I think I've just been flamed. Technically.

The e-mail says:

If there are positive emotions (doesn't need to be love/like is ok) it's erotica. Just nasty manipulative sex is porn. I wouldn't even call this a Spike/Xander pairing, and I wish you hadn't represented it as such. But now I know you're a prn writer, I can avoid your junk.

But there's no indication of what story it's about, where she found it, anything. I've googled the e-mail address and it doesn't turn anything up, but that needn't mean anything, just that she (the e-mail header has a female name) hasn't used it on an open site.

I'm curiously not upset by being told my work is junk, mostly because she's clearly got some very odd standards. But I'd be interested to know how this matches up to other people's experiences in fandom, because in my (fairly limited) experience of flames, it's unique both in tone and in having only one mis-spelling.

Euw! You wrote the icky prn! Euw! You didn't dress it up with hearts and flowers and twu wuv! Euw!

Sounds a little like the feedback I get that says "Why do you have to make everybody homosexual?" Because I want to!

Are you going to reply?

Also, relatively good grammar. As flames go, it's a relatively mild one: it's civil and reasoned, although I think her reasoning is silly and self-justifying.

Also, she does not say your mother wears combat boots, just that she dislikes your writing. I never understand why people bother writing feedback if it's non-constructively negative, but then, it is hard for me to bother to wash the dishes. So perhaps I am a bad example of bothering-threshold.

You might email her to thank her for her civility in disagreeing with you, and if you're really ambitious, ask her where she derived her differentiation of sex-writing terminology. It might be a worthwhile discussion, your correspondent having proved herself literate; then again, it might not be worth the bother.

How odd. Yes, I'd be tempted to write back a polite note, if only to establish which story she's talking about.

I can kind of understand the porn/notporn thing, though. Or at least... I use porn to mean 'story with shagging', but actually I want a way of differentiating between stories containing explicit sex and stories which ping me as really pornographic - in the sense of being exploitative, manipulative stuff just to get one off which doesn't ring true to character, where you get that 'ick' feeling about the characters being sex dolls moved around by the writer, rather than believing that, yes, in this situation this is what these characters would do. And this isn't neccesarily always the most explicit stuff, even. Whereas there are stories which are way explicit that don't ping me as porn in this way, even though they're sometimes supposed to be PWPs - because as well as being hot and/or explicit, it's also believable - like one's followed the characters into their bedrooms/broomclosets under an invisibility cloak, rather than put them under Imperius and made them have hot monkey sex.

...is this making any sense outside my own head?

It makes sense to me, Fay.

That distinction is often labeled as erotica vs. porn. But then we all run around talking about porn and confusing the issue.

If there are positive emotions (doesn't need to be love/like is ok) it's erotica. Just nasty manipulative sex is porn.

That's an awfully simplistic way of looking at the issue, as others have noted. It leaves no room for enemy pairings, for example. Mulder and Krycek probably don't like each other a lot of the time, but they're awfully hot together.

That's an awfully simplistic way of looking at the issue, as others have noted.

Yeah. I really haven't made up my mind on whether there actually is a difference between erotica and porn. If forced to draw a line, I'd say that erotica attains some level of artistry, which would include three-dimensional characterizations and good writing. For fic, I'd have to insist on recognizeable characterizations as well.

I don't know where like/love come into it: some of the hottest smut I've read in fandom has been angry!sex, resentful!sex, desperate!sex. And yeah, Mulder/Krycek can be fabulous if written well.

I've always been of the opinion that erotica is porn with a face lift. Same smut, different name, and we all pretend there aren't any funnylooking stretched-out parts around the eyes.

I agree that there is exploitive explicit sex, and non-exploitive explicit sex, but I have yet to meet two people who agree on the criteria for differentiation, much less on names for each category.

Personally, when I write, my preference is for more tender sex. But I do realize that's a taste of mine and does not render other kinds of writing crap or anything.

Mulder and Krycek probably don't like each other a lot of the time, but they're awfully hot together.

Yes. They introduced me to slash fic. <Goes off to happy fantasy place where Mulder and Krycek lean over Calli's shoulder pointing out the really good M/K stories.> Ah, good times.

I've generally nodded at the definition that erotica is the sexy stuff I like and porn is that nasty stuff the other person likes. Which is not terribly helpful, and, to be honest, I've read some stuff that I'd call porn and that I really quite liked. I do think there's a line between the two, but it's hazy and seems to shift around a lot from person to person. For that matter, there's stuff in Harlequins that I'd call porn -- complete with lurve and flowers -- and some explicit NC-17 guy on guy fic that I'd call erotica. None of which is getting us anywhere, is it? Oh well. <Goes back to happy place with Mulder and Krycek. Remembers she's at work. Swears quietly and goes back to coding.>