'Tis sure the sauciest prick that e'er did swive,
The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive.
Though safety, law, religion, life lay on 't,
'Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.
Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.
Link to full poem: http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/rochester/charles.html
The distinction between erotica and erotic romance is much greater than that between pornograhy and erotica in that erotic romance is all about emotion and a romantic relationship that develops through sexual interaction. Romance is the main focus of the plot line, although it is closely coupled with strong and often explicit sexual encounters.
About the AuthorWoodcote Park, Epsom, Surrey, 1778
After hours spent in a restive and fruitless battle with his conscience, he went to her, creeping into her bedchamber in the quietest hours that hovered between the blackest night and the first rays of dawn. When he dropped his dressing gown and slid between the sheets, she reached for him with a wordless moan. He answered with his lips pressed against her warm skin. "You did not come to me." He busied his mouth on her neck, intent on firing the heat of her lust.
"I couldn't. It would not have been decent," she whispered.
"Will you turn me away?" he asked, but her body's response already provided the answer before she spoke the words. "You know I cannot."
He peeled back her night rail, giving his hot tongue access to the valley between her breasts. "It was torture thinking of you in bed alone and wanting, no, needing the feel of your body beneath mine, engulfing myself in you as your sweet passage sheaths me. I thought I would go mad."
She clenched his hair, urging him to a swollen nipple, arching into him with a sensuous greed he adored. One fierce jerk rent the offending garment, freeing her bounty for his full ministrations. He ravenously feasted on her lush mounds, kissing, biting, laving until she writhed beneath him. "Kiss me, Ludovic," she cried.
He possessed her mouth with slow deliberation, their hot breaths mingling and tongues tangling, stroking, and sucking in mimicry of sex.
The pungent scent of her desire permeated his senses, feeding his hunger. She clutched his head, then his shoulders, and moved to his buttocks. He felt her damp thighs tremble as he parted her nether lips and stroked a finger through her wetness. She reached for his throbbing cock. "Please, Ludovic. I want you." She moaned, exhorting him to claim her, inciting his need to possess her to near urgency. His heart slammed against his chest with her reply, but still, he held back, relishing the delicious self-torture of anticipation.
"How?" he asked. "Tell me how you want me."
"I want you in my hands. In my mouth. In my sex," she answered his most decadent wishes aloud, and the words flooded him with a dark and delicious desire, causing his lustful fever to spike another hundred degrees.
He emitted a husky laugh. "You are a greedy one. But how could I ever deny you that which I also yearn for?" He wanted to fill her in every possible way and be overwhelmed by the sights, scents, and sounds of simultaneous pleasure. He withdrew his hand from between her thighs and stroked that same damp finger over her mouth, watching in fascination as her tongue darted out to taste her own salty essence. He licked away the rest and kissed her again, slow and deep. "The taste of your arousal is the sweetest nectar to me. It fills me with the urge to pound into you and never stop."
He skated down over her breasts, capturing a nipple, hard and pink, drawing it into his mouth, and suckling. He guided her onto her side, exploring her hips and belly with his hands and lips, moving in a worshipful caress down her body until reaching her mons. Shifting also to his side, he wrapped her thighs over his shoulders and then guided her head to his straining cock.
"Now," he said, his tongue thick with excitement and expectancy, "I'm going to love you with my mouth and drink in the proof of your passion even as you swallow my own."
Shuddering at the sublime sensation of her lips enfolding him, he dipped his head into her mound, giving a long, lascivious stroke, parting her dewy folds with his tongue, licking and lapping her juices while she teased and suckled the head of his cock. He blazed a trail with his tongue to the tight slit of her sheath, following with his fingers. He plunged them into her, and she wildly bucked against his mouth while he worked her sensitive bud.
He wished he could immerse himself in her like this forever, but their time was too bloody short. There was only one answer to what faced them on the morrow, but he forced it from his mind, refusing to think of anything now beyond the mindless ecstasy of mutual gratification and the explosive release already tightening his bollocks. Her wetness, her taste, her sounds of pleasure muffled by his cock filling her mouth combined with the slick friction and sultry, sucking sounds were insanely erotic and sublime. With her first racking shudders came a powerful, vibrating moan from her mouth through his shaft...and he was lost.
(Book #1) A WILD NIGHT'S BRIDE: What happens when a struggling actress and a grieving widower come together in a night of unbridled debauchery orchestrated by a bored and machinating rake? With the devil in charge — there will surely be hell to pay!(Book #2) THE VIRGIN HUNTRESS: Desperate times call for devilish measures…Lady Vesta Chambers is accustomed to getting what she wants, but when the object of her passion has eyes for another, it’s time to take matters in hand!(Book #3) THE DEVIL YOU KNOW : When dealing with the devil it's easy to be burned…especially when passion ignites the flames…
Beautiful, respectable, and dutiful, Lady Diana Palmerston-Wriothesley has long resigned herself to her loveless marriage …until her husband's gambling pushes them to the brink of ruin. Viscount Ludovic, "The Devil DeVere", is a man accustomed to taking what he wants according to his whim until he encounters a woman who won't be had at any price. But will a single night of heavenly passion damn them both forever?(Book #4) THE DEVIL'S MATCH: Once burned twice shy… but when old flames come together…passion reignites...
