Pornography for Women and Corporate Art
By 
This entry is a response to a post in previous thread. It broaches the subjects of romance, erotica and my art, all subjects I’m happy to yammer on about.
“bspence at one point asked for criticism of her art”
I’ve never asked for criticism of my art.
and I made a comment that seemed to confuse some people that I thought her art looked corporate. This post has given me a better way to describe why it looks so corporate, because it reminds me of the slick, shopped art that publishing companies put on romance novels to market them.
This particular piece is…I don’t know how else to say it…bad. It’s devoid of nuance, originality, or anything else that could make it qualify as good art. It looks like the cover of a romance novel because I had just read the romance novel that inspired it and essentially ended up making the cover of a romance novel as a result. Weird, huh? Romance novel. If it looks slick and ‘shopped it’s because I am a professional artist who works with…Photoshop. Slick and shopped is what I do. That being said, it’s not indicative of my work at all, which people who know and purchase my art know.
Anyways, more on topic, romance novels have been likened to pornography for women and I think the reliance on the prurient to sell copies is what gives the genre its reputation. Something that gives women the shivers doesn’t need to be of other redeeming quality to sell copies (or make movies, or audiobooks). I don’t read erotic fiction much but I also see no reason that the genre couldn’t sustain more “genuine”* literary undertakings as well, and I’m sure there are plenty of examples out there.
Romance novels are not erotica. They are not porn. There is porn for women. It’s called “porn.” Women produce, act in, direct, consume, and write porn. Pornography is pornography for women, full stop, end of story. There is nothing that makes me grit my teeth more than the assertion that romance is “porn for women.” Women know porn. Women watch/read porn. Romance ain’t porn…even when it’s scorchingly erotic. Romance and porn scratch two different itches in the end. They just do. So quit saying otherwise. It just proves you don’t know what you’re talking about. (This is not directed at Sue.K. Lots of folks say this.)