Erotica versus porn as they relate to shame, form, and function
Don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happenYou paint yourself white
And fill up with noise
But there'll be something missingNow that you've found it, it's gone
Now that you feel it, you don't
You've gone off the railsSo don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happenYou'll go to hell
For what your dirty mind is thinking
— Nude, Radiohead
I've been working on an essay about the fetishization of trans men for a couple weeks now. (It's not particularly long, but I've been particularly busy.)
Writing it made me reflect on the 10+ years I've been online in trans and fandom spaces, and examine where those spaces overlap. In doing so I realized that I've never seen the type of sexual content that reflects how I feel as a trans man.
As a result, I've cautiously decided to include explicit sex scenes in my original fiction, which will be adult in nature and feature a lot of different trans men; so it makes sense to include sex.
The possibility of backlash made me anxious, but once I had the idea I knew I couldn't put it aside. Sex feels taboo in many ways, especially trans sex. Which is probably why I've hardly seen it accurately represented. For most people it falls into the realms of fetish and pornography. Additionally, most people only ever consider MTF porn without a thought to FTMs.
To peel back the curtain and showcase trans male sex and sexuality in a public manner within my own stories and novels would be quite the statement. I'm not sure if I'd be injecting porn into my stories, or if my stories themselves would take an erotic turn; after all, would the sex serve the story, or would the story serve the sex?
I am reminded of what a professor said to me when I was in art school, after I switched from a focus on abstract expressionism to figurative art. I was creating a huge series of quick ink drawings featuring a male/female couple in a variety of scenarios ranging from satirical to somber and chaste to obscene.
In every single rendition they were unclothed. During my studies I had fallen in love with the nude figure's angles, shapes, and compositions. I synthesized its aesthetic with my prior knowledge of armchair Jungian analysis, and the nude became a symbol. I wasn't drawing people; I was drawing ideas and concepts.
Upon showing my professor some of my initial drawings, she asked: "Are they naked, or are they nude?"
The question took me aback. Its implications have stuck with me for years. I feel like the "erotica" versus "porn" dichotomy can be superimposed onto being "naked" versus "nude".
To me, nakedness equals exposure: either exposing oneself, or being exposed. It elicits a voyeuristic impression. In turn, voyeurism requires an object of desire and an onlooker in search of such. This dynamic between object and viewer is what creates the tension that compromises pornography; its natural conclusion being sexual relief.
Nude, on the other hand, is not so easily formulated. Nudity is nuanced. It exists on a gradient of social mores and personal expression. What is nude in one culture can be pornographic in another; vice versa for an individual's self-concept of their own nudity. Its function is not expressly sexual, though it can take on sexual elements.
By separating nudity from nakedness and erotica from porn, we implicate that the former is more legitimate than the latter. But if we zoom out and look at them holistically, we can see that their functions are the same: to illustrate individuals, relationships, and the interactions therein through the medium of the human body. So what if one aims to end in orgasm? It could be argued that nudity and all its various forms act as the primordial material from which pornography is derived. Pornographic content doesn't appear from thin air after all—it simply recontextualizes human flesh and its bodily mechanics into a more appealing and exciting format.
In hindsight, my series of drawings wasn't only an experiment in tone, subject, and content, but also in the differences between nakedness and nudity—or porn and erotica.
I eventually put the series up in a gallery show, which garnered different reactions. Some loved it and others were offended. Perhaps the most important lesson to be had was that regardless of intention, people will project their own mindsets onto art and take from it what they will. Whether or not an artist intends for a subject to be naked or nude, pornographic or erotic, we are powerless to control how that communication is translated; and at the end of the day, how important is that distinction, really?
My decision to include sex in my fictional works is scary for many reasons. But for many better reasons, it feels necessary. And the more I think about it, the less I start to worry.
✘ Posted on — 07/13/25
✘ Last modified — 1 month, 1 week ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/erotica-versus-porn-as-they-relate-to-shame-form-and-function