Ashamed of Erotica? Not me!

Have you heard of the book "Fifty Shades of Grey" by E.L James? It's probably the most popular book in the world at the moment and strangely --- it's erotica. I'm not sure of any other erotica book has ever risen to such dizzying levels of fame before. I mean...it's erotica! The closest thing to porn you can get in fiction. My husband will disagree with that though. He calls all romance books porn. He teases me about it all the time. I always tell him not all romance books are porn! Porn is 98% sex and 1% plot. Romance books have much more plot. Yeah, there's sex. But one or two sex scenes in a book does not make it porn. "Fifty Shades of Grey" though...from what I've read it has about 300 pages of sex. I have the book on my ereader waiting to be read. I am hesitant about reading it now. I'm not sure if I'm going to think it's okay, love it to death, or hate it. I've heard that's great and also complete garbage. People are calling it "Mommy Porn" which is an interesting label. I'm sure mothers read erotica before this book came out. People are claiming that most are buying the book on ebook because they're too embarrassed to be seen reading the hard back in public. Seriously? The front cover of Fifty Shades has a picture of a tie on it. A tie. I've seen erotica book covers and ven just plain old romances that have enough naked flesh on it to make you gasp! I bought Fifty Shades on ebook because I am trying to cut back on the number of paper books I purchase because I do not have space for them in my bookcases anymore. I am certainly not "embarrassed" to be seen reading it. I'm not a prude. When I was younger (and hornier) I read romances purely for the sex bits but now I'm bored with sex scenes in books. I've read it all. I even read a love scene that took place on the back of a horse once. THE BACK OF A HORSE. I skip a lot of sex scenes in books now. I am very curious about Fifty Shades and how much I will enjoy it. How hot is really? Some people claim its disgusting. Fifty Shades is not meant to be taken too seriously, I think. It began as Twilight fan fiction. Frankly, I'm surprised it ended up getting published at all considering how it started. What publisher would want to risk getting sued? Fifty Shades is written in an "alternative" universe to Twilight that has all of the characters in different roles and there are no vampires. They went through and changed all the names, apparently, but from what I've read on line there are still a lot of similarities in the characters and some scenes. It got me thinking I would not want to be E.L James. Imagine writing a trilogy of books that become insanely successful that were based off a fan fic? People are judging her for not inventing her own plot or characters. That would be a tough burden to carry on your shoulders. I wouldn't feel like a real published author. And imagine the pressure she must be under to write something original which you just know people will study up and down to see if she plucked it from somewhere else!