The competition for “most extreme violence” heats up

[KeithD]

Literotica doesn’t support complete free speech and it’s right and appropriate that it not do so. Literotica doesn’t support stories, with characters under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations. I think that’s good. In my neck of the woods, I believe it’s illegal to produce written erotica featuring characters, under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations.

I believe stories featuring violent, non-consensual content shouldn’t appear on a website dedicated to erotica. That sort of violent, non-consensual content should appear on a website dedicated to crime writing instead. That is, fundamentally, what violent, non-consensual behavior is – it’s criminal and so it shouldn’t be allowed in real life. Stories featuring violent, non-consensual behavior shouldn’t appear here. Those stories should appear on a site dedicated to crime writing.

But you let Literotica support what it chooses to support, right? So, when you see a story in the Literotica file that you don't believe is within the Literotica posting rules, you click the "report" button and let Literotica decide whether it goes or stays, right?

Much of user confusion here on discrepancies seen between what Literotica rules support and what's actually here is, I think, the result of overwhelmed submissions and the inability to scrutinize submissions closely enough--not an intent on Literotica's part to subvert its own selection rules. That being the case, all that is needed if suspected noncompliant stories are found in the file is to report it--and then to let Literotica make its own decision on whether it stays or goes. Right?

It doesn't need to include instructions by users on what Literotica lets exist in its story files. Right?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I believe it’s illegal to produce written erotica featuring characters, under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations.

Not so. There's plenty of erotic content from main-stream publishers with characters younger than eighteen in sexual situations.

Lit chooses to draw its line at eighteen for its own pragmatic reasons (which I for one, support), which are more to do with protecting itself from a moral climate, than from any freedom of speech concerns. Lits owners have said, yes you can publish such content, but not on my site.

 

[Andrew1968]

To electricblue66: thanks kindly for your response - could you please re-read my above post.

To KeithD: 'Literotica doesn’t support complete free speech and it’s right and appropriate that it not do so. Literotica doesn’t support stories, with characters under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations. I think that’s good. In my neck of the woods, I believe it’s illegal to produce written erotica featuring characters, under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations.

I believe stories featuring violent, non-consensual content shouldn’t appear on a website dedicated to erotica. That sort of violent, non-consensual content should appear on a website dedicated to crime writing instead. That is, fundamentally, what violent, non-consensual behavior is – it’s criminal and so it shouldn’t be allowed in real life. Stories featuring violent, non-consensual behavior shouldn’t appear here. Those stories should appear on a site dedicated to crime writing.'

 

[ElectricBlue]

To electricblue66: thanks kindly for your response - could you please re-read my above post.

Where is your neck of the woods? I'd be surprised if there is any legislation anywhere prohibiting such erotica being published. Preventing sale of it to minors, maybe, but that's a different thing.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I don't think that anyone here is arguing against Lit's right to set its own rules what is acceptable and what isn't. Their rules are written down publicly and you can accept them or not, but it is their right.
The issue here is that Lit goes against its own rules sometimes. There are stories that are clearly against publicly known Lit rules. Is it done consciously to appease a certain type of readers and increase traffic? Is it done due to heavy workload on the one person who does all the publishing (as we presume)? We can only guess. The rationalization that it is up to us to report such stories is pure BS. There are plenty of such questionable stories on the website and many will avoid detection, not to mention that the sluggishness of the Lit's response leaves plenty of time for the story to reach its audience.
The point is, if you bother to set firm rules for your website, then make sure you can enforce those rules. The workload argument is a lame excuse, as I don't think anyone here truly believes that Lit can't afford some more workforce that would also make publishing queues shorter, enable real time commenting and other things that many authors here crave.
Bottom line is, it's their site and they can do whatever they want with it, but then, there should be no surprises when the website gets called out for hypocrisy. LC does that often with good reason, but in my opinion he is wrong when he calls out authors for that. They are posting their fantasies, whatever those are, on a website that lets them post such fantasies. Period. We have plenty of messed up fantasies in our heads and it shouldn't be up to us which one can get published, just as it shouldn't be up to any of us what is allowed in real life. There are laws for that very reason. Lit has its own laws, and it shouldn't be up to authors to restrain themselves. Lit should make sure of that.
I see plenty of statements here about "I would never write this or that due to my own morality..." I can bet my ass that if Lit allowed underage content, the website would be flooded with underage stories the following day, with many of those stories coming from the authors who previously said they set their own line there. And in my opinion, they would be justified in writing such stories, because once again, it isn't, and it should never be up to them to decide where the line is.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Where is your neck of the woods? I'd be surprised if there is any legislation anywhere prohibiting such erotica being published. Preventing sale of it to minors, maybe, but that's a different thing.

