I watched "Apcolypto" the other day - lots of native men running around in thongs. Got me thinking about why it would be kinky on this website and why it was so not kinky in this movie. Then I ran across this interesting article about how we define and categorize porn and erotica.

Alongside pornography, we have erotica. Erotica is the Pepsi One of pornography, the version OK for housewives and single women. Your mom may have a few erotica books lying around, possibly a classic with Fabio on the cover, about 20 Danielle Steel books and, if she’s slightly kinky, some gothic stuff by A. N. Roquelaure (a.k.a Anne Rice).

The same goes for stripping—excuse me, “exotic dancing”—and burlesque performance. One’s trashy, and the other one is so hot right now. Burlesque has made it to the mainstream, thanks mainly to the Pussycat Dolls and Carmen Electra. Unfortunately, today’s queen of burlesque, Dita von Teese, is still rather indie, so to speak.

We continue to separate certain material from the label of pornography. We, as a society, don’t want to admit we like porn. Porn is fake lesbians running their acrylics over their totally bare plastic bodies. That’s just gross.

Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” however, is pure. It’s art, with the coy nude of fair Venus standing on her shell, covering herself with her hands and her flowing strawberry blonde mane. But it doesn’t matter. It’s still sexually arousing, whether or not that was the intention. You could say it’s porn, very classic and still very modest.

But don’t tell that to the traditionalists—they’d shit a brick.

Read the entire article here.