Art is, we could say, the mystery of the actual, while pornography is the entirely unmysterious attraction of the unreal, or invented. Art uses invention to guide us back to our own experience, which is why there is a wonderful sense of familiarity about experiencing magnificent music or myth, a sense of ‘yes, of course, I always knew this, but could not say it,’ while pornography is bound by invention, by the possibilities it offers for escape, or for power.
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. – Alfred North Whitehead