I'm pretty sure the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 1973 that “words alone can be legally ‘obscene’ in the sense of being unprotected by the First Amendment.”, and I don't think that was changed since then.
Just two years ago, a man was sentenced for it. He was (among other things) convicted of "five counts of trafficking in obscene text stories about the sexual abuse of children".

 

[shewantsmore]

I think if author's want to write about extreme violence or sex or whatever within reason of course they should be allowed to,i think if your not into that,or dont like those kind stories then its easy,just dont read them or give no comments .

 

[countdowntolov3]

Here's a question.

Is sexual violence written from the victim's perspective more morally acceptable than when written from the abuser's perspective?

For me, it seems to be. Even when I enjoy them, I feel some latent  ick when reading non-con stories from the abuser's point of view, or narrated in third person. But when reading basically the same content narrated by the victim I feel it's much easier to engage with it as just a guilt free fantasy.

I'm not really sure why this is. Admittedly it might just come down to the fact that my own fantasies lean victim, not abuser. But that begs another question: is the fantasy of being a victim morally okay while the fantasy of being an abuser is morally wrong? It seems unfair to say, "I can fantasize about you doing this to me, but you should not be fantasizing about doing it." But if I'm honest, that's how I feel.

 

[lovecraft68]

The "God is dead" argument is an incompetent, crap argument.

In the real world, where real people interact, in real environments, certain behavior is defined as unlawful. The perpetrators of that unlawful behavior, if caught, are supposed to be held accountable and are supposed to be subject to punishment. That is an objective fact, which is empirically supported. That objective fact implies the objective existence of a more or less fixed functioning moral code. There is a moral code underlying our criminal law. That moral code hasn’t disappeared and won’t disappear. The "God is dead" argument has absolutely no bearing on the objective, real existence of our moral codes and our legal doctrine.

The "God is dead" argument is only relevant when it pertains to cultural production, i.e., film, literature, and forms of visual art, etc.

Literotica doesn’t support complete free speech and it’s right and appropriate that it not do so. Literotica doesn’t support stories, with characters under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations. I think that’s good. In my neck of the woods, I believe it’s illegal to produce written erotica featuring characters, under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations.

I believe stories featuring violent, non-consensual content shouldn’t appear on a website dedicated to erotica. That sort of violent, non-consensual content should appear on a website dedicated to crime writing instead. That is, fundamentally, what violent, non-consensual behavior is – it’s criminal and so it shouldn’t be allowed in real life. Stories featuring violent, non-consensual behavior shouldn’t appear here. Those stories should appear on a site dedicated to crime writing.

I meant God is dead in literal terms, not as an analogy to rules/personal opinions and personal ethics.

I fee like a broken record, but will try again. In fiction everything is fair game, and nothing is meant-or should be meant-to really happen when it comes to darker material. I have no issues with violence in stories, I have no issues with non consent being written(personally I don't like them, but that's opinion, nothing should be censored because some people don't like it) or anything else.

But there are signals and messages that I believe shouldn't be mixed and one of them is pure violence being placed in purely erotic categories. There's plenty of other places for that. Yankee feels because he enjoys that in the fantasy-or maybe real life sense-everyone does, but he's missing the point. You can put insanely rough and humiliating things in NC and BDSM, but they need to revolve around sex.

When its just pure violence, placed in a category meant to be erotic and there are people cheering it on, that's arousing people in a different way. The site allegedly has a rule against violence/torture for titillation for this reason, yet it seems to be rarely enforced(or perhaps a lot of people don't report it) That tells me they see it the same way, because they'll also allow just about anything in Non erotic and novels novellas and a lot of leeway in erotic horror and non human because those two genres are built around things like that, but shown for shock value over sexiness in most cases.

