erotica

is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived. better executed, better packaged. designed for a better class of consumer.

is simply high-class pornography: better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer, but both are produced by the same system of sexual values and both perform the same sexual service.

[I]n the male sexual lexicon, which is the vocabulary of power, erotica is simply high-class pornography: better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer. As with the call girl and the streetwalker, one is turned out better but both are produced by the same system of sexual values and both perform the same sexual service.

is distinguished from pornography in that it stimulates vague sexual emotions but leaves everything to the imagination. Why it is felt that there's no harm in this is a bit of a mystery.

An enormous amount of art and literature is erotic in the sense that it stimulates vague sexual emotions, but it has no pornographic intention or effect because "it leaves everything to the imagination." The consumer has to invent his own images, and it is felt, I do not know with what justification, that there is no harm in this.

is stuff that's meant to be read with one hand.

is about mutuality while pornography is about dominance.

Pornography is about dominance. Erotica is about mutuality.

erotica, n.All

erotica