The Allure of the Forbidden: How willing are you to use taboo as a driver of erotic tension?

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

And setting both our individual experiences aside and focusing on the macro (which constitutes the readership of the category) things are incredibly different from pre-internet developing individuals and post

I thoroughly disagree. I'm old enough to remember getting porn on VHS tapes, when I didn't have an internet connection yet. You wanted porn, you went into a store and picked something from a very limited selection. That selection being what the store owner had the most faith in renting out / selling, because they had to pay licences for them much like streaming services have to now. In short, the exact opposite of what we have today. And, guess what... if you checked the "most popular" lists, there was always, ALWAYS, something along the lines of "With My Sister In The Barn - Part IV" on those lists. Right next to BDSM and interracial.

...almost like people were looking for things that were considered "forbidden".

 

[Euphony]

And when I saw the unending sameness of most of it, and a formula guide on how to write it, I began to really shake my head. There are some astonishingly good stories which dig really deep into the dynamic, but they're the exceptions - like any other category, I guess.

Right under the surface of the supposed "taboo" lies the heart of the category which is plain jane vanilla P in V romatic-y sex. They will ding even casual experimentation let alone bigger "offenses" such as anal or homosexual sex or other outside partners.

It's a Romeo and Juliette crowd wanting to feel "edgier" (but not actually READ edgier other than the agreed upon kink) than romance or other main stream categories.

The sameness thing strikes all categories but incest outsize rewards staying on their implied rails so lazy authors can do okay and cognizant authors can steer away from the logical complexities rather than deal with the drama (no shade. Whatever keeps your motivation afloat is where you should paddle.)

It is a fascinating category for it's significant readership married to a psychologically complex pair bonding/relationship issues if an author wants to take up that mantle.

The top end of the category has some of the finest examples of Lit on here but the average story probably isn't as trustworthy of a good read as mature or romance.

 

[Euphony]

I thoroughly disagree. I'm old enough to remember getting porn on VHS tapes, when I didn't have an internet connection yet. You wanted porn, you went into a store and picked something from a very limited selection. That selection being what the store owner had the most faith in renting out / selling, because they had to pay licences for them much like streaming services have to now. In short, the exact opposite of what we have today. And, guess what... if you checked the "most popular" lists, there was always, ALWAYS, something along the lines of "With My Sister In The Barn - Part IV" on those lists. Right next to BDSM and interracial.

...almost like people were looking for things that were considered "forbidden".

You're not wrong but the raw numbers are the eye popper here and all the reasons I listed (including wider access to porn) has lead to an uptick in volume.

Those list constituted a user base steeped in regular access to porn which was a sliver of the population compared to how many access it today. Those individuals burned out on run of the mill P in V and, as human adaptability and dopamine release is, sought out more "forbidden" stuff to get the same high.

More people going through that cycle due to freer access/less acquisition shame has lead to an amping up of what is available.

Whereas "incest" used to be a higher tier of "naughty," it's now quietly mainstream (spurred on by aging porn actresses well suited for it cranking out far more of it than before.)

Never suggested people weren't always weird. The Greeks were O.G. freaks long before the first naughty drawing came off a printing press.

There is a more visible volume of those into such "forbidden" stuff and deeper down the rabbit hole than many went in the 70s.

We can play porn chicken or the egg and make compelling arguments on both sides (does access make the freak or merely unleash the freak? Or a middle ground furtherance of it?) but visibility is simply greater.

I'm of the belief (with no incest supportive research to back my position up as it's not a well studied subject in regards to consensual relationships) it mirrors suicide statistics which see a 13% uptick when celebrity instance is reported. (reporting = access to "others doing it.")

Ratio of porn users v. taboo connoisseurs is a stickier wicket but it feels as if there is a greater appetite for the content among the more mainstream.

All the factors mentioned complexly contributed to outcomes but more monkey seeing in now freer access porn = more monkeys thinking about doing isn't a completely unsound assumption.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Prostitution was mentioned earlier, and I have actually enjoyed erotica authors elsewhere (probably some on Lit too, but have yet to search for it) that have compounded infidelity with prostitution by having wives that moonlight as prostitutes. That is in my mind an excellent example of the use of taboo to drive eroticism.

In my two main prostitution "clusters," one about the real-life Valerie Solanas, and the fictional Nora Meara, both women are ambivalent about being in it and both wish to get out. The first one, as far as I know about her, mostly did it because she had to survive. For the second one, she has some choice, but the money and her own conflicted feelings about her sexuality draw her in. She leaves after ten months, but then goes back two years later to be a dominatrix. Partially it's because the money is so good and it seems "cleaner," but she pays a psychological price during the twelve months or so that she does it. The two periods are close to overlapping - 1965 to '68, and 1973 to '77.

