Interracial Doesn't Have to be Reductive

[pink_silk_glove]

I wouldn't put a nuanced, adult, romantic take on an interracial relationship in IR if it would be better received/seen more in romance or EC.

Nothing is better received in EC. : P

 

[madelinemasoch]

I once wrote a BBC story in Interracial and noticed that there’s an apparent expectation of the white girls to breed(?) I got a slew of comments saying “it’s breedin’ time!” when it was these characters’ first time ever having sex with black men… lol

 

[DiscreteBaba]

I'm so glad I grew up in Europe. If you can cross a river and find yourself in a different country, with a different language and a different time zone, and two hours' drive will put you in an entirely different culture, there's nothing exotic about someone with a different skin colour.

ehhh, i dunno. Europe is not considered ahead of the USA in race relations by any means, even Western Europe.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm sorry, but: miss me with this bullshit. Europe has historically been and still is plentifully supplied with racists.

I'm not denying it. But also, I know from plenty of personal experience, and experience of those around me, that discrimination in Europe is based on far subtler factors than skin colour. Like I wrote in my original post, if you can drive for two hours and find yourself in an entirely different culture, a different colour skin is the least of the exotic things around you.

Just so you know, Europe is probably far more tribal than the US. There are differences that go back a thousand years, a hundred years, fifty years or ten years. People hate each other for a hundred different reasons.

But in my lifelong experience, with so many differences, you just don't see the fetishisation of ethnicity here that you do in America.

 

[CyranoJ]

I'm not denying it. But also, I know from plenty of personal experience, and experience of those around me, that discrimination in Europe is based on far subtler factors than skin colour.

I'm sure there's plenty else going on. I'm just saying I don't believe it means that Europeans don't care about skin color. As to the finer details of "fetishism of ethnicity," I can't say much, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I am going to offend you. Apology first.
There is only one race on this planet, and that is the human race.
There are of course ethnicity's, but we are one and the same race....
I personally wish there was no interracial genre, because dehumanising a person. Judging them by there ethnicity is wrong, and demeaning. By adding a shock value to having sex with somebody from another ethnicity means you actually see them of a lesser value. Otherwise, why would there be any taboo, or shock factor...
Just my thoughts.

Cagivagurl

we are one species, not one race. A Crow and a Shoebill are both birds, but they aren't the same.

 

[madelinemasoch]

we are one species, not one race. A Crow and a Shoebill are both birds, but they aren't the same.

I mean, “bird” isn’t a species

 

[StillStunned]

I'm sure there's plenty else going on. I'm just saying I don't believe it means that Europeans don't care about skin color. As to the finer details of "fetishism of ethnicity," I can't say much, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

It's a thread about "interracial" as a category of erotica. I'm not sure how else you want to interpret it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

There aren't different races of mankind, only one race, different ethnicities, yes. Interracial is a misnomer. The scientific consensus is that race, in this sense, has no biological basis – we are all one race, the human race. Racial identity, however, is very real. We identify as black, white, yellow, red so forth so on.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

"Ohh, he has the dreamiest caramel brown eyes."

... is sweet, but ...

"Ohh, he has beautiiful dark skin that shines copper in the sun."

... is a shallow racial stereotype?

Like seriously folks. Get a grip.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I'm sure there's plenty else going on. I'm just saying I don't believe it means that Europeans don't care about skin color. As to the finer details of "fetishism of ethnicity," I can't say much, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

As an American whose spent a fair amount of time abroad in Europe and who has a bunch of American friends that live in various EU countries and the UK, it's not that they don't care. It's that the equation is different. Here in America (and I swear to God, folks, I'm just making generalizations here, don't @ me), I'd put a rough ranking of what people will respond to as:

1. Ethnicity
2. Class
3. Country of Origin
4. Politics
5. Religion

whereas the UK seems more like:

1. Class
2. Country of Origin
3. Ethnicity
4. Politics
5. Religion

Like I said, complete generalization, and I'm sure people might quibble here and there, but there's a much bigger emphasis on class. And that, while ethnicity matters, it matters less in America than that they're "not from here," with a few exceptions (people losing their shit over illegal immigration, for example). In America, whether someone is of African heritage, for example, matters a lot more (to the people it's likely to matter to, i.e., bigoted people, whether that's the mildly up to the extremely bigoted) than whether they're a recent immigrant or not, whereas the reverse might be true elsewhere.

