Rules violation?

[ElectricBlue]

I used the rewrite as an occasion to polish the story more, dropping some unneeded explanations and adding others, and spicing up the sex a bit. I'm not through with the process.

That's a first! It's not often threads like these turn into a win, they usually end up with a disgruntled OP insisting their original draft was fine in the first place, blah blah blah.

You've discovered the advantage of writing about adults, not teenagers, which really does make life easier, and will probably end being a better, more believable, story. Cudos.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I may have ranted a bit. My belief is the broad interpretation of the rule may not be entirely the editors' own judgement, but is constrained by a law that many people think is over draconian as applied to the realities of teenage life, while indeed under draconian in the case of the worst offenses, since the penalty though harsh is less than life without parole. That is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

I feel like there may be some confusion here between the (US) laws that apply to video/photos, and the laws that apply to writing.

For video/photos, there is a sharp cutoff at 18 years. If you make a porn film with an actor/actress who's 17 years 364 days old, you can go to jail, no question.

For writing, there is not a sharp cutoff. The legal standard for "obscenity" is defined on hazy concepts like "community standards". Obviously, the younger the characters are and the more extreme the content, the more likely it is that a story/stories could be ruled obscene. But I'm not aware of any case recent enough to be relevant where a work has been found to be obscene for depicting run-of-the-mill teenage sexuality. As LC notes, there are plenty of mainstream-published books which include under-18 sex, and other story websites which go a bit younger than Literotica does.

(This could change, given the current "pedo" witch-hunt in the USA and the attempts to paint any kind of LGBT themes as "grooming" regardless of content. But it hasn't yet.)

I do agree that Literotica's guidelines are quite likely influenced by the desire to stay on the right side of the obscenity law, but there's a considerable safety margin involved.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I might be mistaken, but it wasn't just about writing about under age characters having sex, but there was physical violence as well, and in a couple cases maybe even snuff....so it was about more than sex.

You're correct.

However, its still a double standard of erotica V mainstream of there's a case to be made to lock up King and Martin and some others.

I suspect there is a legal reason for that different standard. To get a conviction in this kind of thing, US law requires a "yes" to all three of these questions:

(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

If somebody were to go after King or Martin, they could probably convince a court that the work had serious literary/artistic value and is in line with community standards - they've sold plenty of books and spin-offs, obviously a ton of people are enjoying those books, and I don't think anybody believes it's the sex that sells King's books.

For Literotica, that would be a harder sell. I believe there is plenty of literary/artistic value here, but convincing a judge or a jury of that might be tough. We're seen first and foremost as a porn site. So we have to be a bit more careful on the "community standards" side than those guys do.

When did this link come about

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-guidelines

For years, and I mean years, the rules could only be found by going through a lot of hoops then ending up on that ancient Killer Muffin post where she listed them and the site linked it.

Looks to be recent. Wayback Machine doesn't have anything older than April 2022 for that page. Nice to see some of this stuff making it into the official FAQs at last.

 

[TheRedChamber]

When did this link come about

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-guidelines

For years, and I mean years, the rules could only be found by going through a lot of hoops then ending up on that ancient Killer Muffin post where she listed them and the site linked it.

Not sure when it was posted, but it was brought to my attention a couple of months ago in this thread. The rules are now seemingly spelled out a lot clearer than there were at one point, but a lot of people (myself included) missed the change.

 

[XerXesXu]

I believe there is plenty of literary/artistic value here, but convincing a judge or a jury of that might be tough. We're seen first and foremost as a porn site. So we have to be a bit more careful on the "community standards" side than those guys do.

Here's an example of the 'academic merit' exclusion from the definition of obscenity. I came across it (no fun intended) today.
Circle Jerk

 

[HBuff]

Underage "sexual activity" as defined by the site includes: masturbation, fantasizing, thinking about sex, voyeurism, witnessing others' sexual activity (irrespective of the character being turned on by what they're seeing), engaging in conversations about sex, and descriptions of bodies of underage characters. None of these can be included if your character is under 18. Also, claiming a character is over 18, but having them look and behave like an underage person is not allowed.

So if I have a 22-yo girl who gets asked for her ID's in a liquor store, I need to make sure that she acts and behaves like an adult, right? (Important = I live in Canada, where drinking age is 18.)

 

[KeithD]

So if I have a 22-yo girl who gets asked for her ID's in a liquor store, I need to make sure that she acts and behaves like an adult, right? (Important = I live in Canada, where drinking age is 18.)