I see things like this the way I see things like "The Incel Manifesto" which is branded hate speech, and because its deemed it can whip people up in bad ways. The LW category is rife with that type of person. This is who these stories arouse. The same site that squeals about under age because they don't want that crowd, apparently wants this one.

I've written my share of violent material, but mostly in horror and with distance between the violence and the sex so the reactions to each aren't considered to be the same.

In the end this conversation will never go anywhere, people draw their lines, they won't ever change their mind, and I think this is also a case of some people not liking it pointed out that what gets them off is pain and suffering with no sexual aspect needed. This site thrives on a crowd that has serious issues with women, and that traffic is as good as any to them.

 

[lovecraft68]

God is dead means there's no moral authority and the world is secular. There are no objective moral values and really all 'should' statements are invalid. Basically your just pretending that your preferences have weight and while it's fine to express your preferences (since everything is permitted) they don't have any weight. The time, place, and platform for things is whatever people want them to be and obviously, as you've pointed out, Literotica is a place for this kind of content.

FWIW you do realize the story mostly being discussed here has no sex, right? So unless you find being shot and killed arousing, you're point is irrelevant to some stories referenced here. Also, you're a guy. 90% of the violence and torture on this site is against women, and there is a very-and necessary- double standard involved there. You want to be a victim most women in there stories don't.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm pretty sure the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 1973 that “words alone can be legally ‘obscene’ in the sense of being unprotected by the First Amendment.”, and I don't think that was changed since then.
Just two years ago, a man was sentenced for it. He was (among other things) convicted of "five counts of trafficking in obscene text stories about the sexual abuse of children".

Andrew1968 made this general statement:

In my neck of the woods, I believe it’s illegal to produce written erotica featuring characters, under the age of 18, who are involved in sexual situations.

which is nothing close to obscenity as you describe it here. Chalk and cheese.

 

[lovecraft68]

Here's a question.

Is sexual violence written from the victim's perspective more morally acceptable than when written from the abuser's perspective?

For me, it seems to be. Even when I enjoy them, I feel some latent  ick when reading non-con stories from the abuser's point of view, or narrated in third person. But when reading basically the same content narrated by the victim I feel it's much easier to engage with it as just a guilt free fantasy.

I'm not really sure why this is. Admittedly it might just come down to the fact that my own fantasies lean victim, not abuser. But that begs another question: is the fantasy of being a victim morally okay while the fantasy of being an abuser is morally wrong? It seems unfair to say, "I can fantasize about you doing this to me, but you should not be fantasizing about doing it." But if I'm honest, that's how I feel.

Yes, you're talking the difference between rape and rapist fantasies.

If its the victims POV its easier to show how at some point they may want this, or be getting into it(what the site claims it requires) and in real life rape fantasies are had by women who know damn well they would never want this.

When done from the abuser or rapist POV we see none of the victims thoughts, we are exposed only to the person who is getting off on hurting someone, and those fantasies tend to be had by people far closer to wishing it to be reality than anyone fantasizing about being a victim only in their mind.

 

[lovecraft68]

Sarkasmus said:
I'm pretty sure the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in 1973 that “words alone can be legally ‘obscene’ in the sense of being unprotected by the First Amendment.”, and I don't think that was changed since then.
Just two years ago, a man was sentenced for it. He was (among other things) convicted of "five counts of trafficking in obscene text stories about the sexual abuse of children"

This is the guy who was associated with ASSTR at one point and the reason for his arrests was the stories went beyond sex with minors, but included harm and violence being done to them during.

Paying attention class? It was the VIOLENCE mixed with the sex that bagged this guy.

 

[YANKEE DAN]

FWIW you do realize the story mostly being discussed here has no sex, right? So unless you find being shot and killed arousing, you're point is irrelevant to some stories referenced here. Also, you're a guy. 90% of the violence and torture on this site is against women, and there is a very-and necessary- double standard involved there. You want to be a victim most women in there stories don't.

Well being killed would obvisouly be 'good' if such a thing as good existed since it would end the meaningless suffering that is life. However my reply to you was prompted specifying because of your judgemental take on what others get off on. If they get off on it, who cares? The women in the stories don't exist, and besides there's no such thing as a necessary double standard since moral obligations don't exist either.

You can dislike these things all you want but all you're saying is, "I don't like this and I don't want you to be able to do it" just like all morally self righteous preachers.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Andrew1968 made this general statement: which is nothing close to obscenity as you describe it here. Chalk and cheese.