 

[NoTalentHack]

"Ohh, he has the dreamiest caramel brown eyes."

... is sweet, but ...

"Ohh, he has beautiiful dark skin that shines copper in the sun."

... is a shallow racial stereotype?

Like seriously folks. Get a grip.

"He has beautiful dark skin that shines like copper in the sun" isn't a problem by itself. It's when you then add on... like, a bunch of other stereotypical shit to it. No one, or no one worth listening to, is having a shitfit over that. It's when you add thing like, "... and, as with all men that had that lovely skin color, he was hung like a donkey, naturally athletic, and perhaps a little lazy." That's the shit that people rightly get in trouble for, or at least its more subtle versions.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I once wrote a BBC story in Interracial and noticed that there’s an apparent expectation of the white girls to breed(?) I got a slew of comments saying “it’s breedin’ time!” when it was these characters’ first time ever having sex with black men… lol

The Power Rangers got a really weird translation in some places.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

"He has beautiful dark skin that shines like copper in the sun" isn't a problem by itself. It's when you then add on... like, a bunch of other stereotypical shit to it. No one, or no one worth listening to, is having a shitfit over that. It's when you add thing like, "... and, as with all men that had that lovely skin color, he was hung like a donkey, naturally athletic, and perhaps a little lazy." That's the shit that people rightly get in trouble for, or at least its more subtle versions.

Sure but it's that PC crowd that will automatically lump that simple real and beauitiful attraction in with the tropey stereotypes.

And for the record, I'm not against people writing your typical BBC, I just don't like it because (like any fetish can often be) it is used as a substitute for actual genuine steaminess or intimacy, and it's exceedingly boring to read. BBC might be the most abused fetish in that way.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Nothing is better received in EC. : P

Gee, I'd better go take my second most commented on story down, then .

 

[Yarglenurp]

"He has beautiful dark skin that shines like copper in the sun" isn't a problem by itself. It's when you then add on... like, a bunch of other stereotypical shit to it. No one, or no one worth listening to, is having a shitfit over that. It's when you add thing like, "... and, as with all men that had that lovely skin color, he was hung like a donkey, naturally athletic, and perhaps a little lazy." That's the shit that people rightly get in trouble for, or at least its more subtle versions.

So, I think IR stories like this could be way more interesting if that second part is where characters psychologically start, but grow and move towards realizing how stupid this perspective is as the story progresses. Like, the guy/girl is originally into the kink of it but is eventually exposed to the culture and sees how his/her pre-formed biases really break down. For me, such a story belongs in IR (in an ideal world) because the general focus is on their racial differences, and the actual story is how those racial differences are rendered meaningless.

For me, the taboo-ness of interracial erotica is almost a child-like one because its basis in reality is purely psychological. It's wrong because enough people agree that its "wrong." With incest, it's wrong because of inbreeding risks and the whole power imbalance thing between parent and child. With choking or coprophilia, they're just biologically hazardous activities. With interracial, it seems like its taboo because enough random people have decided they're taboo.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Gee, I'd better go take my second most commented on story down, then .

It would have been by far your first most commented if you would have put it somewhere else. Seriously, my letters and transcripts story gets more action than my EC stuff. EC is a fucking graveyard.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It would have been by far your first most commented if you would have put it somewhere else. Seriously, my letters and transcripts story gets more action than my EC stuff. EC is a fucking graveyard.

It was my most commented on stories for five years, until a fetish story took its place.

The tumbleweeds category for me is Group; the feedback indicators are far lower than anywhere else (and I've got stories in eighteen or nineteen categories). I'd post in EC over Group any day of the week, it's never been a dud zone for me. Maybe it's the stories you put there, not the category .

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It was my most commented on stories for five years, until a fetish story took its place.

The tumbleweeds category for me is Group; the feedback indicators are far lower than anywhere else (and I've got stories in eighteen or nineteen categories). I'd post in EC over Group any day of the week, it's never been a dud zone for me. Maybe it's the stories you put there, not the category .

