Changing sexuality and its modes of representation in contemporary Estonian erotic prose

Pilleriin Puhlov

doi:https://doi.org/10.54013/kk820a2

Keywords: poetics, pornography, gender, romance fiction, embodiment

Contemporary Estonian erotic prose reflects more than just a shift in literary trends – it captures a broader cultural moment in which ideas about sexuality have become increasingly fluid. In many of these works, eroticism functions not merely as provocation, but also as a space for exploring questions of selfhood, feelings, and the boundaries of social norms. Desire, embodiment, and human connection are not presented as fixed truths, but are instead opened up, examined, and reimagined in literary form. Erotic literature is here understood as fiction in which sexuality plays a thematically and aesthetically central role, rather than serving as an incidental or peripheral motif.

The selection of texts discussed includes works by contemporary Estonian authors published after the year 2000, in which sexual experience is portrayed as a dynamic site of cultural meaning-making rather than a fixed or biologically determined instinct. Particular attention is given to works by female authors, who have significantly expanded the thematic and poetic range of Estonian erotic fiction by foregrounding sexual autonomy, mutual vulnerability, and the complexity of intimate encounters. This shift also signals a broader tendency towards destabilizing traditional gendered narratives of desire.

Drawing on approaches from literary studies, philosophy, sociology, and cultural theory, this study investigates how sexual expression is constructed in 21st-century Estonian prose through two principal poetic modes: realist and stylized. The realist mode emphasizes direct, corporeal, and often psychologically charged representations of sexual experience, whereas the stylized mode operates through figurative language, rhetorical play, and aesthetic distancing. These poetic strategies are examined with particular attention to how they shape the reader’s emotional and interpretive engagement with the text. Language itself becomes a crucial site for negotiating meaning, shaping not only which forms of sexuality are depicted but also how they are interpreted. As a result, erotic literature emerges as a field of expressive and affective potential, in which sexuality becomes a medium for reflecting and negotiating broader cultural transformations.

Pilleriin Puhlov(b. 1994), University of Tartu, PhD student, Junior Research Fellow in Estonian Literature (Ülikooli 16, 51003 Tartu), pilleriin.puhlov@ut.ee

Changing sexuality and its modes of representation in contemporary Estonian erotic prose

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