This is mostly about erotic literature, not romance, but it does attempt to define the differences between erotic literature, romance and pornography, which is why I've included it. Here's the abstract:
This dissertation has two primary goals, the first of which revolves around disentangling the genre of erotic literature from interrelated categories, most prominently pornography and romance. An extremely understudied and widely misunderstood literary genre, erotica has been dismissed in both the academic sphere and the popular milieu with accusations of being “classy smut” or “explicit romance”, yet in doing so, erotic literature’s unique aesthetic, affective, and philosophical qualities are ignored. Part of this issue originates in the way in which pornography and romance are studied; while the psychological effects of reading the two are still being studied, there is very little research done on how readers interact with these texts emotionally. By using affective literary criticism to scrutinize how readers engage with these genres and why they choose them, this dissertation clarifies the manner in which erotica stimulates the reader cognitively, challenging him or her to reconsider notions of desire, love, and power. This, in turn, cleaves a difference between pornography, the primary aim of which is to please the reader sexually, and romance, a genre that consistently satisfies the reader emotionally, neither of which challenge the reader’s worldview.
The second objective of this dissertation is to reposition erotic literature as a viable object for feminist analysis, both in the Global North and the Global South. For a variety of reasons, feminist authors and activists in both the United States and Europe have ignored erotica, either considering it too explicit or not explicit enough to advance women’s liberation, yet the genre’s potential for innovative expression, intellectual debate, and intimate connection could lend itself to such causes. The corpus, which spans the mid-1950s to the mid-2000s and includes Dominique Aury’s Histoire d’O (1954), Guillaume Lescable’s Lobster (2003), Catherine Breillat’s Pornocracie (2001), and Nedjma’s L’Amande (2004), possesses unique aesthetic qualities that either implicitly or explicitly break down boundaries between Self and Other, providing models for how feminist writers could use erotica for their praxes.
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While the notion of eroticism has been ill-defined, both in the popular milieu and in the domains of feminist and sexuality studies, I explore the term’s limits by comparing it with other associated genres, such as pornography and romance, particularly with regards to their differing aims and effects on readers. Though the term likely comes from the Greek word eros (the emotion of love), many theorists, most notably Jean-Jacques Pauvert, have argued that the notion of literary eroticism is separate from romance, and other genres that frequently depict the physical act of sex, such as pornographic, bawdy, banned, and obscene, are additionally distinguished from erotic literature. However, these studies fail to provide any meaningful differences between erotica, pornography, and romance. Certainly, there exists some overlap between these textual genres in that they transgress morality and implicate sexuality either explicitly or implicitly, but there must be some significant distinction between the two genres. After all, if erotic can be substituted for pornographic or romantic, for example, what is the utility of the former term? Why not use pornography as a catch-all for every work deemed sexually explicit or romance for all texts that combine emotions and sex? Is it only the historical use of the term that keeps it in circulation? Is this enough justification to keep using the word, or might there be other reasons? (5)
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as discussed more thoroughly in the first and second chapters of this dissertation, while efforts to reclaim both pornographic films and romance novels as potentially feminist objects have occurred since the late 2000s, there have been very few, if any, such attempts to reposition erotic literature as either empowering or otherwise feminist in nature. This is particularly curious, given the increasing visibility and popularity of the so-called erotic romance (most infamously E.L. James’s Fifty Shades series [2011-2012], discussed more in chapter three). Sometimes referred to humorously as “mommy porn,” perhaps due to its popularity with women above the age of thirty, category romance traditionally presents a more conventional heterosexual courtship with more veiled references to sexuality than its erotic and pornographic peers. Yet with the popularization of the erotic romance, the lines between the two categories begin to blur, and one must ask how the genre of romance differs from erotic literature and, by extension, pornography. (8)
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Chapter 1 begins with a brief sketch of the difficult relationship between pornography and feminism during the second-wave and early third-wave feminist movement in the United States and France. After a brief engagement with affective literary criticism, I turn to Dominique Aury’s Histoire d’O (1954), perhaps one of the most notorious BDSM novels of the contemporary age. (11)
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Chapter 2 deals primarily with romance literature. Popular thought dictates that both romance and erotica handle sexuality in veiled terms, with the language euphemistic and centered around emotions as opposed to physicality. Yet, as with pornography, what – if anything – separates the two genres? If both deal with feelings and relationships, is the distinction merely a matter of how much sexuality is in a work? How does the increasing popularity of the so-called “erotic romance” blur what lines may exist? I argue that, while romance literature can reinforce unfortunate racist and sexist stereotypes and focuses largely on the pursuit and possession of someone else, erotic literature attempts to understand another individual through the pursuit of an emotional or sexual relationship. I begin with a brief discussion that outlines the historical origins of romance novels in North America, England, and France in order to better outline the conventions of the genre, such as love triangles, helpers and harmers, rigid gender roles, and a happy ending. After this, I transition to an exploration of the influence of feminism on more contemporary texts; of particular note is the advent of so-called “chick lit,” a female-centered genre that recounts the pressures of modern womanhood, often implicating a romance. As with the first chapter, affect theory helps in distinguishing romance from other genres, and it is for this reason that a discussion of this theoretical approach follows. This chapter focuses on an analysis of Guillaume Lescable’s Lobster (2003). Classified as belonging to a number of different genres, I argue that the text, while borrowing several conventions of the romance genre, best represents an erotic text due to its dissolution of boundaries not only between human and animal but additionally male and female and predator and prey. (11-12)
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pornography represents a direct and overt appeal to the reader’s libido wherein the presentation of sex for his or her pleasure is the primary – but not necessarily only – function of such texts. Erotica, far from being synonymous with pornography or simply an elevated version of the genre, entails a more nuanced depiction of sex alongside broader philosophical concerns, largely intended to stimulate the reader intellectually, as well as sexually. Romance’s effect on the reader, as I argue in this chapter, is dependent on his or her emotional satisfaction. (63)
This is mostly about erotic literature, not romance, but it does attempt to define the differences between erotic literature, romance and pornography, which is why I've included it. Here's the abstract:
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