In the case of Solanas, she did go back to it during the 1980's, long after she was no longer notorious. Now, of course, she's sort of famous again, quite a few years after her passing.

https://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Solanas-Defiant-Woman-Warhol/dp/1558618481

 

[YDB95]

It's a Romeo and Juliette crowd wanting to feel "edgier" (but not actually READ edgier other than the agreed upon kink) than romance or other main stream categories.

In light of Juliette's age in the play, you might want to rethink equating Romeo and Juliette with vanilla sex.

 

[RetroFan]

I've written stories where the sex is forbidden, adding to the excitement of the story.

For example, in my story 'Marissa The Mob Boss's Daughter' which is set in an Italian-American neighbourhood in New York in the early 1970s the lead male character Danny is employed by a man who just happens to be a powerful mobster in the local area. The mob boss also has minx of an 18-year-old daughter named Marissa, who is the apple of her father's eye and has pretty clear plans for Danny, none of which her father would approve of. Although 19-year-old Danny is interested in Marissa, he becomes increasingly paranoid that what he has been getting up to with his boss's daughter might catch the attention of her father or the father's mobster friends ...

 

[Euphony]

In light of Juliette's age in the play, you might want to rethink equating Romeo and Juliette with vanilla sex.

A 30 y.o life expectancy (common urban, she'd likely fair better were it not for her penchant for poison) also puts her near middle age so why not MILF porn? (they aren't always legit mom's)

Doubtful the under age desiring crowd is salivating off of freshman English required reading (it's hardly celebratory) but you have minutia'ed into a technicality.

Huzzah?

 

[gunhilltrain]

In light of Juliette's age in the play, you might want to rethink equating Romeo and Juliette with vanilla sex.

Fortunately, I suppose, Shakespeare didn't have to submit anything to Lit. How old was she, I forgot? There are other sites that go down to sixteen and fourteen and, yeah, I have taken advantage of that. I don't think I'm writing pedophilia.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

Fortunately, I suppose, Shakespeare didn't have to submit anything to Lit. How old was she, I forgot? There are other sites that go down to sixteen and fourteen and, yeah, I have taken advantage of that. I don't think I'm writing pedophilia.

13

 

[gunhilltrain]

13

Okay, that is a year below what that site allows. It's arbitrary perhaps, but that is lower than I would go when writing. Yet Erica Jong, in Fear of Flying, has her character (a version of herself, I think) involved with sex acts at age thirteen. If you're never read it, it's about Isadora engaging in of bouts of mutual masturbation with a guy of 17. The book made quite a splash (in 1972?) but I don't remember anybody singling out those scenes in particular as shocking. Maybe somebody did and I missed them. By the way, the scenes take place in the 1950's.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I've dabbled in a few incest and incest-lite stories but I lose interest pretty quick.

My comfort zone in the taboo realm tends to run foul of the snuff rule. (I don't think they are snuff, but I like writing serial killers, so I might be biased.)

I actually have one I want to get back to editing. It's a deep dive into a trauma bonding relationship between the main characters.

I'm actually fond of the serial killer angle in fiction, it strikes me with a bizarre sort of fascination as a reader. The same sort of thing for those Stockholm-syndrome sort of relationships, or stalkers... though I do have a hard time enjoying documentaries or "based-on" media, I think it just hits too hard on the reality scale for me and goes from entertaining to disturbing in my brain too quickly. All the same... I'm curious. Do you pen such antagonists actively murdering a character in the midst of an erotic scene? I think that's what would truly categorize it as snuff.

 

[Red_Owl]

My story which just had its first chapter submitted today will deal with taboo number 3. When you're just a poor immigrant desperate for success it can leave you vulnerable. That vulnerability will play into the protagonists corruption throughout the story as she sacrifices more and more of her innocence to make it in the world.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I'm actually fond of the serial killer angle in fiction, it strikes me with a bizarre sort of fascination as a reader. The same sort of thing for those Stockholm-syndrome sort of relationships, or stalkers... though I do have a hard time enjoying documentaries or "based-on" media, I think it just hits too hard on the reality scale for me and goes from entertaining to disturbing in my brain too quickly. All the same... I'm curious. Do you pen such antagonists actively murdering a character in the midst of an erotic scene? I think that's what would truly categorize it as snuff.