If you write a twenty-two-year-old "girl" (for starters, twenty-two-year-olds are women, not girls) as engaging in sexual activity as a seventeen-year-old would, you aren't writing a twenty-two-year old "girl" (wink, wink). You're trying to circumvent the rules set by a privately owned Web site that isn't either owned or under the jurisdiction of Canada.

Another wriggle room question?

 

[HBuff]

Probably the words around the action.

Your drafts must have had something in them to catch a word-bot's eye, and something a human eye agreed with. Hence the rejection(s).

Those who bang on most about something like this are very often trying on a distraction. I'd stop, if I were you, because the site owner/editor does read these threads, as evidenced by occasional posts, and all you're doing is drawing attention to yourself, not in a good way.

On this topic, the site rules, so there's not much point going on about it.

If you write a twenty-two-year-old "girl" (for starters, twenty-two-year-olds are women, not girls) as engaging in sexual activity as a seventeen-year-old would, you aren't writing a twenty-two-year old "girl" (wink, wink). You're trying to circumvent the rules set by a privately owned Web site that isn't either owned or under the jurisdiction of Canada.

Another wriggle room question?

?!

I was simply asking a question as someone who isn't very familiar with Literotica. Thanks for your advice, even though I'm a bit surprised by the tone you're using. Maybe there are a great many attempts to "pull a fast one" that I'm not aware of. This was the first time I posted on a thread here since June.

Why this accusatory tone? Because I wrote "22-year-old girl"? Are you kidding me? If you Google "22-year-old girl", you get 4,450,000 hits and when you do the same for "22-year-old woman", you get... 4,260,000 hits.

The word "girl" is often used to refer to a young woman in many contexts. I hear and read university-age students referring themselves as "girls" all the time! I wrote "22 year-old girl" without suspecting this would be perceived as controversial. I have female coworkers who often refer to themselves as "girls" because they love feeling young and they're around 25-30 years old.

I take it that "22-year-old girl" could be picked by Literotica's bot and the reviewer could interpret it as an attempt to circumvent the rules, but this expression has nothing faulty by itself, since people actually use it by the score. The word "girl" in English often tends to be used a bit like the Latin "virgo" or "juvenis", words that Romans would use to refer to teenagers or young women/men according to context.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So if I have a 22-yo girl who gets asked for her ID's in a liquor store, I need to make sure that she acts and behaves like an adult, right? (Important = I live in Canada, where drinking age is 18.)

A twenty-two year old character shouldn't be a problem. The 18 year old Canadian drinking age is irrelevant to the Lit policy rule, which is aimed at zero depiction of sex under eighteen.

 

[KeithD]

Maybe there are a great many attempts to "pull a fast one"

This. It happens three times a week here. It's tiresome. And it's inevitably followed by "but . . . but . . ." We'll see if this is different. Being new doesn't cover for reading in on the posting history for a while.

 

[HBuff]

A twenty-two year old character shouldn't be a problem. The 18 year old Canadian drinking age is irrelevant to the Lit policy rule, which is aimed at zero depiction of sex under eighteen.

electricblue66, when you write "aimed at zero depiction of sex under eighteen", please write ZERO in capital letters!

I have posted many stories on many other sites with a "no 18 rule" and let me tell you that I have NEVER seen a story being turned down for something as trivial as teenagers holding hands or an elf taking her shoes off! Lol. So I'm not surprised to see that many newcomers are in for quite a shock when they learn how stringent Literotica really is on that aspect these days.

And no, the rules aren't all that clear either...

• sexual activity involving characters under the age of 18 (including but not limited to explicit sexual discussion, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fantasizing, masturbation, and graphic sexualized descriptions, in addition to actual sexual intercourse).

Emphasis mine... It says "including but not limited to..."
Looks like the elf taking her shoes off and our teenage lovebirds holding hands fall in the scope of "not limited to"! Lol.

This little "not limited to" opens the door to an endless host of personal, subjective interpretations that make this rule not so clear and not so easy to apply. Literotica is privately owned and is free to interpret the rule, and they probably want to avoid drawing attention from a legal standpoint. I don't see anything illegal in the written depiction of consensual sex between two imaginary teenagers, but it's clear that Literotica feels allowing this would hurt it's readership and viewership.

At the end of the day, there are other sites that allow stories with characters younger than 18; I know of one allowing 16+ and they have a "Teen" section. So if teenage love is more your cup of tea, your stories would probably be better suited for such other sites.

