Eroticism versus Porn

Explicit sex--high romance

Physical intimacy appears in romances in three different ways:

1. Off-screen or indirectly described

2. Porn

3. Eroticism

The oddity here is eroticism. On the surface, eroticism and porn may seem indistinguishable: they both rely on a degree of explicitness. The difference comes down to a point C.S. Lewis made about jokes and sex. In The Screwtape Letters, he compares two categories of people:

People who tell jokes about incongruities because they give rise to discussions of sex.

People who tell jokes about sex because they give rise to incongruities. 

Porn falls into the first category; eroticism into the second. 

The downfall of porn is not simply Provenza's criticism in Major Crimes (pizza never gets eaten; refrigerator never gets fixed). Some porn can actually deliver narrative arcs. But the arcs are flimsy pretenses. Worse, as Agatha Christie pointed out, there's a remarkable lack of real humor. Lady Chatterley's Lover is achingly dull in its characters. 

Eroticism, however, will talk about sex in order to talk about the oddities of human nature. Aren't humans hilarious?! Fumi Yoshinaga's more explicit manga is almost cynical in its amusement at human beings' foibles.

In sum, Golden Girls--at a relatively mild level--is erotica. Discussions of sex turn on how different and funny human beings can be in relationships, the bedroom, the grocery store, the restaurant, the car...

Cheers is frankly borderline porn. The jokes are often funny because they are raunchy. Well-written but rather tedious after awhile.

Frasier is all clever misdirection. Watch out for the opening episode set-ups, whether the topic is romance or caviar. They pay-off later, sometimes with a single line!