Editing Erotica (section)

=== Feminism ===
{{Further|Feminist views on pornography#Pornography vs. erotica}}
A majority of erotica centers women as the object of sexual desire, demonstrated in the sharp rise of popularity of pornographic magazines centering women in the mid-twentieth century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |first1=Vanessa|last1=Barford|date=2015-10-14 |title=Why America loved Playboy |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34471653 |access-date=2023-11-30}}</ref> In the 20th century, a cadre of female artists, authors, and other creatives began to create a new kind of erotica.

[[Women's erotica]] exists to cater for the sexual gratification of women consuming erotic material. Feminist erotic media often centers female pleasure instead of catering to the [[male gaze]]. Feminist erotic art had a boom in the mid-20th century, most iconically transforming the idea of the nude female figure from an object of sexual pleasure to a symbol for a woman's sexual liberation.<ref name=":1">McDonald, Helen, 1949- (2001). ''Erotic ambiguities : the female nude in art''. London: Routledge. p. 3. {{ISBN|978-0-203-44870-0}} {{OCLC|51161504}}</ref> [[Martha Edelheit]] was a pioneer of modern women's erotica, flipping the genre on its head by focusing her art on the nude male figure.<ref>Middleman, Rachel (3 April 2014). "A Feminist Avant-Garde: Martha Edelheit's 'Erotic Art' in the 1960s". ''Konsthistorisk Tidskrift/Journal of Art History''. '''83''' (2): 129–147. {{doi|10.1080/00233609.2014.901413}} {{S2CID|191577484}}</ref> It was not unusual for a man to be seen as an object of sexual desire in erotic media, but these portrayals were often found in [[gay pornography]], and were often created or published by another man. Edelheit's work as a woman and as an artist was foundational for modern-day feminist erotic media.<ref name=":1" />