Pretty much this. I get the sense that the Romance category is couple focussed, whereas EC allows the protagonists to wander about a bit. Romance readers seem to be more vehement (tribal) with their views as to what is acceptable in their category.
Agree.
EC is just for stories which don't have any of the requirements you noted, regarding the other categories. Or maybe they do but not at an intense enough feature / focus level to really fit there and please the readers of the "less diffuse" categories. Like for example I'm not going to put incestuous anal into an otherwise complete story just to "escape" the EC category, though there are people around here who say you should or they would. I don't feel the need to bastardize my work just because T/I gets more views or Anal scores better.
You're answering your own question. Maybe consider Fetish as an alternative?
Are you co-authoring? Writing a commission? Who made you agree to this?
40k words that starts with with a gloryhole encounter? Yup, that's definitely slow burn — where you start by imbibing a large shot of tequila, which then slowly burns through your stomach and guts. Keep it as one, I say, whether you ultimately chuck it in Romance or not.
not ever story has to be Genisis and start from nothingness.
Yeah, sometimes they can start with a Big Bang.
The eternal question here. I think once you finish, you should look at it and make a determination if it can be easily broken up into relatively distinct chapters that have their own internal story arcs or if it's all heavily intertwined, so it would feel weird to read one chapter and then abruptly stop somewhere that doesn't have a good hook to keep going. For sex-heavy stories, my belief is that if you go with chapters, each should probably have its own encounter/sex act, and have an internal story arc so you get a similar narrative payoff of beginning-middle-end with rising action and climax. Not necessarily something that can stand entirely on its own, but something that can give a reader of that particular installment a sense of narrative fulfillment. If you can't get that, then you either need to redo the chapter sequence or proably publish it as a single submission.
