Hi Ashlynn! 
I considered romance, then thought porn, but really, it might be some subset of horror.
Depends on whom you ask.
Viz., their place at the bottom of the Geek Hierarchy.
Part of the curriculum at my college was the requirement that every freshman enroll in one semester of “Expository Writing.” Within that program, you could choose from several different types - technical/scientific, fiction, etc. I choose fiction, and was informed by the instructor (a published novelist) on the first day of class that she would under no circumstances allow anyone to submit any work that could be classified as science fiction, as that was not considered “real” fiction.
I had wanted to try writing some sci-fi, so I was disappointed (to say the least) and wanted to talk to her about her decision. In our meeting during her office hours, she lambasted the genre for about 30 minutes (and me as well, for wanting to write in it).
I did not enjoy the class.
I think porn is still the least respected genre.
Sorry, Exapno, I have to therefore disagree with you that sales gives respect to a genre. People may have some grudging respect for the producers and sellers of porn as successful business people or social outlaws. But the buyers of porn are still looked down on.
I mentioned this in a previous discussion of film noir. I feel that The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a film noir. And a straight-up one not a retro-homage.
Do you agree or disagree?
Can it be a “genre” if it’sjust one book series, though? Gor is just a series of sword and planet fantasy in the Barsoom tradition, with more-than-usual levels of misogyny and a visible fandom.
ETA: unless you meant “Gore”, in which case, sure.
Romance has to be pretty near the bottom of the pile, but fan fic is probably lower. Another strong candidate would be franchise sci-fi or fantasy books, such as the expanded Star Wars expanded universe, Star Trek or Buffyverse.
In the words of the Patrician, “I cherish my ignorance on the subect.”
Actually, yeah - I think of him as a 70’s Chester Himes - hardboiled fiction in a black urban setting.
I know a genre that *warrants *little respect: fictional rockstar books. There is something about writers trying to portray the inside view of a rock star’s life or a band’s dynamics that seems to just not work.
Can I find professionally printed and bound furry fiction, though, or is it mostly a digital genre?
You do understand, don’t you, that just asking that question is a cry for help?
If we’re talking about a genre – if it even can be called that – that warrants little respect: One I worked in a public library and was responsible for, among other things, selecting new mass-market paperbacks from a catalog, to order. I recall one blurb about a novel (I did not order it) about a professional wrestling team, or league, that was secretly an elite counterterrorism strike force. It was part of a series.
I’ve seen in the YA section at B&N a series of novels where the teenage protagonist goes to a posh private school that is secretly a training facility for secret agents (i.e., for the offspring of secret agents, it’s presumed to be a sort of family business).
There should be a genre name that encompasses that and the supernatural shit you are describing. It’s all variations on fantastic adolescent wish fulfillment – but “Fantastic Adolescent Wish Fulfillment” is too broad a concept to form a fictional genre; and one could make a case it describes all narrative literature to some degree from Homer on.
In my world genre is a marketing classification for books sold through bookstores. Everybody seems to be using different definitions of genre, but I can only use the one I’m familiar with.
There’s always been underground pornography sold. The first attempts at turning it into a marketing category probably arrives in the 1930s when many racier pulp titles emerge. The “Spicy” series has a lot of fans today. The progress parallels that of science fiction, which was almost impossible to find in novel form until the late 1940s. Seeing a market in the returning veterans hundreds of small operators began lines of paperback original novels aimed toward men. This was the softest of soft core. If I were to give one to you without the title and cover you probably would never guess it was part of a “Venus” or “Ecstasy” line. The titles and covers make many of them prime collectibles today, though.
The stories slowly became more hard core until, like porn movies, they were as blatant as possible in the 1970s. But that made them impossible to sell in mainstream bookstores. They were restricted to specialty independent “adult” book stores, a parallel universe to the mainstream world, ironically very similar to Christian publishing. Magazines made their big comeback then. Remember all those Penthouse and Forum letters you thought were too good to be true? They were, written by freelancers at $35 each. And all of these died a slow death just like porn moviehouses after video and the Internet appeared.
There really isn’t a porn book genre today. Porn book publishing doesn’t exist. There have been many attempts to get lines of “erotica” - many of them extremely hard core - into the big chain stores but they don’t last long. Romance erotica is all that is left, a completely women-oriented field. Most lines refuse to allow a male author’s name to be used.
What’s porn’s place in the hierarchy? When you say “looked down on” I have to ask looked down on by whom? The writers? The readers? the publishers? The bookstores? The mainstream literati? You’d get five different answers.
From a writer’s perspective I’d agree that that what we’re loosely calling porn was the lowest-ranked genre back when it was a genre. There were thousands of titles because each one sold poorly. Distribution was always bad and so many pen names were used that following a favorite author was difficult. The field paid worst, even by genre standards, so the stuff was cranked out at top speed and lowest quality. The good young writers who started out there to support their writing careers found other genres that recognized their talents.
You look at where the good young writers are turning to see the genre hierarchy among writers. In the 30s through 50s that was mystery, in the 60s and 70s sf, in the 80s and 90s fantasy and horror. Today it’s young adult and romance. And that sells the best, except for what I call the “bestseller” genre (which is a particular type of book). Bestsellers are for older established writers. You can’t break in that way, except by accident.
Porn is non-existent. The Internet is filled with free prose porn. There are small e-presses who specialize in certain fetish varieties but that’s a tiny fraction of a percent of anything.
If I’m understanding you, you’re saying that you don’t feel porn lacks respect because you don’t see it being disrespected in mainstream media outlets. Mainly because you don’t see it present at all in mainstream media outlets.
Have you considered that the fact that porn isn’t present in places like Borders or Barnes and Noble is itself a sign of a lack of respect? Suppose science fiction disappeared from the big chains and only got sold in places that were the equivalent of Show World - wouldn’t that be a sign that people didn’t respect science fiction?
It would be a sign that science fiction no longer existed as a genre.
If they can be called a literary genre, I’d say religious tracts get and deserve little respect, except for kitsch value and larfs and Poe’s-law illustrations, and they’re not all as golden that way as Jack Chick’s – most are just boring and dumb. And I do wonder if any soul in God’s creation ever was converted or saved by a smug and crudely-written leaflet.
Porn exists. It not only exists but it’s huge.
Porn makes more money than Microsoft. It makes more money than ExxonMobil. It makes more money than Microsoft and ExxonMobil combined. Porn makes more money than professional baseball, basketball, and football combined. It makes more money than ABC, CBS, and NBC combined. cite
Now granted, print porn is a relatively small share of the porn industry. But print porn alone makes a billion dollars a year.
I took a short story writing class in college. The professor didn’t allow us to write science fiction for the class, not because there’s anything wrong with SF, but because the genre has its own rules, conventions, and standards, and that particular class wasn’t about (and, perhaps, the prof didn’t feel qualified to critique or teach about) those.