Erotica is art, literature or photography that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use any artistic form to depict erotic content, including painting, sculpture, drama, film or music. Erotic literature and erotic photography have become genres in their own right. Erotica also exists in a number of subgenres including gay, lesbian, women's, monster, tentacle erotica and bondage erotica.
Fisting—also known as fist fucking (FF), handballing, and brachioproctic or brachiovaginal insertion—is a sexual activity that involves inserting one or more hands into the rectum or the vagina. Fisting may be performed on oneself (self-fisting) or performed on one person by another. People who engage in fisting are often called "fisters".
Annie M. Sprinkle is an American certified sexologist, performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care.
Softcore pornography or softcore porn is commercial still photography, film, or art that has a pornographic or erotic component but is less sexually graphic and intrusive than hardcore pornography, defined by a lack of visual sexual penetration. It typically contains nude or semi-nude actors involved in love scenes and is intended to be sexually arousing and aesthetically beautiful. The distinction between softcore pornography and erotic photography or art, such as Vargas girl pin-ups, is largely a matter of debate.
Erotic art is a broad field of the visual arts that includes any artistic work intended to evoke arousal. It usually depicts human nudity or sexual activity, and has included works in various visual mediums, including drawings, engravings, films, paintings, photographs, and sculptures. Some of the earliest known works of art include erotic themes, which have recurred with varying prominence in different societies throughout history. However, it has also been widely considered taboo, with either social norms or laws restricting its creation, distribution, and possession. This is particularly the case when it is deemed pornographic, immoral, or obscene.
Susannah Bright is an American feminist, author and journalist, often on the subject of politics and sexuality.
Sex is a 1992 coffee table book written by American singer Madonna, with photography by Steven Meisel Studio and Fabien Baron. It was edited by Glenn O'Brien and published by Warner Books, Maverick and Callaway. The book features adult content including softcore pornography and simulations of sexual acts including sadomasochism.
Patrick Califia, formerly also known as Pat Califia and by the last name Califia-Rice, is an American writer of non-fiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man. Prior to transitioning, Califia identified as a lesbian and wrote for many years a sex advice column for the gay men's leather magazine Drummer. His writings explore sexuality and gender identity, and have included lesbian erotica and works about BDSM subculture. Califia is a member of the third-wave feminism movement.
Erotic photography is a style of art photography of an erotic, sexually suggestive or sexually provocative nature. It is a type of erotic art.
Lesbian erotica deals with depictions in the visual arts of lesbianism, which is the expression of female-on-female sexuality. Lesbianism has been a theme in erotic art since at least the time of ancient Rome, and many regard depictions of lesbianism to be erotic.
Café Flesh is a 1982 post-apocalyptic cult pornographic science fiction film designed and directed by Stephen Sayadian and co-written by Sayadian and Jerry Stahl. Music was composed and produced by noted music producer Mitchell Froom.
Depictions of nudity include all of the representations or portrayals of the unclothed human body in visual media. In a picture-making civilization, pictorial conventions continually reaffirm what is natural in human appearance, which is part of socialization. In Western societies, the contexts for depictions of nudity include information, art and pornography. Information includes both science and education. Any ambiguous image not easily fitting into one of these categories may be misinterpreted, leading to disputes. The most contentious disputes are between fine art and erotic images, which define the legal distinction of which images are permitted or prohibited.
Pornography is sexual subject material such as a picture, video, text, or audio that is intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to modern virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adults-only sexual content is made-classifying it as pornography or erotica.
The history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilization, ancient and modern. Early cultures often associated the sexual act with supernatural forces and thus their religion is intertwined with such depictions. In Asian countries such as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, and China, representations of sex and erotic art have specific spiritual meanings within native religions. The ancient Greeks and Romans produced much art and decoration of an erotic nature, much of it integrated with their religious beliefs and cultural practices.
Nude photography is the creation of any photograph which contains an image of a nude or semi-nude person, or an image suggestive of nudity. Nude photography is undertaken for a variety of purposes, including educational uses, commercial applications and artistic creations.
Marco Ferdinand William Vasquez-d'Acugno Vassi was an American experimental thinker and author, most noted for his erotica. He wrote fiction and nonfiction, publishing hundreds of short stories, articles, more than a dozen novels, and at least one play, "The Re-Enactment," at the Caffe Cino in January 1966. Many of his works appeared as "Anonymous" in their first printings. In his study of modern erotic literature, critic Michael Perkins said that "it is not .. (Vassi's) imagination but the power of his ideas that make him the most interesting figure in recent erotic literature." He is most often compared to Henry Miller, has been called the greatest erotic writer of his time and "foremost of his generation," and praised by Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Saul Bellow, and Kate Millett.
Madison Young is an American filmmaker, author, performance artist, feminist activist, and former adult film performer and award-winning erotic filmmaker. Young is a prominent figure in the feminist porn movement and is known for their work as a queer and kink-focused educator and an advocate of sex workers' rights.
Charles Robert Gatewood was an American photographer, writer, videographer, artist and educator, who lived and worked in San Francisco, California.
R. C. Hörsch is an American photographer, filmmaker, writer, sculptor and musician. His 50-year body of work ranges from poetic to explicit. He is cited academically, along with Hans Bellmer and Robert Mapplethorpe, as an example of an artist of transgressive work. Criticism of his work both praises his authenticity, sensitivity and condemns the exploitation of his subjects.
Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen were a husband-and-wife team of American sexologists, mainly active in the 1960s and 1970s. They wrote a number of books on sexuality and eroticism, and they also amassed a collection of erotic art, which traveled around Europe in 1968 as the "First International Exhibition of Erotic Art" and then found a home in San Francisco as the Museum of Erotic Art (1970-1973).
