You walk into a bookstore and select a book. Hold it up, look at it, see if you can get an idea of its likely contents. It's thin, it has a lurid, brightly-colored cover depicting a photograph of an extremely sexy, barely dressed human being. It's part of a series, with an obvious pseudonym for an author and a sensationalistic summary on the back written at a third grade level and designed to appeal directly to the prurient interest of the reader.

So. Is it romance or porn? Check the list below to find out.

ROMANCE

The title will be something like Love's Sweet Torture, or The Accidental Bride, or Untamed.

PORN

The title will be something like Hot Teen Housewife, or Wild Austin Nights, or Untamed.

ROMANCE

Men are named Dirk, Lance, Winchester, Mack, Brent. Women are named C.L., Maddy, Suzanne, Katrina.

PORN

Guys are named Pete, Bill, Jim, Steve. Girls are named Roxanne, Jackie, Trixie, Marcie.

ROMANCE

The setting is always the Middle Ages, on the high seas, in the antebellum South, or in modern-day America.

PORN

The setting is always New York, Los Angeles, or a generic podunk town. (In written porn. In film the setting is always a rented mansion in Santa Monica)

ROMANCE

What's the plot? A woman who lacks conventional beauty/self-confidence/boldness is being forced by her own fears/her parents/society to remain single/marry someone she does not love until she encounters a roguish, maddening man who is completely wrong for her, yet over the course of time she finds herself drawn to him despite herself even as he is irresistibly drawn to her.

PORN

What's the plot? A guy gets laid. A lot. By lots of different women.

ROMANCE

Bodies: She is beautiful, but won't realize it until towards the end of the book. He is lanky, broad-shouldered and clear-eyed, with thick hair, a flat stomach and powerful legs. Also a good jaw and a smile that can weaken her from across the room.

PORN

Bodies: He is strong and tall, and hung like a rock band lead guitarist. She is shorter than him, with big, perfect, generic tits, a flat stomach, perfect ass, trimmed or shaved pubes, and long legs.

ROMANCE

Sex: She feels the attraction but resists. They trade witty barbs. He acts arrogant and self-confident and quickly proves that he can excite her with a few well-placed caresses. The first time, he drives her wild with passionate fiery kisses and then they make earth-shattering love. The second time he drives her wild with passionate fiery kisses, goes down on her, and then they make earth-shattering love. If the book is long enough, they continue to have sex in wilder and wilder places and she surprises herself with her growing sexual appetite and wanton behavior.

PORN

Sex: They trade witty barbs. He drives her wild with passionate fiery kisses, she goes down on him, and they hump. The second time he drives a different woman wild with passionate fiery kisses, she goes down on him, and they hump (but in the kitchen this time). The third time, he drives the first woman wild with passionate fiery kisses, she goes down on him, and the second woman jumps in. They hump. Repeat seven more times, exactly the same way.

ROMANCE

Her sex floods with the streaming heat of passion, she can feel herself opening to him as he presses his rigid manhood hard against her. She can feel the length of him, insistent against the hot moist area between her legs. "Throbbing" may be involved.

PORN

Her tight hot cooze just barely slides over his rock-hard 10 inches of throatsteak. "Throbbing" will be involved in every other sentence, as will "spurting" and "shooting".

ROMANCE

Climax: He will bring her to the very brink of the fire again and again, fanning her fires anew each time unless she is insane with need and desire, and then he will stop, look deeply into her eyes and say something really arrogant before locking into a rhythm and slamming her into a rising crescendo of sensation as waves of ice-hot pleasure rock her body which threaten to rip her apart until she feels him go over the edge and spill deep inside her, and they come to a long shuddering release together.

PORN

Climax: He hoses her down with his fluids, generally all over some exterior portion of her body or deep into some portion of her body not normally utilized for reproduction. She climaxes when he does this. Every time.

ROMANCE

The non-sex plot is that despite their obvious attraction, they will try to avoid each other while dealing with the rest of the characters, getting into at least one screaming argument and separating completely, before the intertwined events of the plot all finally come together and the two people that you knew from the first chapter would end up together are thrown together and discover their own true love.

PORN

The non-sex plot is… um… I don't understand the question.

ROMANCE

Ultimately they declare their love and commitment to each other no matter what the rest of the world thinks.

PORN

Ultimately, humping.

I hope I've helped clear things up for you.