How do you decide what you have on your hands? Is romance more formulaic? Erotica more edgy or perhaps less story driven?

I'm working on a piece that has a definite story, but also focuses on a sexual relationship between two people. I'm having trouble figuring out what market to go after with it. (I know, just shut up and write the thing already).

I don't want to get lost the shuffle of the sheer volume of erotica that is out there. One (non-paying) site I looked at had over 500 new stories posted in the last week. Paying markets in erotica seem like a vast and uncharted sea to me. I don't consume a ton of erotica myself, so my gauge for the quality of a given publisher is severely lacking.

But the romance genre is just so, well, PINK. That section of the bookstore gives me hives. I know that there is money to be made in that genre, but it seems that it has a lot of rules/formulas. Even though what I am writing could be classified as a Romance, I am loathe to go there with it, especially since it is a rather unconventional story.

Any ideas?