There are plenty of non-fiction books and movies about serial killers. The Manson Family has gotten plenty of attention; I guess they qualify. Silence of the Lambs is an interesting case, as it's hard to tell if Dr. Lector has some kind of underlying sexual motivation. It's not even clear what his orientation is, amusing he has one.

Buffalo Bill definitely has some strange things going on. And Miggs, in the next cell, hurls his semen at Starling and hits her with it.. I thought of a five-minute game she could play with him afterwards - all verbal - that would put the fear of God into him.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

There are plenty of non-fiction books and movies about serial killers. The Manson Family has gotten plenty of attention; I guess they qualify. Silence of the Lambs is an interesting case, as it's hard to tell if Dr. Lector has some kind of underlying sexual motivation. It's not even clear what his orientation is, amusing he has one.

Buffalo Bill definitely has some strange things going on. And Miggs, in the next cell, hurls his semen at Starling and hits her with it.. I thought of a five-minute game she could play with him afterwards - all verbal - that would put the fear of God into him.

I loved Silence of the Lambs, a true guilty pleasure, but yes... it strays into territories that seem to blur a lot of lines and definitely raise eyebrows. It also strikes me as heavily fictional or very heavily doctored for the sake of entertainment, despite Buffalo Bill being based on true instances.

I was thinking more along the lines of anything having to do with Ted Bundy. Or the latest craze over Jeffery Dahmer in modern media--the entire Netflix show, I can't even touch it. Or work like The Lovely Bones--immaculately written but honestly so dark and disturbing I won't ever pick it up again. I write fucked up things sometimes but when it crosses over into the real world, I don't know... it just turns my stomach in the worst kind of way. I guess that's a testament to my humanity, and I should be relieved.

 

[Duleigh]

So where do you fall in your willingness to use the allure of the forbidden? Use it all the time? Wont touch it with a ten foot pole? Might do some kinds but never, ever some other kinds?

My readers HATE anything that looks like infidelity. I'm not a fan of it, but I like to tease readers. I wrote a story of a USAF Pilot and a maintainer who were caught having sex in a cockpit of a B-52 and a lot of readers were turned off by it, but if they stayed to the end they found that the pilot and maintainer were married to each other. I'm not the kind to say "Your loss toots," so next time I try that I'll leave a few more clues. My work is romantic and the characters are based on their relationships so a cheating spouse, even if it's NOT a cheating spouse, it just looks that way is taken very hard by my readers.

I have written good old anime style harem stories but with the added benefit of the nerd that collects the harem gets to have sex with them. For some reason that worked.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I don't really see it as an erotic scene if someone is being murdered in it, but I can understand that others do, hence the need for the rule, which I respect. I have sent my stories privately to a few curious readers when they asked.

Death or attempted death in the midst of sex or a sex act does happen in quite a few of my stories. I grew up on horror movies so death during sex isn't really something I balk at and I never saw it as snuff/titillation, just a part of a fictional story.

Sex and the threat of death can be a great combo for building tension, especially in horror/fantasy settings, but also in more gritty realistic stories.

I mean, I have a vampire who kills a woman while eating her out by ripping open her thigh.

A woman rips open the chest of a guy while she's riding him. She laps up his blood like a kitten while his heart is still faintly beating.

A woman willingly and knowingly goes to a secluded area with two serial killers because she just doesn't care what happens to herself anymore and taunts the killers when the killers struggle to follow through because she's so compliant and willing to die.

An incubus who gets jealous of his succubus partner's favored human and kills him while she's with him, which sets off a battle between the two.

A priestess who exerts violent justice on people who conflate lust with cruelty and obsession. She uses magic to create an unending boner around their cruelty/obsession and feigns the sensation of sex without ever allowing sexual release. It eventually leads to a massive heart attack.

A demi-goddess who allows herself to be taken by the god who killed her mother after her mother chose a human over him. The daughter kills the god while having sex with him.

In the case of the serial killer above, there's no murder during sex , but there is a lot of violent sex after the two main characters are rescued from the serial killer. The main male character can't get aroused without pain after months of being tortured by the killer (and the girl, but he doesn't know she participated in his torture, only that she was in the room or nearby when it happened). And the main female character doesn't want to admit that she likes making him aroused.

None of the above stories are posted here or anywhere else and I doubt I'll ever post them anywhere because I don't want to edit them down to be more tolerable to the average person. I wrote them with horror in mind.

Alright so, yeah... I wouldn't consider any of that truly snuff. The fantastical elements you place into the characters involved are certain blocks needed to separate fictional/fantasy from reality, and it strikes me as Erotic Horror. If anything... I'd fucking love to read any one of those stories. But hey, I'm sure someone out there would think we're both fucked in the head for wanting to write or read any of this!

