This essay was written in response to a 2001 essay of Matthew Kieran, itself prompted in part by remarks on the distinction between the erotic and the pornographic offered at the end of the essay, ‘What Is Erotic Art?’. Whereas Kieran holds that there is no incompatibility, and even precious little tension, between something's being pornography and something's being erotic art, it is argued that there is indeed such tension, and that the two statuses are in fact incompatible. Nothing is entailed as to whether pornography, though it is not art, may or may not be, for various reasons, of value.
Keywords: pornography, Matthew Kieran, erotica, sexual images