The fact that it has pointless erotic content in it is a trivial matter compared to that. I consider it one of the most inspiring, heartwarming stories I've ever read and its romance is bar none my favorite of any story. Tomoyo After is my #3 favorite visual novel of all time. But this brings me to my next and most important point: that being an eroge does not, in any way, shape or form, diminish a game's narrative value. Its first hour - the prologue - was literally a string of about 10 sex scenes that added absolutely nothing to the plot or the characters or anything else. My first 18+ rated visual novel was Tomoyo After which was one of the first visual novels I'd ever read.
I'm no stranger to this part of the culture. Even Little Busters! had a release with adult content. This includes classics like Fate/Stay Night, Muv-Luv Alternative, Saya no Uta, Tsukihime, Kanon, AIR and Grisaia no Kajitsu. If you go to VNDB and sort visual novels by popularity, 8 of the top 10 visual novels on that list are eroge (eroge being short for 'erotic game'). Sure there are 'nukige' - visual novels focused solely on being porn - but erotic content is far more widespread than that. There is no such distinction when it comes to visual novels. In books, film, anime and the recent VR, erotic works are pretty much separate from story- and narrative-focused titles. And that is the rather close relationship between visual novels and erotic content. But then again I feel like it's something I should address at some point.
It's something I always fear of touching upon since I don't want people to look at me like I'm a weirdo. There's an aspect of visual novels I've always just mostly ignored and glossed over in my year and a half of blogging on here. Oh boy, let's make a blog post about this because what could possibly go wrong.