Even the serial killer one I believe would be nicely done out of the lines of what I would consider snuff. But I agree... absolutely none of that would fly here, and I'm not at all inclined to disagree with the rules set in place on the website to deter people from writing realistic depictions of such content. Ultimately, that's what I consider snuff, realistic depictions of murder during sex designed for titillation in worldly situations that might as well be a mirror of reality. Erotic horror is one thing... snuff is another. Stories like that are a no-go for me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The Allure of the Forbidden: How willing are you to use taboo as a driver of erotic tension?​

I am a simple girl, I use [unrelated] people (sometimes groups of them) who want to fuck each other to drive erotic tension. Failing that, I use cephalopods.

I avoid what is typically viewed as taboo round here in my writing, but some people might well feel the following - which I use liberally - to be taboo:

1. Anal sex
2. Lesbian sex
3. Group sex
4. Restrained sex
5. Restrained group sex
6. Strap-ons / pegging
7. Pain
8. Pissing
9. Tentacles
10. School uniform
11. DD/lg role-play (not actual)
12. [forthcoming] Horses (again not actual)

Em

 

[Priscilla_June]

Love your thoughts on this. Honestly I think I am always pushing that line because taboo is so interesting to write. Not only just because it's taboo, but like you said, the conflict of the characters in that situation. Pushing the lines honestly I feel like puts more at risk in the story, more tension to build.

It's hard to stray from it and I often get in trouble (ratings wise) because I insert small taboos or themes not in the main stream into otherwise innocuous stories.innocuous

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't really see it as an erotic scene if someone is being murdered in it, but I can understand that others do, hence the need for the rule, which I respect. I have sent my stories privately to a few curious readers when they asked.

Death or attempted death in the midst of sex or a sex act does happen in quite a few of my stories. I grew up on horror movies so death during sex isn't really something I balk at and I never saw it as snuff/titillation, just a part of a fictional story.

Sex and the threat of death can be a great combo for building tension, especially in horror/fantasy settings, but also in more gritty realistic stories.

I mean, I have a vampire who kills a woman while eating her out by ripping open her thigh.

A woman rips open the chest of a guy while she's riding him. She laps up his blood like a kitten while his heart is still faintly beating.

A woman willingly and knowingly goes to a secluded area with two serial killers because she just doesn't care what happens to herself anymore and taunts the killers when the killers struggle to follow through because she's so compliant and willing to die.

An incubus who gets jealous of his succubus partner's favored human and kills him while she's with him, which sets off a battle between the two.

A priestess who exerts violent justice on people who conflate lust with cruelty and obsession. She uses magic to create an unending boner around their cruelty/obsession and feigns the sensation of sex without ever allowing sexual release. It eventually leads to a massive heart attack.

A demi-goddess who allows herself to be taken by the god who killed her mother after her mother chose a human over him. The daughter kills the god while having sex with him.

In the case of the serial killer above, there's no murder during sex , but there is a lot of violent sex after the two main characters are rescued from the serial killer. The main male character can't get aroused without pain after months of being tortured by the killer (and the girl, but he doesn't know she participated in his torture, only that she was in the room or nearby when it happened). And the main female character doesn't want to admit that she likes making him aroused.

None of the above stories are posted here or anywhere else and I doubt I'll ever post them anywhere because I don't want to edit them down to be more tolerable to the average person. I wrote them with horror in mind.

I'm sure that there are sites that accept horror, crime (serial killer), and other stories, but I'd have to look to find them. I usually don't write about it, so I haven't researched it . Lit is a bit schizophrenic, because it has an erotic horror section but I don't know what's in it. I just told somebody that if I want to read something, it will be a book written by one of the pros, not something on Lit. Of course, I want people to read my stuff on Lit. Go figure.

True crime stories can be absorbing, because they often deal with the how the criminal justice system handles the situation. (I admit, I watched most of the Nickolas Cruz trial which is in pieces on YouTube - he was the 2018 Florida school shooter.) In Cold Blood is mostly not about sexual murder, although there is a brief bit of dialogue in which Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) considers raping the daughter but he doesn't actually do it. I haven't seen Quentin Tarantino's take on the Manson Family, but the reviews of it seemed to be pretty lukewarm.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I am a simple girl, I use [unrelated] people (sometimes groups of them) who want to fuck each other to drive erotic tension. Failing that, I use cephalopods.