My only series has four vignettes, technically they would be chronological, but they don't have to be, they all stand alone and are essentially the exact same plot. One of them is in EV, the other three are in EC. The EV story is the shortest of the four (not by much), in my opinion is the weakest of the four, and is the last chapter in an unfinished (open-ended) series (bearing in mind the definite AH consensus that views and such goes down as a series progresses). Yet somehow this last EV chapter gets more action than the three previous EC chapters combined. Safe to say that I have isolated the phenomenon that EC is indeed a fucking graveyard for your stories.

And seriously, I'm not joking at all that my L&T story gets more action than my EC stories, and this despite the fact that it's 750 words and has drawn it's share of criticism. It STILL gets more exposure in an invisible category than my EC stories. That's how bad it EC is.

Do anything you can to stay out of EC if you want to be read. Throw in a pair of handcuffs at the end. Anything!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do anything you can to stay out of EC if you want to be read. Throw in a pair of handcuffs at the end. Anything!

Four or five stories, though, is hardly a definitive nor representative sample.
The problem with stating that one category is so much better than the other, is that you've only got the story in one category, not the other, so there's no way to compare.

There are plenty of categories I'd avoid before I said, "You know what, EC is crap for readers, never post there." I put stuff there because it's the best logical fit, when it doesn't (force) fit somewhere else.

I don't think any of my stories have suffered from being there - I've got sixteen Red Hs in EC, and five not, so Pareto says something's working. That's good enough for me .

 

[cadeauxxx]

There's a lot of stories on this site that may offend you or someone else. You don't have to read them. No one is forcing you to.

The best part about Literotica is having the freedom to express ourselves and write whatever we want as long as it fits the guidelines and rules. Everything else is subjective, as taste and kinks are different from person to person. The old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is true.

If you like IR, then write your own IR stories however you want and without the care if someone likes it or not. At the end of the day, we write as a hobby and people are going to like or dislike it, but who cares? There's literally hundreds of thousands of stories on this site. People can go through it and find what they want. Having the freedom to write erotica is more important than any moral high grounding or psycho-analyzing of the audience. Your stories are what counts. If you think something is reductive, I think the solution is to write something makes you happy and put it out there if you want to.

 

[MillieDynamite]

It's my opinion that any one writer will have different results in different categories than other writers. I only had one outing in EC, and it didn't fare well. But it was about a prostitute, so that might have an impact on the score.

Edit: I have two stories in EC one is my second highest rated, about a prostitute during a client and taking him to the cleaners, and the other is about a man picking up a whore.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No, EC is the worst for exposure, especially for a new or unknown writer.

For new and unknow writers, the majority of the hits come from being on the newest 25 list of the category. As soon as your story falls off that latest 25, the hits drop right off. How many hits you get specifically from this list depends on two factors: first, how many people are looking at this list and second, how long your story stays on that list.

In EC, relatively few people are looking at that list, since most readers are looking for a kink and EC is kinkless so it gets far less interest than all of the kink categories. But since the categories in general are so poorly laid out, there are many many stories that should have a category but don't so they end up in the vanilla meh bag of EC. There are usually about 12 stories per day published in EC, which means that you're looking at a mere 48 hours of exposure in a category with far fewer eyeballs during those 48 hours. It's the worst case scenario. For exposure, you want to be in a category with fewer submissions and more eyeballs, EC has the worst ratio: lots of submissions and few eyeballs.

Now of course, a category like non-erotic or L&T gets far far fewer eyeballs than even EC, BUT the fact that there are so fewer submissions in those categories means that your non-erotic can stay on that recent 25 list for a month or more, so it will actually get more hits than your EC story.

So EC is in fact, the absolute worst place for a low or moderate profile writer to publish in. Bar none.

 

[Britva415]

Fun fact, since I so rarely get a chance to bring it up, the cast of Friends was ethnically diverse for its time. There were only three white people in the main group, then two jewish and one italian. I very much doubt an Irish/Scottish interracial story would do very well if it were put into that category, though.

Where are you from? 1875?

All six of those people are considered "white".

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I've got sixteen Red Hs in EC, and five not

I don't write for score. That's fine you do you. It only takes 10 votes for a Red H. Red H says nothing about exposure.