Erotica

The term erotica is derived from the feminine form of the ancient Greek adjective: ἐρωτικός (erōtikós), from ἔρως (érōs)—words used to indicate lust, and sexual love.

Erotic art dates back to the Paleolithic times, with cave paintings and carvings of female genitalia being a point of immense interest to prehistorians.

[8] Erotic film has evolved greatly with modern filmmaking capabilities, including developing a large subgenre of cartoon pornography, the most popular form of which is Japanese hentai.

Arguably the most iconic erotic piece of literature, the Kama Sutra is a Sanskrit text largely describing and depicting ideas of sex, sexuality, love, and human emotion.

[10] Eroticism in ancient Greece and Rome was not contained to only visual art, as poets such as the Greek Sappho and the Roman Catullus and Ovid wrote erotic verse and lyrical poems.

Stories on online websites like Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.Net account for a large percentage of modern erotic fan fiction literature.

Some notable cases include People v. Freeman, in which the state of California upheld that hiring actors to engage in sexual activity for the sake of creating erotic films was not considered pornography, and Miller v. California, in which the idea of erotic work providing serious artistic or literary value was introduced to the legal sphere.

[18] Martha Edelheit was a pioneer of modern women's erotica, flipping the genre on its head by focusing her art on the nude male figure.

[citation needed] For the anti-pornography activist Andrea Dworkin, "Erotica is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer.

Steinem's argument hinges on the distinction between reciprocity versus domination, as she writes: "Blatant or subtle, pornography involves no equal power or mutuality.