It’s been a great month of eVerse blog posts here on the Green Porch. Now that we dig deep into the closet of winter, we bid GPWeR  (GreenPorch Winter of eReading) farewell. But as a final parting shot across the bow I ask a serious question. (Fine. It’s not really serious. But I like to be dramatic. I’m a writer, dangit.)

Across the artistic board every medium perpetuates a certain lowbrow peep-show in perpetuity. That is to say, pornography is everywhere… except in fiction. You see, in fiction we have erotica. This got me to thinking. (Stop laughing. I think. On occasion.)

Why do people skim through nudey magazines, watch porno flicks and populate the internet with more pornography sites than there are McDonalds in the inner city, just to go off and read “erotica?” You and I both know the truth is they don’t. As sure as your soylent green, it’s porn, people!

Why should the written word be any different or classier than every other medium of creativity? What, novelists are somehow better than garage-style sexploitation film makers? All I’m saying, is that I don’t understand the difference (other than the fact that if you swap out the cover you could read a porno book without the guy sitting next to you on the bus knowing about it. While if it was a playdude magazine, you could be sure he would).

So you can read. Congratulations. I suppose that singular fact is enough to elevate our semantics from the everyday porno bush to the ever so snooty erotica tree. (deep breaths…) Anywho. As a compromise, I suggest from now on we simply refer to written-word porn as “pornotica.”

Everybody wins.