I was talking to a friend the other day about the different sorts of stories we both write. She's an historical romance and a paranormal romance author, while I write Young Adult (under a different name), paranormal romance and erotic. She referred to erotic as a sub genre of romance and at first, I didn't think much about that.
Now, I find myself thinking on it, and I have to say, I don't know if erotic is a sub genre of romance.
True, you can write erotic where the ending is happy and the two--or three or four--main characters are in love and live happily ever after. But you can also write where everyone is just happy for now in the end. You can also write a book that's all about two characters who get together just for pure fun and never see each other again.
However, those are character driven books. You can get other books that are classified as erotic that are how-to manuals for Kama Sutra, Foot Fetish, BDSM among many, many other subjects. These are non-fiction books but sometimes sold under the Erotic label in stores and online while most of the fiction erotic books are found in the romance section.
So where does that leave us? Erotic fiction isn't always romantic. But is it a sub genre of Romance? What do you think?
2 comments:
Erotica has rules and strictures on what is and is not acceptable. In that respect, yes, it is a genre unto itself, especially when the erotic aspects of the work are what drive it.
However, erotica can also be used as a subgenre, ie erotic suspense, romance, horror, et cetera. The case can be made both ways, but I would definitely argue more toward genre rather than subgenre.
foot fetish is nice.
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