Even the federal U.S. government does not want to get itself stuck in the question of what is porn and what is erotica. Legislatures and clergy have been attempting to find a cemented definition in order to prosecute over one word and caution for the other, but in determining if there is a difference between porn movies and erotic films one would have to consider individual taste-what arouses one person, what repels another-and when it comes to porn and taste, things get quite sticky indeed.
There is just no objective way to define really what is sexy. What is absolutely abjectly kinky to one person is downright boring to another. What titillates one person or even a group won’t another. If we can’t really determine what’s good and bad in porn-as we couldn’t ever be able to in any other artistic pursuit-then we can’t say if and when porn movies have or are made with good taste or not.
This is really at the crux of what drives critics crazy about porn. They cannot get anyone to agree with them that porn is in bad taste and when you don’t agree with someone proposing a religious-based agenda or a morals cause, then you challenge the very fabric of the world they believe in, and that’s just none so good for the zealot. When you postulate that there is a possibility that like all things, taste in porn movies is a subjective critique at best, then you open the door to the possibility that there might simply be different ways of looking at the world and the more insecure one is about how they look at the world, the more resistant they will be to different ways of looking.
If indeed there is taste in porn or porn of taste then that presupposes that things are subjective and everything is open to interpretation, even in porn movies…and that is just something some people will not allow in their world view!