I avoid what is typically viewed as taboo round here in my writing, but some people might well feel the following - which I use liberally - to be taboo:

1. Anal sex
2. Lesbian sex
3. Group sex
4. Restrained sex
5. Restrained group sex
6. Strap-ons / pegging
7. Pain
8. Pissing
9. Tentacles
10. School uniform
11. DD/lg role-play (not actual)
12. [forthcoming] Horses (again not actual)

Em

Most of that is accepted by Lit, as far as I know. Maybe DD/lg role play (daddy/little girl?) would run into some issues because merely pretending to be underage might set off alarms (or the bots we speculate about). A school uniform in itself - probably okay, with that 18 age limit emphasized by the author. Pain seems okay as long as - I don't know, no bones are broken. Lit is hardly consistent about such matters, but I've seen the same problems crop on sites were individual moderators have lots of discretion.

Horses? As long as the horse enjoys it?

 

[gunhilltrain]

My readers HATE anything that looks like infidelity. I'm not a fan of it, but I like to tease readers. I wrote a story of a USAF Pilot and a maintainer who were caught having sex in a cockpit of a B-52 and a lot of readers were turned off by it, but if they stayed to the end they found that the pilot and maintainer were married to each other. I'm not the kind to say "Your loss toots," so next time I try that I'll leave a few more clues. My work is romantic and the characters are based on their relationships so a cheating spouse, even if it's NOT a cheating spouse, it just looks that way is taken very hard by my readers.

I have written good old anime style harem stories but with the added benefit of the nerd that collects the harem gets to have sex with them. For some reason that worked.

The B-52 story - really? If only married sex was okay, at least 90% of Lit might disappear. Was the plane actually in the air? Did that bother them, although it seems irrelevant?

The was a true story about a bad train crash in Mexico (1972) where the crew had prostitutes with them in the cab.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Most of that is accepted by Lit, as far as I know. Maybe DD/lg role play (daddy/little girl?) would run into some issues because merely pretending to be underage might set off alarms (or the bots we speculate about). A school uniform in itself - probably okay, with that 18 age limit emphasized by the author. Pain seems okay as long as - I don't know, no bones are broken. Lit is hardly consistent about such matters, but I've seen the same problems crop on sites were individual moderators have lots of discretion.

Horses? As long as the horse enjoys it?

All of the above appears in many of my published stories. Laurel seems chill about it as I have 28 up at the last count .

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

All of the above appears in many of my published stories. Laurel seems chill about it as I have 28 up at the last count .

Em

E,g, Strapoed-down & Strap-on includes:

1. Anal sex
2. Lesbian sex
3. Group sex
4. Restrained sex
5. Restrained group sex
6. Strap-ons / pegging
7. Pain
8. Pissing
9. Tentacles
10. School uniform
11. DD/lg role-play (not actual)
12. [forthcoming] Horses (again not actual)

Em

 

[gunhilltrain]

I loved Silence of the Lambs, a true guilty pleasure, but yes... it strays into territories that seem to blur a lot of lines and definitely raise eyebrows. It also strikes me as heavily fictional or very heavily doctored for the sake of entertainment, despite Buffalo Bill being based on true instances.

I was thinking more along the lines of anything having to do with Ted Bundy. Or the latest craze over Jeffery Dahmer in modern media--the entire Netflix show, I can't even touch it. Or work like The Lovely Bones--immaculately written but honestly so dark and disturbing I won't ever pick it up again. I write fucked up things sometimes but when it crosses over into the real world, I don't know... it just turns my stomach in the worst kind of way. I guess that's a testament to my humanity, and I should be relieved.

The old movie production code (the Hayes Office) required that criminals pay the price for their crimes. I'm not sure if that really made much difference, but it was there. Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer are getting kind of tiresome by now, I guess. What was the name of that TV show about a serial killer who tries to help the authorities? That was the hook for Dr. Lector too; he was helping to catch another serial killer, so was that okay?

I haven't read or seen either version of The Lovely Bones, but at first glance it seems a bit absurd.

 

[gunhilltrain]

E,g, Strapoed-down & Strap-on includes:

1. Anal sex
2. Lesbian sex
3. Group sex
4. Restrained sex
5. Restrained group sex
6. Strap-ons / pegging
7. Pain
8. Pissing
9. Tentacles
10. School uniform
11. DD/lg role-play (not actual)
12. [forthcoming] Horses (again not actual)

Em

So you got away with the underage role play. I wouldn't think that would fly, based on what used to be in the rules. With the rumored bots, it all becomes kind of moot.
What do you mean, not actual horses? A fantasy about horses? Two guys in a horse suit?