 

[HBuff]

You've discovered the advantage of writing about adults, not teenagers, which really does make life easier, and will probably end being a better, more believable, story. Cudos.

Why do you think an adult story is intrinsically better than a teenage story? Aren't you aware of literary classics?

Truth be told, most classics I have in my own library contain stories that would not pass on Literotica. A couple of examples come to my mind... Narcissus and Echo in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where it's clearly written that Narcissus is "tres quinque" = 15 years old. Echo repeats his words and recontextualise them in a sexual way, and her voice is so beautiful to hear in Latin! "coeamus!" (let's make love!) or my favorite, "sit tibi copia nostris!" (do with me as you like!) Echo really makes Latin sound alive!

Adonis is also 15 when Venus falls for him. Ovid, like Latins in general, depicts this age as the age when a boy becomes a man, and there's also the fact that "tres quinque" fits nicely in a Latin verse. Pyramus and Thisbe wouldn't pass either, since they played together when they were children and fell in love as they grew; their story is nonetheless beautiful to read; I remember vividly the first time I read it in a French translation when I was twelve, before my Latin became good enough to read the original.

On the French side, Lancelot and Guinevere is a timeless classic. In the canonic, Cistercian tradition, Lancelot is depicted as a 15-year-old knight when he first comes to Camelot and the Queen falls in love with him.

I'm not criticizing the Literotica rule here. I'm just saying that a teenager story can be just as good and compelling and arousing to read as an adult story; we have classics that prove it. Literotica may have its own rules, but they don't own literature and they sure don't define what's good art and what's not.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Why do you think an adult story is intrinsically better than a teenage story? Aren't you aware of literary classics?

You're reading too much into my comment. Given the rigidity of Lit's eighteen year "no sexuality" rule, all I'm saying is, if you want to publish on this site, and you write about adult sexuality, there is no problem at all.

But I don't recall saying anywhere that writing about teenagers has no merit - you're putting words into my mouth. Please don't do that.

My view on teenage stories, to be honest, is to leave those sites that allow a lower age rule, and implicit with that, allow teenage writers to publish, is to leave those sites for teenagers. Give them a safe place to express themselves, without having to worry about predatory adults.

Why an adult continues to be interested in teenage sexuality in this day and age raises questions in my mind about that adult. That's why Lit has the rule, and that's why, as an erotica writer, I support it.

Rolling out the classics of literature in this context is irrelevant.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Underage "sexual activity" as defined by the site includes: masturbation, fantasizing, thinking about sex, voyeurism, witnessing others' sexual activity (irrespective of the character being turned on by what they're seeing), engaging in conversations about sex, and descriptions of bodies of underage characters. None of these can be included if your character is under 18. Also, claiming a character is over 18, but having them look and behave like an underage person is not allowed.

This is a bit disappointing as most "losing my virginity" and "crushing on my best friends hot mom" stories would very likely have to begin while the main character is still less than eighteen years old. I'm working on one of each of these. I had my first submission kicked back for this and after I thought I'd cleaned it up, it was kicked back for the same thing. Now I understand why.
Hmm. I'm really gonna have to tweak my stories. Recommendations for this anyone?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hmm. I'm really gonna have to tweak my stories. Recommendations for this anyone?

Up age loss of virginity to eighteen like the rest of us did. Send your characters to college, not high school, and accept they're all late developers. This is Lit, not teenage reality.

Alternatively, as I always suggest, write about adult sexuality, and leave the teenagers to sort it out themselves. Problem solved.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Up age loss of virginity to eighteen like the rest of us did. Send your characters to college, not high school, and accept they're all late developers. This is Lit, not teenage reality.

Alternatively, as I always suggest, write about adult sexuality, and leave the teenagers to sort it out themselves. Problem solved.

I'm absolutely going to do that. Burgeoning sexuality always begins as a teen and it made sense to me to start there, for certain stories. I'm very glad to understand the rules now and have less likelihood of getting work kicked back. Thanks.

 

[HBuff]

You can make your male character 18 as long as you don't make any depiction of any past sexual activity. Writing that he dated a couple of girls before is fine as long as nothing is said about anything sexual. You can make him a virgin of course. If mom's friend is 35 or 40+ years old and smoking hot, the story will be well liked by many readers, some of whom may be grown women fantasizing about late-teen pretty boys!

I hope it will work out well and you'll have fun in the process.
I always write for fun and don't care that much about score and stats.