Umberto Echo said,

“If, to go from A to B, the characters take longer than you would like, then the film you are seeing is pornographic.”

If you change “film” to “book” and “seeing” to “reading” does it still count? I love to read as well as write steamy novels but would only ever jokingly refer to them as porn. It’s not like I skip (much). I really need to buy into the characters or I find I’m just bored, because really, the mechanics of it all is pretty much the same in books of this genre. I think that’s why Fifty Shades was so huge – it was something a bit different from the mainstream but kept within certain boundaries (monogomy & they were already in a relationship when they started). I admire anyone who publishes under their own name when writing about the more extreme end of the spectrum, after all, you can’t stop your grandmother buying it once its out there on Amazon for $1.99 (there’s always a helpful younger cousin or neighbour). I will admit to a few qualms and mine, while fairly explicit, is still pretty vanilla in terms of what happens. Still the thought of the older generation of relatives purchasing it and having to face up to them at Christmas or family functions did cause a few nightsweats.

I’d like to think I’m not writing porn, but if I could sell as many books as EL James, I wouldn’t care what anyone called it!

And why is no one talking about violence? My main character decapitates someone with a kitchen knife, but no one even mentions it. What’s up with that??