Houston Bay Area RWA | Member Articles | Defining Romantica and Erotica, by Keelia Greer

Member Articles | Defining Romantica and Erotica

Defining Romantica and Erotica

by Keelia Greer

Houston Bay Area is dedicated to encouraging and supporting the romance writers, both published and aspiring, in its membership.

I've heard comments that romance writing is pornography. In order to fight ignorance, we need be informed about this aspect of romance writing even if it doesn't happen to be an area you read or write.

With the success of Ellora's Cave and other publisher's Romantica lines, Erotic Romance appears to be a viable market.

What is sensual and spicy to one person may not be to another.

In the February RWR, Raelene Gorlinsky of Ellora's Cave says Romantica is what they call their books.

After I read the article in the RWR, I needed more information so I went to the Ellora's Cave web site and surfed around.

Ms. Gorlinsky's name appeared once again in another search. This article gave me the information I was looking for. She defines Sensual, Romantic and Erotica.

The point to remember is that what is sensual and spicy to one person may not be to another. Traditional dictionaries contain a wide variety of definitions for erotica and pornography.

Romantica is both romantic and sexually explicit. The emotional and sexual aspects of a relationship are integral to the plot and development of the characters. The sex may be beyond conventional "mainstream." The story almost always has the traditional happily-ever-after ending.

Sensual (sizzling/hot/ sexy) romance is driven by the romantic relationship and the emotional development of the characters, but contains lots of sexual tension and fairly explicit conventional sex. The relationship is monogamous and has the traditional happily-ever-after ending.

Erotica contains emotional relationships, but the plot is more driven by the sexual relationships. The sex can take on all the aspects including D/s, bondage, voyeurism, multiple relationships, ménage a trios, and so forth. The story has a happy ending for the characters, but it might not be the traditional romance ending.

Pornography, as I would define it, degrades women, has no plot or emotional relationship, and violence is frequently a factor.

By the definitions listed above, romance writers do not write porn. We write stories with varying degrees of explanation of the act of love to fit the taste of all readers of romance.

Keelia Greer joined RWA in 1994. She grew up reading historicals. Her favorites are Scottish and Medieval. Today she combines her love of all things Celtic with the love of paranormal.