Exactly. He made a general statement about erotica featuring minors. There's something called "The Miller test", which, as far as I know, is used by US courts to determine whether or not your work is obscene. It asks for three simple questions:

1. Is it meant to sexually arouse? I think, in the case of written erotica, the answer is probably yes.
2. Is it an affront to current community standards of decency? If it contains minors, the answer is probably yes.
3. Does it, as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?

Now, that last part is the interesting one. Every piece of erotic fiction you write, that even borderlines on a taboo, would be classified as obscene until you expand on it so much it can be perceived as a literary piece of art, serves as political discussion, or represents scientific work.

Next, check out the stories published in any given day, and then tell me how many of them you'd say have a "serious literary value". Most of them don't even have their punctuation down, or read like someone submitted their very first draft. I would even go so far and claim that there are more senseless porn-plots and blatant masturbation fantasies on this site, than actual stories with a proper plot that just also happens to contain erotic elements. So, I think it's safe to say this is not "Chalk and Cheese", since he spoke about "written erotica", not "good erotic literature". If Lit allowed "stories" featuring minors, at least 90% of its catalogue would probably consist of obscenities.

Paying attention class? It was the VIOLENCE mixed with the sex that bagged this guy.

Full disclosure, I am not a lawyer, nor a judge, but I have been in law enforcement for more than a decade now. And I can tell you, with absolute conviction, that this is not at all how prosecution works, and that you are bordering on being obnoxious. According to the court documents, what "bagged this guy" was his alleged sexual abuse of a four year old girl that came to light while he was investigated (and convicted) for distributing fiction containing the sexual abuse of minors.
And even if he wasn't a sexual predator, I highly doubt any jury would've let him walk, stating "well folks, his stories didn't contain any violence, so we can't find any obscenities in those stories depicting the rape of infants". The severity of the fictional abuse only impacted the length of his sentence, not the guilty verdict. Though, I will admit that he would've been further down the list of potential targets, had his stories been less disturbing.

 

[KeithD]

I don't think that anyone here is arguing against Lit's right to set its own rules what is acceptable and what isn't. Their rules are written down publicly and you can accept them or not, but it is their right.
The issue here is that Lit goes against its own rules sometimes.

First, I think there are those on this thread and across the board who clearly are trying to tell Lit what it can host. This whole thread is doing that.

Second, I responded to this "going against their own rules" already. I don't think it's any sort of conspiracy on their part (which LC, at least, continuously directly charges) that results in stories being posted that are contrary to Lit. rules. It happens, I assert and have posted, because of the volume of submissions dropping here every day and the limited resources the Web site has devoted to clearing the take. Faulty assignment of resources, yes, probably, but some sort of intentional conspiracy against its users? Bullshit. Clearly the stories are getting nothing but a quick scan initially. That's why some stories not meeting the rules slip through. In addition, each story is different in nuance. It's difficult even for the site editor to see the edge of acceptability the same way as others occasionally.

The answer is right there. There's a report button. If you see a story you don't think the rules permit to be here, click the report button. And then stop and let the Web site determine what it will do, delete or leave. That's where your function ends. You are not the policeman for either the site or the other users. From there mind your own business and be glad that the Web site lets you use it to the extent it does.

Beyond that, no one is forcing anyone else to read anything here they don't want to. This is an adult site. If a user can't just walk away from what they don't want to read while clicking the report button if they think it violates the posting rules, then they aren't being adult and probably shouldn't be using the site.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Edit: I misspoke. I was talking with someone about a story, and they shared that screenshot of a real comment. I did not realize at the time that the comment came from a different story. The two aren't connected.

The second story features a death, but it isn't sexualized. What I shared was just an awful commenter, whixh is largely beyond our control.

 

[ElectricBlue]

View attachment 2218886

This is a current story that passed the submission system. This comment went through the comment submission system. We all know both are pretty lacking, but...

This is indefensible. This writer felt comfortable writing this, and this commenter felt comfortable responding with those words. We shouldn't be party to this. I saw this, and I felt like something broke inside of me.

We know the comments clearance system targets spam, not content, but I agree, this is sickness, not fantasy. It's the ugly side of Lit, that's for sure.