Let me start by saying I like men, a lot. And I mean that in a heterosexual way. Even so, nothing ruins a good heterosexual erotic forum like the incursions of men. The line between erotica and porn isn't thin or fragile. It's thick and hairy and defined by the appearance of XY chromosomes.

After college, I was a bored temp, working with other young, bored temps in a New York City law firm. To get through the week, I suggested we form a little "Tuesday Erotica Club." Every Tuesday, we'd anonymously post our erotic musings to the company's intranet. Club members could download the erotica and read it at their leisure. It grew like wildfire, spreading by word of mouth from girlfriend to girlfriend. And then, one ugly Tuesday, the men discovered it. Wham! One pornographic posting and the caveman club of obscenity came slamming down, destroying the safety zone of chicks talking sex to other chicks.

The Tuesday Erotica Club was over. In retrospect, thank goodness it ended so fast. Erotica has its place, and that place is not the company bulletin board. Saved by one man's misinterpretation of the demarcations of erotica, I kept the bad job, and the good idea garaged in my head for many years, until it became a novel, The Tuesday Erotica Club.

In the novel, a women's writers' group decides to try their hand at erotica. In discussing details of how they want to have sex, the women reveal aspects of their humanity they intended to keep hidden. The characters' literary sexual musings are down and dirty, anatomically site specific, funny and—I think—firmly planted in the erotica genre.

At a book signing in Chicago, a trio of septuagenarian hotties bounded up to the table, my novel pressed to their chests like the schoolgirls they had been in the late 1940s, and hesitantly inquired, "Is it pornographic?"

"It's mainstream erotica," I assured them and then added, "in my opinion."

Opinion, ah, there's the rub.

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart attempted to define pornography with the vague phrase "I know it when I see it." On my book tour for The Tuesday Erotica Club I've been putting it to the audience to help me form a definition that separates pornography from erotica. Free from the weight of Supreme Court robes, startled that the author at the podium wanted their opinion, my wonderful audiences have tossed out some good ideas: yesterday's pornography is today's erotica. When women write about sex it's called erotica. When men write erotically it's called the sports page.

It's good to have a microphone in one's hand at these discussions (one of the rare times a women's voice is actually amplified by a phallic symbol). If the conversation gets too visceral or strays too far from the need to buy my book, I take advantage of my electric power to state my opinion above the others. Erotica humanizes sex; pornography dehumanizes. Erotica is to pornography as a portrait is to a cartoon. Women are better suited for erotica because we are fascinated by the humanity within sex. Pornography is the portrayal of climax-climax-climax; a dull read in any genre. Erotica presents sex the way women like it, as a character-driven story with a beginning, middle and end.

Women's erotic fiction sells because sex sells and romance sells, and the best erotic fiction is a supremely satisfying fusion of those two urgently important themes in women's lives," Deb Werksman, acquiring editor for Sourcebooks Casablanca, told me. Fueled by women, erotica is sauntering out of the back stacks and into the windows of major booksellers, and readers are responding with accolades and dollars. "The rapid growth of erotica books written by women, for women has been extraordinary," said Robert Tyson Cornell, director of marketing and publicity at the L.A. bookstore Book Soup.

Erotica fits women like a glove. It follows our rhythms. It services our fantasies. Yet the female nature of erotica shouldn't be seen as a closed or private pleasure. Any ambitious XY interested in picking up good, useful tips would be wise to find a comfortable position, grab a notebook and pen, then crack open a volume of erotic chick lit. Insights gleaned from women's erotica can highlight moments too good to be overlooked by anyone.

Author Information
Lisa Beth Kovetz is the author of The Tuesday Erotica Club published by Sourcebooks Inc.