Does a work need to be sexually stimulating to be classified as erotica/erotic literature?

Question

Does a work need to be sexually stimulating to be classified as erotica/erotic literature? Or will any book that deals extensively with human sexuality and sexual relationships be put in that genre?

I'm curious about this because I am writing a short story in which a young woman is dealing with a kind of sexual dysfunction called vaginismus, which makes her incapable of having penetrative sex. The story is about her attempts to overcome the physical condition in a practical and clinical manner. While the story is entirely about human sexuality and sexual relationships, most of the story is not very sexy at all and is not intended to be sexually stimulating. The sex (or trying-to-have-sex) scenes are explicit but more of "what goes where", since the couple are only trying to achieve penetration, not experience pleasure. For the most part it is almost more like assembling IKEA furniture together.

The plot is less about the sexual gratification and making the relationship work and more about overcoming the handicap - which happens to be on a sexual body part. It is about the woman's desire for self-acceptance and a sense of wholeness rather than a desire for sex. Would this be considered erotica, erotic literature, or neither?

How are these sorts of stories generally classified? Does it need to be sexually stimulating? Or is any work that deals substantively with sex considered erotic?

Similar (but, in my opinion, not identical) to At what point can a story be considered “erotic”?

Answer 1

From a marketing point of view, books are classified according to the type of pleasure they give. Stories can give different kinds of pleasures. Some readers are more open to a variety of pleasures, and some want a steady diet of a particular kind of pleasure. Genre sections of bookstores exist mostly for the latter kind of reader.

To illustrate this, consider whether a book about a sheriff in a the oklahoma territory in 1870 trying to catch a murderer would be shelved as a western, an historical, a mystery, or on the general fiction shelf. The answer is that it could be shelved on any one of them, depending on its theme, tone, and the kind of pleasure it gives.

• It is it a celebration of the cult of rugged individualism and stoic manliness, it will probably be shelved as a western.

• If it is focussed on the powers of detection or the psychology of crime, it will probably be shelved as a mystery.

• If it is focussed on the reconstruction of the historical period, it will probably be shelved as an historical.

• If it is none of these things, but perhaps a lyrical hymn to the landscape or an intimate character study, it might be shelved in general fiction.

I doubt, for instance, that you will find Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses or Mary Doria Russell's Doc (about Doc holiday), or Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop shelved as westerns, nor CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet or Doris Lessings Canopus in Argos or Russell's The Sparrow shelved as SciFy.

Not all books about sex, therefore will be shelved as erotica, only those that give the kind of pleasure that readers of erotica are seeking, which is, I presume, titillation.

Answer 2

I think the Supreme Court definition applies; to paraphrase: erotica and pornography are pretty much undefinable but we know it when we see it.

If you are describing the genitals or breasts of naked people, many will consider just that description erotica, no matter how clinically you approach it. What is not sexually stimulating to you might well be sexually stimulating to somebody else; particularly if you are describing attempts at penetration.

Consider a sixth grade American classroom: they have seen countless murders and kisses on regular used-to-be-broadcast television in prime time (i.e. the main networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc). They have most likely seen pretend-naked men and women under a cover. The naked back of females. But they haven't seen anything on those channels normally covered by underwear. If your work describes what is under the underwear or an attempt at sex (or if you describe alternatives to P-V sex, which is often the backup plan when vaginal sex is too painful), or would not plausibly be read to a sixth grade class, then it is going to be lumped into "erotic fiction".